'Dreamer' Michelle von Horrowitz.

[SupineSnake]

Character name: Michelle von Horrowitz.
​

Nicknames: MvH, Dreamer, Meltdown von Horrowitz, the '1' in '9-1'.
Height: 170cm.
Weight: 54 kg.
Place of Birth: Rotterdam, the Netherlands.
Date of Birth: 1st January, 1990.
Alignment: Heel (face in Europe).

Style of wrestling: Technical Brawler.

In the ring, Michelle utilises a large number of strikes, usually in combination. Mule kicks, stomps, forearms, chops (knife-edge, Mongolian, overhand), and European uppercuts are employed, but very rarely straight hands of any variety. Against lighter opponents, Michelle likes to use a vast array of suplexes, but this part of her arsenal will be taken away from her against any combatants weighing much more than 80kg (176lbs). Against larger foes, Michelle will seek to use their weight and momentum against them, with strikes becoming a much larger part of her focus, along with the use of her environment. Michelle likes to use the turnbuckles and the ring ropes, and will freely take things to the outside to use whatever she can find around the ring as a weapon. Steel ring steps and posts, barricades, the ring apron, and announce tables are brought into the fray frequently and without remorse. MvH tends to get a little more leniency from the officials in this regard due to the well-known FWA bias towards her. Against opponents who far out-weigh her, Michelle will focus her attention on the knees and legs, grounding them for large portions of the match before honing in on the head or neck towards the finish.

Michelle will stretch any rule she can at any point regardless of what alignment she's currently assigned by the audience. Rope breaks will rarely be adhered to until the four-count, and her matches will often be punctuated by lengthy periods on the outside. Ref bumps are common in her matches and routinely followed up by uses of weapons (steel chairs, the ring bell, or a championship belt if one is at ringside, hers or otherwise - if both her and her opponent have a belt to hand, she'd rather use her opponent's). She can be vindictive in the ring and in the build-up to matches, and will take any opportunity to hurt her opponent and doesn't really limit this against most of the roster. There are a few exceptions: Gerald Grayson, Danny Toner, Alyster Black, Ryan Rondo, and the Nephews would escape any attempts at legitimate injury, but the rules would still be bent as far as possible in matches against these characters.

Michelle doesn't really care for tag team wrestling and most matches of this ilk will be characterised by an antagonistic relationship with her partner (with the exception of Grayson only).

Ring gear: black shorts (baggy, boxing style), black t-shirt (baggy), black knee pads and black boots. Black hoodie also worn during entrance.

FWA accomplishments:
FWA World Champion (x2).
FWA World Tag Team Champion (x1, w/ Gerald Grayson).
FWA X Champion (x1).
2021 FWA Carnal Contendership Winner.
2022 Meltdown Tag Warz Tournament Winner (w/ Gerald Grayson).
2023 F1 Climaxxx Tournament Winner.
FWA Triple Crown Winner (15th).
Non-FWA accomplishments:
2015 CWA Wrestle Royale Winner.
CWA High Voltage Champion (x1).

Move-set:​

1. Finishing moves:
- Psycho Driver #2 (pump-handle version) - against smaller opponents (90kg/200lbs and less).
- 450 splash.
- Burning hammer (protected and rare last ditch finisher - ask me before using, please).
2. Signature moves:
- Busaiku Knee Kick.
- Brainbuster (avalanche brainbuster in the El Generico style in big matches only).
- Tiger Driver '98 (double underhook piledriver).
- Stretch Muffler (with stomps).
3. Suplex variants (utilised only against smaller opponents, 90kg/200lbs or less):
- Northern lights suplex.
- Tiger suplex.
- Dragon suplex.
- Belly to belly suplex.
- Belly to belly overhead release suplex (sometimes top rope).
- Sleeper suplex.
- German suplex (sometimes top rope).
- Regal-plex.
- Saito suplex.
4. Submission moves:
- Cattle Mutilation.
- Cross-face chicken wing.
- Ankle lock (grapevined).
- Bow and arrow.
- Camel clutch.
- Sleeper hold.
- Abdominal stretch (only to smaller opponents, usually female).
5. Power/grapple moves:
- Death Valley Driver.
- Running Liger Bomb (only to smaller opponents).
- Double underhook DDT.
- Drop-toe hold (sometimes into second turnbuckle, which she will often expose, or a folded out chair).
- Russian leg sweep (sometimes into second turnbuckle, which she will often expose, or a folded out chair).
- Swinging neckbreaker.
- Hurricanrana.
- Poisonrana.
- Dragon screw leg whip.
- Reverse DDT (sometimes onto a folded out chair).
6. Aerial and dive moves:
- Frog splash.
- Springboard crossbody.
- Lionsault.
- Moonsault (from the top rope to the floor in big matches).
- Elbow drop (from the top rope to the announce table in big matches).
- Suicide dive (through first/second or second/third ropes).
- Springboard cross-body.
- Springboard shooting star press from inside to out (big matches only).
- Swanton bomb (often from ladders, scaffolding, stages, etc).
7. Baseball slides:
- Baseball slide.

Favored weapons: ring bell, exposed turnbuckle, steel steps, steel chair, announce tables.

Base pic for your character: Carey Mulligan.
FWA/CWA theme music: 'In Dreams' by Roy Orbison - link!
Warehouse theme music: 'Dreamer' by Low Roar - link!

Spoiler: THE CONNECTION.

Tag Team:
Michelle von Horrowitz and Gerald Grayson.​

Tag Team Name: "The Grayson and von Horrowitz Connection".
Colloquially known as: "Cthulhu's Nephews: Meltdown Branch".

Entrance Music: "As the Sun Sets" by Sorry - link! (2023-Present)
Previously: “Cochise” by Audioslave - link! (2022)

Tag Team Offense:

Finishers:
Combination Grapevined Ankle Lock (MvH) and 'Sky High' Double Jump Moonsault (GG).
Combination Figure 4 Leg Lock (GG) and 450 Splash (MvH).

Signatures:
EVERYthing Springboard: Michelle and Gerald set up on adjacent aprons to hit, simultaneously, springboard clotheslines or dropkicks (or some variant thereof).
East Berlin Violence Party: GG will hold the opponent in a rear waist lock for MvH to connect with a mule kick, forearm strikes, European uppercuts and a step-up enziguri or super kick, followed by a high-angle German suplex (with bridge) from Grayson.
Alice the Camel: Combination stretch muffler (Michelle) and camel clutch (Gerald).

History, in-ring style and team dynamic:
Originally put together as part of 2020’s Elite Tag Team Classic, the two got off on the wrong foot thanks to Gerald Grayson directly benefiting from the lead pipe attack on MvH, as he managed to capture the FWA X Division Championship after she vacated it. This led to a rocky start for the pair, though over time they developed into an odd couple with a shared purpose. They came up just short in the tournament, losing in the final match at Mile High 2020 against Golden Rock, who would go on to feud with TxR and later the Gang Stars in widely applauded tag team matches whilst Gerald Grayson and MvH quietly went their separate ways.

This was, of course, thanks to their separation in the brand split, with Grayson going to Fallout and von Horrowitz finding herself on Meltdown. Grayson’s trade to Meltdown as part of the Mile High 2021 show, and their subsequent reunion at the climax of Michelle’s match against Cyrus Truth, indicated that they would soon reform to again hunt the FWA World Tag Team Championships. This was confirmed by Jon Russnow’s announcement of ‘Tag Warz’ later in the evening, for which the Grayson and von Horrowitz Connection will reunite. The duo have also declared their entry into the forthcoming Tag Team Classic, a cross-brand tournament with the Clique Wrestling Alliance.

As mentioned, von Horrowitz and Grayson are a bit of an odd couple, with MvH always looking to bend or stretch the rules as much as she can, whilst Gerald Grayson acts as the voice of reason and justice, and will often talk her out of some of her more dastardly strategic decisions. For instance, Michelle might get a table out, set it up, and then turn back to her desired victim, only to find the table has been put away by the time she returns to it. Turnbuckle covers will be reattached, steel chairs removed from ringside as a pre-emptive measure, etc etc.

MvH still relies on her technical-brawling style but highlights the high flying aspects of her in-ring style, with Grayson sticking to his speed-based offense.

Tag Team Record: 22-3-1.

Matches:​

Vol.	Date	Match	Stipulation	Result
35	06/20	Michelle von Horrowitz and Gerald Grayson vs. Krash and Mike Parr (FWA: Fight Night) The Elite Tag Team Classic	Tag Team Match	LOSS
36	07/20	Michelle von Horrowitz and Gerald Grayson vs. Nova Diamond and Kevin Cromwell (FWA: Fight Night) The Elite Tag Team Classic	Tag Team Match	WIN
39	08/20	Michelle von Horrowitz and Gerald Grayson vs. The Affliction [Michael Garcia and Kayden Knox] (FWA: Fight Night) The Elite Tag Team Classic	Tag Team Match	WIN
40	09/20	Michelle von Horrowitz and Gerald Grayson vs. The Division [Trevor Ocean and Noah Stocke] (FWA: Fight Night) The Elite Tag Team Classic	Tag Team Match	WIN
41	10/20	Michelle von Horrowitz and Gerald Grayson vs. Mike Parr and Krash (FWA: Fight Night) The Elite Tag Team Classic	Tag Team Match	WIN
42	10/20	Michelle von Horrowitz and Gerald Grayson vs. Eli Black and Cyrus Truth (FWA: Fight Night) The Elite Tag Team Classic	Tag Team Match	WIN
45	11/20	Michelle von Horrowitz and Gerald Grayson vs. Golden Rock [Randy Ramon and Devin Golden] (FWA: Mile High) The Elite Tag Team Classic	Tag Team Match	LOSS
52	03/21	Michelle von Horrowitz and Gerald Grayson vs. The New Breed [Damian Lynch and Sean Hughes] (FWA: Fight Night - Lost Treasures)	Tornado X Rules Tag Match	WIN
73	01/22	Michelle von Horrowitz and Gerald Grayson vs. Chris Kennedy and Cyrus Truth (FWA: Meltdown X - One Night in Texas) Tag Warz Tournament - Pool Stage	Tag Team Match	WIN
75	02/22	Michelle von Horrowitz and Gerald Grayson vs. Deathswitch Initiative [Tommy Bedlam and James Douglas] (FWA: Meltdown XI - One Night in Raleigh) Tag Warz Tournament - Pool Stage	Tag Team Match	WIN
77	02/22	Michelle von Horrowitz and Gerald Grayson vs. gold N' Roses [Devin Golden and Lizzie Rose] (FWA: Meltdown XII - One Night in New Orleans) Tag Warz Tournament - Pool Stage	Tag Team Match	WIN
78	03/22	Michelle von Horrowitz and Gerald Grayson vs. Cyrus Truth and Krash vs. The Stocke Market [Noah Stocke and Sean Hughes] (FWA: Meltdown XIII - One Night in New York) Tag Warz Tournamen - Finals. FWA World Tag Team Championships #1 Contender	Jailhouse Blues Match	WIN
81	05/22	MIchelle von Horrowitz and Gerald Grayson vs. Lizzie Rose and Joe Burr (FWA: Meltdown XIV - Homecoming: Brooklyn)	Tag Team Match	WIN
89	09/22	Michelle von Horrowitz & Gerald Grayson vs. Bad Reputation [Kayden Knox and Gabrielle] (FWA: Meltdown XIX) FWA World Tag Team Championships #1 Contedership.	Tag Team Match	WIN
91	10/22	Michelle von Horrowitz & Gerald Grayson vs. The Spirit Wakers [Aka Yurei and Reagan Cole] (c) (FWA: Lights Out 2021) FWA World Tag Team Championships	Tag Team Match	WIN
92	11/22	Michelle von Horrowitz & Gerald Grayson (c) vs. Anderson Vega & Spooder-Man. (FWA: Meltdown XXI) FWA World Tag Team Championships	Tag Team Match	WIN
94	11/22	Michelle von Horrowitz and Gerald Grayson vs. The Lumberjacks (Dan LuPone and Doug LuPone). (FWA: Meltdown XXII)	Tag Team Match	WIN
99	12/22	Michelle von Horrowitz and Gerald Grayson (c) vs. The Lumberjacks (Dan LuPone and Doug LuPone) vs. The Coven (Blair Ravenwood and Celestia Ravenwood) vs. Bad Reputation (Gabrielle and Kayden Knox) vs. The Undisputed Alliance (Jackson Fenix and Nate Savage). (FWA: Fallout 024) FWA World Tag Team Championships	Tag Team Mile High Massacre Match	WIN
103	2/23	Michelle von Horrowitz and Gerald Grayson [c] vs. The Undisputed Alliance [Jackson Fenix and Nate Savage]. (FWA: Back in Town) FWA World Tag Team Championships	Tag Team Match	WIN
105	3/23	Michelle von Horrowitz and Gerald Grayson [c] vs. The Undisputed Alliance [Jackson Fenix and Nate Savage] (FWA: Fallout 026) FWA World Tag Team Championships	Washington Street Fight	WIN
108	4/23	Michelle von Horrowitz and Gerald Grayson [c] vs. The Buddy System [Bryan Baxter and Jeremy Best] (FWA: Carnal Contendership) FWA World Tag Team Championships	Tag Team Match	WIN
109	5/23	Michelle von Horrowitz and Gerald Grayson [c] vs. Claw and Order [Dave O'Houilihan and Buster Murphy] (FWA: Meltdown XXVIII) FWA World Tag Team Championships	Tag Team Match	WIN
110	5/23	Michelle von Horrowitz and Gerald Grayson [c] vs. Makima Snowmantashi and Zom Gippy. (FWA: Meltdown XXIX) FWA World Tag Team Championships	Tag Team Match	TIE
111	5/23	Michelle von Horrowitz and Gerald Grayson [c] vs. The Coven [Blair and Celestia Ravenwood] (CDW#2: Too Many Nephews; Didn't Read....) FWA World Tag Team Championships	Sharknado Tag Team Match	WIN
112	6/23	Michelle von Horrowitz and Gerald Grayson [c] vs. FTN [Chris Peacock and Alyster Black] (FWA Meltdown XXX) FWA World Tag Team Championships.	Tag Team Match	LOSS

​

Record:
CWA record: 18-3-0 (2015-16, 2020 special appearance).
FWA record: 64-16-2 (2016 special appearance, 2020-present).
CDW record: 2-0-0.
Warehouse Record: 1-0-0.
WPG Record: 0-0-1.
Overall record: 85-19-3.

Match History:

2015-16 matches: [18-3-0]
key:
** match not counted in record (storylined outcome).
*** results unfinished.
​

vol.	Date	Match	Stipulation	Result
2	10/15	Michelle von Horrowitz vs. Anna Malikova (CWA: Adrenaline Rush)	Singles Match	WIN
3	10/15	Michelle von Horrowitz vs. Johnny Adams (CWA: Adrenaline Rush)	Singles Match	WIN
4	11/15	Michelle von Horrowitz vs. WOLF (CWA: Adrenaline Rush)	Singles Match	WIN
5	11/15	Michelle von Horrowitz vs. Harrison Wake vs. Elijah Edwards [c] (CWA: Wrestle Royale) CWA High Voltage Championship	Triple Threat Match	LOSS **
5	11/15	30-Person Battle Royale (CWA: Wrestle Royale) CWA World Heavyweight Championship #1 Contender	Battle Royale	WIN
6	12/15	Michelle von Horrowitz vs. Jonathan McGinnis (CWA: Adrenaline Rush)	Singles Match	WIN
7	12/15	Michelle von Horrowitz and Phillip A. Jackson vs. Bell Connelly and Jon Snowmantashi (CWA-FWA Crossover Supershow)	Tag Team Match	WIN
8	01/16	Michelle von Horrowitz and Johnny Vegas vs. Jonathan McGinnis and Jon Snowmantashi (CWA: Adrenaline Rush)	Tag Team Match	WIN
9	02/16	Michelle von Horrowitz vs. Johnny Vegas (CWA: Adrenaline Rush)	Singles Match	WN
10	02/16	Michelle von Horrowitz vs. Jon Snowmantashi [c] (CWA: Five Star Attraction) CWA World Heavyweight Championship	Singles Match	LOSS
11	03/16	Michelle von Horrowitz vs. Enigma (CWA: Adrenaline Rush)	Singles Match	WIN
12	03/16	Michelle von Horrowitz vs. Drew Connor (CWA: Adrenaline Rush)	Singles Match	WIN
13	03/16	Michelle von Horrowitz and Enigma vs. Drew Connor and Ethan Connor (CWA: Adrenaline Rush)	Tag Team Match	LOSS
14	04/16	Michelle von Horrowitz vs. Jon Snowmantashi [c] vs. Harrison Wake vs. Jonathan McGinnis vs. Johnny Vegas vs. Enigma. (CWA: Retribution) CWA World Heavyweight Championship	Steel Roulette Match.	LOSS
15	04/16	Michelle von Horrowitz vs. Harrison Wake (CWA: Adrenaline Rush)	Singles Match	WIN
16	05/16	Michelle von Horrowitz vs. Dustin Dreamer (CWA: Adrenaline Rush)	Singles Match	WIN
17	05/16	Michelle von Horrowitz and LIGHTBRINGER vs. Dustin Dreamer and Harrison Wake (CWA: Adrenaline Rush)	Tag Team Match	WIN
19	05/16	Michelle von Horrowitz and Anzu Kurosawa vs. Taylor Toxic and Raquel Wednesday (FWA: Back in Business)	Tag Team Match	WIN
18	06/16	Michelle von Horrowitz vs. Harrison Wake (CWA: World's Strongest)	2 out of 3 Falls Match	WIN
20	06/16	Michelle von Horrowitz vs. Ariel Justice (CWA: Adrenaline Rush)	Singles Match	WIN
21	07/16	Michelle von Horrowitz vs. Mark Merriwether (CWA: Adrenaline Rush)	Singles Match	WIN
22	07/16	Michelle von Horrowitz vs. LIGHTBRINGER [c] vs. Mark Merriwether (CWA: Kings Reign Supreme) CWA High Voltage Championship	Triple Threat Match	WIN
24	07/16	Women's Classic Tournament (BWW: Women's Classic)	Tournament	??? ***

2020 matches: [15-3-0]
key:
** match not counted in record (storylined outcome).
*** results unfinished.
​

vol.	Date	Match	Stipulation	Result
26	01/20	Michelle von Horrowitz vs. Dominick Dust (FWA: Fight Night)	Singles Match	WIN
27	02/20	Michelle von Horrowitz vs. Anzu Kurosawa (FWA: Fight Night)	Singles Match	WIN **
28	02/20	Michelle von Horrowitz vs. Jason Randall vs. Kevin Cromwell vs. Eli Black vs. Gerald Grayson (FWA: Back in Business XIV) FWA X Championship	X Rules Six-Way Match	WIN
29	03/20	Michelle von Horrowitz vs. Gerald Grayson (FWA: Fight Night)	Singles Match	WIN
30	04/20	Michelle von Horrowitz [c] vs. Kevin Cromwell (FWA: Fight Night) FWA X Championship	X Rules Match	WIN
31	05/20	Michelle von Horrowitz and Kevin Cromwell vs. Cyrus Truth and Nova Diamond (FWA: Fight Night)	Tag Team Match	WIN
32	05/20	Michelle von Horrowitz vs. Humanity. Michelle von Horrowitz vs. XYZ (CWA: One Night Only)	Tournament	WIN
33	06/20	Michelle von Horrowitz [c] vs. Jason Randall vs. Kevin Cromwell (FWA: Payback) FWA X Championship	X Rules Triple Threat Match	WIN
35	06/20	Michelle von Horrowitz and Gerald Grayson vs. Krash and Mike Parr (FWA: Fight Night) The Elite Tag Team Classic	Tag Team Match	LOSS
36	07/20	Michelle von Horrowitz and Gerald Grayson vs. Nova Diamond and Kevin Cromwell (FWA: Fight Night) The Elite Tag Team Classic	Tag Team Match	WIN
37	08/20	Michelle von Horrowitz vs. Ty Johnson (FWA: Division's Rules)	Singles Match	WIN
39	08/20	Michelle von Horrowitz and Gerald Grayson vs. The Affliction [Michael Garcia and Kayden Knox] (FWA: Fight Night) The Elite Tag Team Classic	Tag Team Match	WIN
40	09/20	Michelle von Horrowitz and Gerald Grayson vs. The Division [Trevor Ocean and Noah Stocke] (FWA: Fight Night) The Elite Tag Team Classic	Tag Team Match	WIN
41	10/20	Michelle von Horrowitz and Gerald Grayson vs. Mike Parr and Krash (FWA: The 15th Anniversary Show) The Elite Tag Team Classic	Tag Team Match	WIN
42	10/20	Michelle von Horrowitz and Gerald Grayson vs. Eli Black and Cyrus Truth (FWA: Fight Night) The Elite Tag Team Classic	Tag Team Match	WIN
43	11/20	Michelle von Horrowitz vs. Michael Garcia (FWA: Fight Night)	Singles Match	WIN
44	11/20	Michelle von Horrowitz vs. Bell Connelly (FWA: Mile High)	Singles Match	LOSS
45	11/20	Michelle von Horrowitz and Gerald Grayson vs. Golden Rock [Randy Ramon and Devin Golden] (FWA: Mile High) The Elite Tag Team Classic	Tag Team Match	LOSS
46	12/20	Michelle von Horrowitz vs. The New Breed [Damian Lynch and Shawn Hughes] (FWA: Fight Night)	Handicap Match	WIN

2021 matches: [16-4-1]
key:
** match not counted in record (storylined outcome).
*** results unfinished.
​

vol.	Date	Match	Stipulation	Result
48	02/21	Michelle von Horrowitz vs. Uncle J.J. JAY! (FWA: Fight Night - Valentine's Day Massacre)	First Blood Match	WIN
49	02/21	Michelle von Horrowitz vs. Mike Parr (FWA: Desert Storm)	Singles Match	WIN
50	03/21	30-Person Battle Royale (FWA: Carnal Contendership) FWA World Championship #1 Contender	Battle Royale	WIN
51	03/21	10-Person Round Robin Tournament (CWA: Gold Rush Nights 1-5) CWA World Heavyweight Championship	Tournament	LOSS **
52	03/21	Michelle von Horrowitz and Gerald Grayson vs. The New Breed [Damian Lynch and Shawn Hughes] (FWA: Fight Night - Lost Treasures)	Tornado X Rules Tag Match	WIN
53	04/21	Michelle von Horrowitz vs. Mike Parr (FWA: Fight Night - NOLA)	60 Minute Iron Man Match	LOSS
54	05/21	Michelle von Horrowitz and Chris Peacock vs. Saint Sulley and Uncle J.J. JAY! vs. Mike Parr and Konchu Hao (FWA: Fight Night - Sin City)	Triple Threat Tag Team Match	WIN
55	05/21	Michelle von Horrowitz vs. Gerald Grayson (FWA: Fight Night - Curtain Call)	Singles Match	WIN
56	06/21	Michelle von Horrowitz vs. Saint Sulley [c] vs. Mike Parr (FWA: Back in Business XV - Night Two) FWA World Championship	Three-Way Dance	WIN
57	06/21	Michelle von Horrowitz vs. Lilith (CWA: South Pacific)	Heart of Darkness Match [Cinematic]	??? **
58	07/21	Michelle von Horrowitz and Dan Maskell vs. Devin Golden (FWA: Meltdown 1)	Handicap Match	WIN
59	07/21	16-Team Trios Tournament [w/ Bell Connelly and Shannon O'Neal] (The Warehouse Trios Tournament)	Tournament	??? ***
60	07/21	Michelle von Horrowitz vs. Dan Maskell (FWA: Meltdown 2)	Singles Match	WIN
61	08/21	Michelle von Horrowitz [c] vs. Bell Connelly (FWA: The 16th Anniversary Show) FWA World Championship	Singles Match	WIN
62	08/21	Michelle von Horrowitz and Chris Kennedy vs. Saint Sulley and Jack Severino (FWA: Meltdown 3)	Tag Team Match	WIN
63	08/21	Michelle von Horrowitz vs. Devin Golden (FWA: Meltdown 4)	Singles Match	WIN
64	08/21	Michelle von Horrowitz vs. Cyrus Truth (FWA: Meltdown 5) Best of Five Series: Match I	Singles Match	LOSS
65	09/21	Michelle von Horrowitz [c] vs. Chris Kennedy (FWA: Lights Out) FWA World Championship	Japanese Death Match	LOSS
66	10/21	Michelle von Horrowitz vs. Cyrus Truth (FWA: Meltdown 6) Best of Five Series: Match II	Singles Match	WIN
67	10/21	Michelle von Horrowitz vs. Cyrus Truth (FWA: Meltdown 7) Best of Five Series: Match III	Singles Match	WIN
68	11/21	Michelle von Horrowitz vs. Cyrus Truth (FWA: Meltdown 8) Best of Five Series: Match IV	X Rules Match	TIE
69	12/21	Michelle von Horrowitz vs. Chris Crowe (FWA: Meltdown 9)	Singles Match	LOSS
70	12/21	Michelle von Horrowitz vs. Cyrus Truth (FWA: Mile High) Best of Five Series: Match V	Singles Match	WIN
72	12/21	Michelle von Horrowitz vs. Krash (The Warehouse: NYE2)	Singles Match	WIN

2022 matches: [20-6-0]
​

vol.	Date	Match	Stipulation	Result
73	01/22	Michelle von Horrowitz & Gerald Grayson vs. Chris Kennedy and Cyrus Truth (FWA: Meltdown X - One Night in Texas) Tag Warz Tournament - Pool Stage	Tag Team Match	WIN
74	01/22	Michelle von Horrowitz, Chris Kennedy, Cyrus Truth, Devin Golden, & Saint Sulley challenge Krash (FWA: Metldown X - One Night in Texas) FWA World Championship	Bounty Hunt	LOSS
75	02/22	Michelle von Horrowitz & Gerald Grayson vs. Deathswitch Initiative [Tommy Bedlam and James Douglas] (FWA: Meltdown XI - One Night in Raleigh) Tag Warz Tournament - Pool Stage	Tag Team Match	WIN
76	02/22	Michelle von Horrowitz vs. Uncle J.J. JAY! (FWA: Fallout 012 - Valentine's Day Massacre)	First Blood Match	WIN
77	02/22	Michelle von Horrowitz & Gerald Grayson vs. Gold N' Roses [Devin Golden and Lizzie Rose] (FWA: Meltdown XII - One Night in New Orleans) Tag Warz Tournament - Pool Stage	Tag Team Match	WIN
78	03/22	Michelle von Horrowitz & Gerald Grayson vs. Krash & Cyrus Truth vs. The Stocke Market [Noah Stocke & Sean Hughes] (FWA: Meltdown XIII - One Night in New York) Tag Warz Tournament - Finals FWA World Championship & FWA World Tag Team Championships #1 Contender	Jailhouse Blues Match	WIN
79	03/22	Michelle von Horrowitz vs. Nova Diamond (c) vs. Gerald Grayson (FWA: The Grand March) FWA World Championship	Triple Threat Match	WIN
80	04/22	Michelle von Horrowitz (c) vs. Thomas West (FWA: Carnal Contendership) FWA World Championship	Singles Match	LOSS
81	05/22	Michelle von Horrowitz & Gerald Grayson vs. Lizzie Rose & Joe Burr (FWA: Meltdown XIV - Homecoming: Brooklyn)	Tag Team Match	WIN
82	05/22	Michelle von Horrowitz vs. Gabrielle (FWA: Meltdown XV - Homecoming: Pittsburgh)	Singles Match	WIN
83	06/22	Michelle von Horrowitz vs. Reagan Cole (FWA: Meltdown XVI - Homecoming(?): Tampa)	Singles Match	WIN
84	06/22	Michelle von Horrowitz, Uncle J.J. JAY!, Thomas West, and Gerald Grayson vs. Danny Toner, Chris Peacock, Devin Golden, and Nova Diamond (FWA: Fallout 016 - The Atlantic)	4-on-4 Tag Team Match	LOSS
85	06/22	Michelle von Horrowitz vs. Chris Kennedy (FWA: Back in Business XVI - Night One)	Singles Match	WIN
86	07/22	Michelle von Horrowitz & Thomas West vs. Cyrus Truth and Devin Golden. (FWA: Meltdown XVII - One Year Anniversary Show)	Tag Team Match	LOSS
87	08/22	Michelle von Horrowitz vs. Devin Golden (FWA: Meltdown XVIII - Get the 'F' Out)	Singles Match	WIN
88	08/22	Michelle von Horriwtz, Gerald Grayson, Thomas West, Harry the Sane Wizard, and NOT_Quiet vs. Uncle J.J. JAY!, NOE-I, Maid of Death, Gator Guy, and Megalodon Man. (FWA: The 17th Anniversary Show - Meltdown vs. Fallout)	Cosmic Playground II	LOSS
89	09/22	Michelle von Horrowitz & Gerald Grayson vs. Bad Reputation [Kayden Knox and Gabrielle] (FWA: Meltdown XIX) FWA World Tag Team Championships #1 Contedership	Tag Team Match	WIN
90	10/22	Michelle von Horrowitz vs. Aka Yurei. (FWA: Meltdown XX)	Singles Match	WIN
91	10/22	Michelle von Horrowitz & Gerald Grayson vs. The Spirit Wakers [Aka Yurei and Reagan Cole] (c) (FWA: Lights Out 2021) FWA World Tag Team Championships	Tag Team Match	WIN
92	11/22	Michelle von Horrowitz & Gerald Grayson (c) vs. Anderson Vega & Spooder-Man. (FWA: Meltdown XXI) FWA World Tag Team Championships	Tag Team Match	WIN
93	11/22	Michelle von Horrowitz vs. Cornelius Aurelius Caesar (FWA: Fallout 021)	Singles Match	WIN
94	11/22	Michelle von Horrowitz and Gerald Grayson vs. The Lumberjacks (Dan LuPone and Doug LuPone). (FWA: Meltdown XXII)	Tag Team Match	WIN
95	11/22	Michelle von Horrowitz vs. Gabrielle. (FWA: Fallout 022) F1 Climaxxx: Pool Stage.	Singles Match	WIN
96	12/22	Michelle von Horrowitz, Uncle J.J. JAY!, Thomas West, Harry the Sane Wizard, Quiet, and Maid of Death vs. Bad Reputation (Gabrielle and Kayden Knox), The Coven (Celestia Ravenwood and Blair Ravenwood), and The Lumberjacks (Dan LuPone and Doug LuPone). (FWA: Meltdown XXIII)	Twelve-Person Tag Team Match	WIN
97	12/22	Michelle von Horrowitz vs. Alyster Black. (FWA: Fallout 023) F1 Climaxxx: Pool Stage.	Singles Match	LOSS
98	12/22	Michelle von Horrowitz vs. Vampyra (FWA: Meltdown XXIV) F1 Climaxxx: Pool Stage.	Singles Match	WIN
99	12/22	Michelle von Horrowitz and Gerald Grayson (c) vs. The Lumberjacks (Dan LuPone and Doug LuPone) vs. The Coven (Blair Ravenwood and Celestia Ravenwood) vs. Bad Reputation (Gabrielle and Kayden Knox) vs. The Undisputed Alliance (Jackson Fenix and Nate Savage). (FWA: Fallout 024) FWA World Tag Team Championships.	Tag Team Mile High Massacre	WIN

2023 Matches (13-3-1)​

Vol.	Date	Match	Stipulation	Result
100	1/23	Michelle von Horrowitz vs. Tommy Bedlam. (FWA: Fallout 025) F1 Climaxxx: Pool Stage.	Singles Match	WIN
101	1/23	Michelle von Horrowitz vs. Bryan Baxter. (FWA: Fight Night - The Final Four) F1 Climaxxx: Semi-Final.	Singles Match	WIN
102	2/23	Michelle von Horrowitz vs. Uncle J.J. JAY! (CDW#1: Valentine's Day Massacre)	First Blood Match.	WIN
103	2/23	Michelle von Horrowitz and Gerald Grayson [c] vs. The Undisputed Alliance [Jackson Fenix and Nate Savage]. (FWA: Back in Town) FWA World Tag Team Championships.	Tag Team Match	WIN
104	2/23	Michelle von Horrowitz vs. Cyrus Truth (FWA: Back in Town) F1 Climaxxx: Final. FWA World Championship #1 Contendership.	Singles Match.	WIN
105	3/23	Michelle von Horrowitz and Gerald Grayson [c] vs. The Undisputed Alliance [Jackson Fenix and Nate Savage] (FWA: Fallout 026) FWA World Tag Team Championships.	Washington Street Fight.	WIN
106	3/23	Michelle von Horrowitz vs. Shawn Summers. (FWA: Meltdown XXVII)	Singles Match.	WIN
107	4/23	Michelle von Horrowitz vs. Chris Peacock [c] vs. Cyrus Truth. (FWA: The Grand March) FWA World Championship.	Three Way Dance Match.	LOSS
108	4/23	Michelle von Horrowitz and Gerald Grayson [c] vs. The Buddy System [Bryan Baxter and Jeremy Best] (FWA: Carnal Contendership) FWA World Tag Team Championships.	Tag Team Match.	WIN
109	5/23	Michelle von Horrowitz and Gerald Grayson [c] vs. Claw and Order [Dave O''Houilihan and Buster Murphy]. (FWA: Meltdown XXVIII) FWA World Tag Team Championships.	Tag Team Match	WIN
110	5/23	Michelle von Horrowitz and Gerald Grayson [c] vs. Makima Snowmantashi and Zom Gippy. (FWA: Meltdown XXIX) FWA World Tag Team Championships.	Tag Team Match	TIE
111	6/23	Michelle von Horrowitz and Gerald Grayson [c] vs. The Coven [Blair Ravenwood and Celestia Ravenwood]. (CDW#2: 'Too Many Nephews; Didn't Read....') FWA World Tag Team Championships.	Sharknado Tag Team Match	WIN
112	6/23	Michelle von Horrowitz and Gerald Grayson [c] vs. FTN [Chris Peacock and Alyster Black] (FWA Meltdown XXX) FWA World Tag Team Championships.	Tag Team Match	LOSS
113	6/23	Michelle von Horrowitz vs. Bellatrix Bordeaux. (FWA: Meltdown XXXI)	Singles Match	WIN
114	7/23	Michelle von Horrowitz vs. Jon Snowmantashi. (FWA: Back in Business XVII - Night One) Retirement Match.	Singles Match.	WIN
115	9/23	weaseldreamer vs. Violet Dreyer. (FWA: Lights Out)	Singles Match.	WIN
116	11/23	weaseldreamer enters the Buddy Bowl, teaming with Madison Gray. (FWA: Fallout 035) FWA World Tag Team Championships #1 Contender.	Tag Team Tournament.	LOSS

2024 Matches (3-0-1)
​

Vol.	Date	Match	Stipulation	Result
117	1/24	Michelle von Horrowitz vs. Mike Parr. (FWA: Meltdown XXXVII) F1 Climaxxx - Pool Stage.	Singles Match	WIN
118	2/24	Michelle von Horrowitz vs. Konchu Hao. (FWA: Meltdown XXXVIII) F1 Climaxxx - Pool Stage.	Singles Match	WIN
119	2/24	Michelle von Horrowitz vs. Uncle J.J. JAY!. (WPG: Valentine's Day Massacre)	???	TIE
120	3/24	Michelle von Horrowitz vs. Bryan Baxter. (FWA: Meltdown XXXIX) F1 Climaxxx - Semi-Finals.	Singles Match	WIN
121	4/24	Michelle von Horrowitz vs. Chris Peacock. (FWA: Carnal Contendership) F1 Climaxxx - Final. FWA World Championship #1 Contender.	Singles Match

** graphics credits: Commie Jobber (top), CBK (bottom) **

Spoiler: POSTERS

"The Grand March" 2023 [credit: cbk]

"Lights Out" 2021 [credit: jiggy]

"Lights Out" 2021 (Alternate, Japanese Market) [credit: jiggy]

"Back in Business XV" 2021 [credit: jiggy]

"Fight Night: Valentine's Day Massacre" 2021 [credit: sully]

"Desert Storm" 2021 [credit: sully]

 

[Kim Jong Umb]

FWA resident Jobber arrives

 

[SupineSnake]

Who said you could post in my thread?

 

[SupineSnake]

[ S T A B L E ]

CTHULHU'S NEPHEWS​

Members:
Michelle von Horrowitz.
Gerald Grayson - roster page profile.
Uncle J.J. JAY! - profile (credit - REDACTED2):

Spoiler

“COSMIC HORROR”

J.J. JAY!

(pic base: jonathan gresham)
​

NAME - J.J. JAY!
HEIGHT - Short! (5’4)
WEIGHT - Chunky For His Height (164lbs)
DOB - N/A, looks early 30s
BILLED FROM - The Cosmos
ALIGNMENT - Beyond Alignments
FEUDS - vs. Chris Peacock
NON-FWA ACCOMPLISHMENTS -
FWA ACCOMPLISHMENTS -
- Competed in the first ever FWA Gauntlet Title match
- 3X Triple J Champion
- 8X 24/7 Champion
FWA W/L RECORD - 11-8-0

STYLE OF WRESTLING - Dirty Technical Troll. “Cosmic Horror” is naturally a pure wrestling oriented talent, but he’ll use every single dirty trick in the book no matter his alignment, and derives a great deal of pleasure from pissing off, mocking, and angering his opponents. Extended rest holds. Eye pokes. Low blows. Distracted referees. Removing the padding from the turnbuckle. 5 Counts. Attempting to take out his opponent far from the ring for the count out win. Exiting the ring in battle royals till the numbers are dwindled. He enjoys employing a Boston Crab as a finishing submission because of how supremely simple it is. Conversely, he employs one of the world’s most complicated submissions, the Paradise Lock as well. Like many of his idols, J.J. JAY! uses a mist attack in many of his matches, in his case a Pink Mist, temporarily blinding his opponent. He will often over extend the WMC DDT by tilt-a-whirling way more than necessary. He will still attempt the chokeslam on larger opponents, occasionally using a turnbuckle or chair to make up for the height differences.

GIMMICK - J.J. JAY! is an oddball. Though naturally a face, he has a shitton of heel tendencies. We’ve already covered his cheating habits, but “Cosmic Horror” is the sort of guy who is primarily motivated by the unexpected. He’s an anarchist & anti-conformist at heart. And very much a believer that chaos is a ladder, and he’s eager to see what’s at the other end of it. J.J. JAY!’s big advantage with his fans is that he’s never motivated out of malice.

THE BOOK - Tying into the above, “Cosmic Horror” tends to parade around with the “Book of Cosmos”, a self-help tome that appears to be empty of any words anyone else might see, but J.J. JAY! treats it like a near bible and actively refers to it, especially when defending his actions. No one knows if he’s serious or not.

ENTRANCE - A la the music video for No Love, the arena is bathed in near darkness with a "hot pink" filtered version of everyone. He comes out from the crowd after the camera ventures around to find him & tends to take his sweet ass time getting to the ring. He will sign autographs on the way and happily take pictures. He wears a Chtulhu-style mask during his entrance. It's not completely uncommon for his opponents to attack him before the match to get him in the ring. J.J. JAY! knows to make the most out of every entrance because it might be your last, and also FWA's got a big entrance budget.

MOVESET - Backhand Slap, Cosmic Stretch (Octopus Hold), Front Flip Axe Handle, Back Flip Back Rake, Shin Kick, Double Underhook DDT, Headlock, Rest Holds, Limb Stomps, Biting, Finger Cracking, Hair Pulling.

SUBMISSION FINISHERS - Boston Crab. Paradise Lock. Sleeper Hold (Larger Opponents).

REGULAR FINISHERS - Chokeslam (Smaller Opponents). WMC (World’s Most Complicated) DDT (Extended Tilt-a-whirl inverted DDT) preceded by a Pink Mist spray.

THEME MUSIC - “No Love” - Death Grips

10 FUN FACTS -

1. In order to beat the world’s longest & recently established ETERNAL 24/7 Championship reign of 503 Days for New York-based Super Wrestling Company, “Cosmic Horror” moved to the burgeoning Indian wrestling scene to regularly defend his title against green workers. He officially returned on the 504th day & surrendered the title.
2. Spicy food does not affect him at all.
3. He once sold a “World” Title to pay off his student debt.
4. He has won approximately 10% (73) of his career matches by count out.
5. He has wrestled a two hour match and a three hour match. The three hour match began with a one hour staredown.
6. He wears jock straps & goggles to every match to prevent eye pokes & low blows. He tapes his fingers too. He wears knee pads & elbow pads which are liable to have weapons in them. Referees beware. He will also use jock strap, goggles, wrist tapes to hurt his opponent (emotionally & physically) if he can.
7. He’s accidentally joined 4 cults. Half of them in Mexico-based wrestling companies.
8. He offers a handshake before & after every match (doesn’t always end well, given his tendencies) & loves starting matches with tests of strength or shoulder tackle competitions. 50/50 chance he cheats.
9. He runs a very successful cameo account.
10. He was a gymnast in his youth. Alas, he only enjoys showing his athletic skills when he feels there’s very little risk, and he’ll usually end it anticlimactically with a rake, eye poke, axe handle, or whatever else he can think of.

2020 RECORD - 3-1

1. Yuna Funanori def. J.J. JAY!, Danny Toner, Mac Michaud, & Kayden Knox for the FWA Gauntlet Championship in a Devil's Night Scramble Match [0-1]
2. J.J. JAY! def. Mike Valander [1-1]
3. J.J. JAY! def. Saus X [2-1]
4. J.J. JAY! def. Eli Black [3-1]

2021 RECORD - 9-9

1. J.J. JAY! def. Gerald Grayson for the FWA X Championship in a X Rules Match [4-1]
2. J.J. JAY! & Gerald Grayson def. Konchu Hao & HUMANITY [5-1]
3. Michelle von Horrowitz def. J.J. JAY! [5-2]
4. Konchu Hao def. J.J. JAY! & Gerald Grayson in a Madman's Mayhem Match [5-3]
5. Michelle von Horrowitz won the Carnal Contendership [5-4]
6. J.J. JAY! & Quiet def. The Diamond Dogs [6-4]
7. Chris Peacock & Michelle von Horrowitz def. J.J. JAY! & Saint Sulley + Konchu Hao & Mike Parr [6-5]
8. Cyrus Truth & Konchu Hao def. Captain Fantasy & J.J. JAY! [6-6]
9. J.J. JAY! def. Chris Peacock [7-6]
10. J.J. JAY! def. Konchu Hao [8-6]
11. Chris Peacock def. J.J. JAY! for the FWA X Championship [8-7]
12. Chtlhu's Nephews def. Chris Peacock & Friends for the FWA X Championship in a Cosmic Playground Match [9-7]
13. J.J. JAY! def. Sauce Man [10-7]
14. J.J. JAY! def. Kayden Knox, Kleio De Santos & Nate Savage for the FWA X Championship in a X Rules Match [11-7]
15. Kayden Knox def. J.J. JAY! for the FWA X Championship in a X Rules Match [11-8]
16. J.J. JAY! def. Krash in a Lumberjack Match [12-8]
17. Team Krash def. Team Uncle in a Cibernetico Match [12-9]

2022 RECORD - 7-3

1. J.J. JAY!, Thomas West & Quiet def. Kayden Knox, Gabrielle & XYZ [13-9]
2. Jeremy Best def. J.J. JAY! [13-10]
3. Michelle von Horrowitz def. J.J. JAY! [13-11]
4. Cthulhu's Nephews def. Tonerville in Grouse Mountain [14-11]
5. J.J. JAY! def. Danny Toner at The Grand March [15-11]
6. Danny Toner won the Carnal Contendership [15-12]
7. Chris Peacock, Danny Toner, Devin Golden & Nova Diamond def. J.J. JAY!, Michelle von Horrowitz, Thomas West & Gerald Grayson [15-13]
8. J.J. JAY! & Quiet def. PONI BOI [16-13]
9. Fallout Nephews Branch def. Pseudo Meltdown Nephews Branch [17-13]
10. Fallout Nephews Branch (J.J. JAY!, The Leviathans, Maid of Death & NOE-I) def. Meltdown Nephews Branch (MvH, Gerald Grayson, Harry the Sane Wizard, Thomas West & NOT_Quiet) in a Cosmic Playground Match [18-13]

Cosmic Tales -

1. Book 1: Lament at a Gauntlet Championship Shot
2. Book 2: Fuck Scene Setting
3. Book 3: All Beholders Go To Heaven
4. Book 4: Cheat Until I Get My Win
5. Book 5: A Heist
6. Book 6 w/ Gerald Grayson: Not Again
7. Book 7: Ode to the Dreamer
8. Book 8: TITLE: Ahh, barren like a desert.
9. Book 9: This is a title so the top of this RP doesn't look so bland. Please don't penalize me for my lack of fancy formatting. You wouldn't deduct points from War & Peace for that.
10. Book 10: THOMAS WEST PODCAST: West-DEBUT EPISODE! ft. J.J. JAY!
11. Book 11: w/ Captain Fantasy: IS THIS A CROSSOVER EPISODE?
12. Book 12: THIS IS A LOVE STORY ♥♥♥
13. Book 13: The Nephews Go On a Roadtrip ft. The Nibling
14. Book 14: The Nephews Solve a Mystery ft. Reverse-Patches
15. Book 15: The Nephews Take Over the Sauce Business ft. Megalodon Man & Gator Guy
16. Book 16: The Nephews Roll the Infinity-Sided Dice ft. way too many fucking people
17. Book 17: The Nephews Seek Atonement

Cosmic Characters (TBC) -

1. Reverse-Patches: a Beholder from the 34th Acquiterial Dimension who doubles as J.J. JAY!'s camera man, witness for his beloved audience

Quiet - profile (credit - REDACTED2):

Spoiler

“SILENT TYPE”
Quiet

(pic base: black noire)



​

NAME - Quiet (Some people call him "The Halloween Guy")
HEIGHT - Average (Around 6ft)
WEIGHT - Well Built (Around 220 lbs but can look heavier based on disguise)
AGE - 28
BILLED FROM - Everywhere
ALIGNMENT - Beyond Alignments
FEUDS - N/A
NON-FWA ACCOMPLISHMENTS - Unknown
FWA ACCOMPLISHMENTS -
- None
FWA W/L RECORD - 2-0-0


STYLE OF WRESTLING - Deathmatch. Quiet aims to brutalize his opponents with violence. In a regular match, he'll use everything possible at ringside. He will bite his opponent. He will rip up the ring. He will use steel steps. He'll use the ring ropes. He's ultraviolent. He's basically Vincent Blackbird's ideal in a wrestler. Although he doesn't focus on it, Quiet is actually quite the all arounder. He's able to match opponents in strength, speed, and athleticism and can fly with the best of opponents. While he doesn't utilize his technical acumen much, he's got an encyclopedic knowledge of wrestling moves and counters. He's a Deathmatch wrestler by choice, not because he can't do anything else. As with J.J. JAY!, Quiet is a rampant cheater. In fact, he cares very little for victory. He's been known for intentionally disqualifying himself if only to inflict even more violence on his opponent. He is only motivated by their pain. One QUIRK about Quiet is that he is deceptively true to his name. He DOES not audibly react to pain, he doesn't yell, talk with the referee. He just stares or silently grimaces.

GIMMICK - Quiet is weird. He doesn't talk. AT ALL. But he comes to the ring in a different outfit every show. He'll even play the part too (minus talking, of course). No one knows anything about Quiet except that he pals around with J.J. JAY! and is essentially his bodyguard. He's quite willing to act goofy and is impossible to figure out. In the ring though, Quiet is undoubtedly one of the opponents you least want to face. He scarcely cares for the rule and is more dedicated to hurting people than anything else. In the ring, J.J. JAY! likes to take charge of the match because he knows there's no controlling Quiet. This tends to end up with Quiet playing the hot tag aka murder tag.

ROLE - At the moment, he's just an option for J.J. JAY! to tag with. He should be more or less considered a bodyguard for J.J. JAY! but useful if we need J.J. JAY! to wrestle a tag match or if for storyline reasons J.J. JAY! needs to be replaced in a match. He follows JAY! absolutely EVERYWHERE. He will HAPPILY interfere in JAY!'s matches to help him win but he may not always succeed. He's just as likely to get banned from the ring, cost J.J. JAY! the match, as he is to doing his job well. While JAY! may yell at Quiet, he NEVER attacks him or accidentally hits Quiet. On the other hand, Quiet can botch and hit JAY! pretty often. I may expand his role sooner or later, but this should be fine for now.

ENTRANCE - Generally he just accompanies J.J. JAY! to the ring. There's nothing particular about how he behaves but he might act to mimic whatever outfit he's in. If he is teaming with someone not named J.J. JAY!, he'll just follow along their entrance.

MOVESET - Spinning Backfist, Lariat, Death Valley Driver on Apron, Double Leg Drop on Opponent on Steel Steps, Running Drop Kick to Opponent against Barricade, Coast to Coast Dropkick, Straight Punch

SUBMISSION FINISHERS - Bulldog Choke

REGULAR FINISHERS - Brass Knuckle Shot, Punt (100% MATCH ENDER FINISHER), Grounded Hammerlock into Inverted Armbreaker (Penta's The Sacrifice - should make opponent's arm useless, usually match ender but not 100%)

THEME MUSIC - “No Love” - Death Grips (Or whoever he is teaming with)

10 COSTUMES -

1. Gobbledy Gooker (for my boy Michael Garcia)
2. Suicide
3. Pentagon Jr.
4. Predator
5. Power Ranger
6. Inflatable Dinosaur
7. Michael Myers
8. Pennywise
9. Jason
10. La Parka
11. Deadpool aka Merc w/o A Mouth!
12. Black Noir
13. Snake Eyes
14. Bloodhound

Thomas West - profile (credit - REDACTED2):

Spoiler

“HE'S A PODCAST HOST”
Thomas West

(pic base: big e)



​

NAME - ”He’s a Podcast Host” Thomas West
HEIGHT - 6 ft 4
WEIGHT - 290 pounds
AGE - 31
BILLED FROM - Everywhere
ALIGNMENT - Beyond Alignments
FEUDS - N/A
NON-FWA ACCOMPLISHMENTS - Unknown
FWA ACCOMPLISHMENTS -
- None
FWA W/L RECORD - 1-1-0


STYLE OF WRESTLING - Thomas West loves to get into fist fights. He loves to toss people around. He loves to toss his body at people. He’s not afraid to get hurt. He might enjoy getting hurt. He loves getting into pointless contests with opponents. Tests of strength. Submission matches (which he sucks at). High risks taking contests (which isn’t good for anyone). Headbutt battles. Forearms. Elbows. Cane shots. Lighttubes. Thomas West is just a sucker for a good fight. He loves to showboat and will deliberately celebrate an offense long enough for his opponent to recover. He loves to toss opponents around when he’s not challenging them to striking contests or trying to show off an impressive but still average high flying ability.

Thomas West can costs himself matches in stupid fashions sometimes. He’s lazy with pins and will often take them just to showboat (putting a boot on them for example), he prefers ending a match decisively via knockout or submission. He will also allow a 10 second count out. He cares more about winning dramatically than winning. He is known for being a slippery wrestler thanks to his excessive use of oil.

GIMMICK - He’s a Podcaster. He hosts a podcasts. He’s got a million stories to tell. Some of them are interesting. Some of them are not. Some of them are real. Most of them are not. But he swears by most of them. The guests really doesn’t matter. He’s confident he can get over on the podcast gimmick. His back up gimmick is that he’s the Master of Disguise. He claims he can make the perfect costume and he uses that to change into anyone he wants and compares it to Ethan Hunt from Mission Impossible and that one chick on reddit. He has no explanation for the height/weight difference. He’s also Captain Fantasy and Quiet. J.J. JAY! does not contest this fact. Alleged rumor he is actually Donny Toner too. We will work to confirm.

Other backstory is he was once a member of The Dark Watch whereby he saw some interesting stuff in the underworld. He occasionally, unbeknownst to Lilith (he thinks?), went on adventures with Uncle - Cosmic Horror - J.J. JAY!. Eventually he “left”(allegedly?) the Dark Watch and spent a shitton of time in the cosmos & multiverse traveling where he mastered the art of the disguise, so says he. He claims to have lived through a thousand lifetimes through that. Hence, the podcast.

Otherwise, he's a joyous dude who wants to be super famous, loves himself, is absolutely positive, enjoys competition and is happy to tell you a good story. Whenever he can be bothered to remember, he also brings up his Oil Me Up catchline.

ROLE - He’s working to get a primary role in the FWA but Uncle’s main event role and his successful identity as Captain Fantasy prevent him from getting on the card. He’s in competition with Quiet to get a regular role in the FWA. Although he is sometimes seen with Quiet, he claims that people shouldn’t try to unmask Quiet just to prove they’re not the same. First off, Quiet will kill you. Secondly, you’re going to break reality.

ENTRANCE - Thomas West follows the route of Uncle and comes through the crowd though the camera generally doesn’t have to look very far to find him. He’s immediately working the crowd for autographs, signatures, pictures. Anything. He loves the fame.

MOVESET - Clothelines, Forearms, Military Press, Splashes, Hurricanrannas (to showboat his athleticism), Airplane Spins, Big Swings, Corner Stomps, Samoan Drops, Headbutts, Suplex Variations. He will use certain moves like German Suplexes or Dragon Suplexes or Hurricanrannas repeatedly just to see how long he can do them. Suicide Dive. Rolling Elbow/Boots/Punches.

SUBMISSION FINISHERS - Submission Finisher #1 (Rear Naked Choke)

REGULAR FINISHERS - Finisher #1 (Ground & Pound), Finisher #2 (Spin-Out Fireman’s Carry Buster), Finisher #3 (Short-Arm Clothesline)

THEME MUSIC - “Whatta Man (Good man)” - I.O.I

​

Claims -

1. Captain Fantasy
2. Quiet

2021 RECORD -

Harry the Sane Wizard - profile (credit - REDACTED2):

Spoiler

“THE SANE WIZARD”
Harry

(pic base: elijah wood)



​

NAME - Harry The Sane Wizard
HEIGHT - 5 ft 5
WEIGHT - 126 pounds
AGE - Let’s just say 18 for legality reasons.
BILLED FROM - An Alternate Universe
ALIGNMENT - Beyond Alignments
FEUDS - N/A
NON-FWA ACCOMPLISHMENTS - Unknown
FWA ACCOMPLISHMENTS -
- None
FWA W/L RECORD - 2-1-0


STYLE OF WRESTLING - Harry The Sane Wizard doesn’t know how to fight. He’s a coward. He likes to take cheapshots. J.J. JAY! has done his best to teach Harry as many of the dirty tricks in his repertoire as he can. We’ll see if it sticks. That said, he is a wrestling fan, knows the rules, and isn’t completely incompetent. He’s green AF.

GIMMICK - Harry the Sane Wizard is allegedly from a parallel universe where he attended a Wizardry school and was a wrestling fan. He was kidnapped by Uncle as a gag to counter The Mad Wizard Konchu Hao, and stuck around.

ROLE - He’s really happy to be with the Octopi Crew. He just wants to make it into as many promos as possible. He doesn't know what he'll do if J.J. JAY! ever abandons him.

ENTRANCE - Harry the Sane Wizard is usually the most inconspicuous when Uncle does his entrance. He will follow along behind whoever else goes first. He doesn't have the confidence to offer autographs himself, but will eagerly do it if a fan makes a request.

MOVESET - Punches, Sleeper Hold, Kicks, Shin Kick, Low Blow, Eye Poke, Diving Crossbody, Headbutt drop

SUBMISSION FINISHERS - The Sleeping Charm (Full Nelson he’s never able to lock in)

REGULAR FINISHERS - Busaiku Knee Kick, Brass Knuckle Shot, Sliced Bread #2

THEME MUSIC - “The Wizard” - Black Sabbath

​

ь-I- profile (credit - REDACTED2):

Spoiler

“THE AVATAR” ÑŒ-I (pic base: kiera hogan)​ NAME - ÑŒ-I HEIGHT - 5 ft 1 WEIGHT - 120 pounds AGE - 27 years old BILLED FROM - Planet Xzibit ALIGNMENT - Face FEUDS - N/A ACCOMPLISHMENTS - Unknown W/L RECORD - 0-0-0 STYLE OF WRESTLING - ÑŒ-I may be shorter than most of her opponents and may boast in an exaggerated fashion but her belief that she is The Avatar means she's mostly a daunting foe to face because she's quite willing to take damage feeling that there's no way she will actually die. She's a hard-hitting striker, and when capable, likes to employ hard hitting suplexes against her opponent. Generally though, the size-difference means most of ÑŒ-I's matches see her getting tossed about in the ring, but marching right back up to her opponent to keep fighting on. GIMMICK/CHARACTER - A member of Chtlhu's Nephews, Uncle J.J. JAY! has alleged that she is The Chosen One aka The Avatar sent here from another universe from the dying (now dead) Planet Xzibit to save ours from destruction. In order to train her to become a fitting warrior to protect our world and reach her absolute potential, she was made to harness her power in the wrestling ring, the most dangerous arena in the world. Though she has yet to unlock the hidden abilities Uncle claims is within her, her confidence is unwavering in the Cosmic Horror who aided her when she remembered nothing and knew nothing about herself. There are many forces across the multi-verse intent on either stopping her from fulfilling her destiny as The Avatar or who want to use her powers for their own benefit, as a result, ÑŒ-I is rarely all on her own. At the very least, she is accompanied by her regular tag team partner and manager, Maid of Death (application coming), an allegedly shapeshifting abomination dedicated to ÑŒ-I's protection, and from time to time The Leviathans (Megalodon Man & Gator Guy). Her role as The Chosen One has made her quite egotistical and she often makes boast that she can't quite live up to. Uncle J.J. JAY! for his part does nothing but feed her ego. Given there's been no actual evidence of her identity as The Avatar, nor any proof there is even such a thing as The Avatar, the truth of what happened before she lost her memory mostly resides in Uncle himself. ENTRANCE - Pending MOVESET - Multiple Suplex Variations, C9, Headbutt, Lariat, Penalty Kick, Backdrop Suplex. Ishii-style arsenal. SUBMISSION FINISHERS - None REGULAR FINISHERS - Vertical Drop Brainbuster, Sunsetflip Piledriver, Spear THEME MUSIC - Tommy Genesis - A Woman is a God (Temporary, Probably) ​ 2021 RECORD -

Maid of Death - profile (credit - REDACTED2):

Spoiler

“DEADLY TYPE” The Maid of Death (pic base: rhea ripley)​ NAME - The Maid of Death HEIGHT - 5 ft 7 WEIGHT - 140 pounds AGE - N/A BILLED FROM - Planet Xzibit ALIGNMENT - Face FEUDS - N/A ACCOMPLISHMENTS - Unknown W/L RECORD - 0-0-0 STYLE OF WRESTLING - Maid of Death has a similar style to ÑŒ-I given that she trained her, though a bit less mindless. She's a great brawler and striker and can execute power moves given the right sized opponent. She's a bit more precise about her offense and has garnered a reputation for working hardcore matches and brawling at ringside. As ÑŒ-I's partner, she will often get involved in the match if she feels that she's in danger, though will also often be barked at her partner to stand back and she can handle it on her own. For the most part, Maid of Death is usually the reason the team is able to emerge with a victory. GIMMICK/CHARACTER - A member of Chtlhu's Nephews - Maid of Death hails from the same planet as ÑŒ-I. Uncle J.J. JAY! claims she is an abomination who has taken the form of a human, and whom has been hired to protect ÑŒ-I at all cost. She's always by the Avatar's side and if there's any truth to Uncle's claims that ÑŒ-I is the chosen one, then Maid of Death's fierce loyalty to her might be proof. She's generally a woman of few words and allows ÑŒ-I to take the spotlight for the most part though she always has some biting words given the opportunity to speak. She doesn't wrestle many singles matches, instead only backing up ÑŒ-I and frequently teaming up with her. She is sworn to a vow of secrecy and thus cannot divulge any of ÑŒ-I's past, she must learn of it herself. ENTRANCE - Pending (w/ The Avatar) MOVESET - Judo Throws, Jumping High Knee, Jumping Big Boot, Roundhouse Kick, Body Blows, Headbutts, Suicide Dive, Right Hook, Elbow Smash, Forearm Smash, Uppercut, Spear, Claymore SUBMISSION FINISHERS - Rear Naked Choke REGULAR FINISHERS - Ripcord Clotheslines, Go 2 Sleep THEME MUSIC - Tommy Genesis - A Woman is a God (Temporary, Probably) ​

Kha''rina Halruzh.

Spoiler

Name: Kha’’rina Halruzh.
Nicknames:
- ‘the huntress’
- ‘runaway’
(first given to her derisively by the K1 government, later taken on by Kha’’rina herself)

Billed from: The Failed Republic of Khaled-1.
Height: 1.65m.
Weight: 64kg.
Date of Birth (Earth Equivalent): 29/02/2004.

Wrestling style: submission specialist with high-flying elements.

Back story: quiet and solemn bounty hunter, peripheral contact of the Nephews.

Moveset:
Finishers:
- Octopus stretch (learned from Uncle).
- Sisyphus’ Boulder [leg scissors with endless elbow strikes to the head].
- Double moonsault (last ditch).

Signatures:
- Cattle Mutilation (learned from Michelle).
- [lasso from El Paso].
- [crossface chickenwing].
- [lotus lock]
- Poisonrana.
- Tree of woe with stomps and dropkicks.
- Fire thunder driver.
- Khaled Skies [springboard shotgun dropkick].
- Ocean Deep [rock bottom].

Regular moves:
Submissions.
- Front chancery.
- STF.
- Muta lock (named after the Muta race of the Fourth Quadrant).
- Body scissors.
- Boston crab.
- Single-leg boston crab.
- Gory special.
- Mexican surfboard.
- Heel hook.
- Indian deathlock.
- Half nelson choke.
- Pentagram choke.
- Rear naked choke.

Grapple.
- Hurricanrana.
- DDT.
- Reverse DDT.
- Inverted DDT.
- Invented DDT.
- Piledriver.
- Swinging neckbreaker.
- Code red.

Strikes.
- European uppercuts.
- Forearm strikes.
- Headbutts.
- Chop block.
- Dropkick variants.
- Enziguri.

Aerial.
- Anything springboard (learned from Gerald).
- Frog-splash crossbody.
- Triple shooting star press.

Entrance Music: “Instrumental” by Black Country, New Road.
link!

Pic base: Sofia Boutella.

Human form:

True (half-Lumien form):

Kaiju final form:

Marcus & Micah McClain - archived roster page.
Alphonse the Swiss Sherpa
Prince Cthu'ulh'u
Blazed and Depressed
Sting Ray
Stop Sign #3 (CDW General Manager)
SS_10,000 (A.I. - ship computer).

Deceased Former Members:

So here I am with my thoughts of you

And this world I've left for me

Stoic faces when I think of you

And how I once believed

So now you call me, but you know I won't let you through

I've myself to deceive​

Stop Sign #2 (Rest In Power).
Gator Guy (Rest In Power).
Megalodon Man (Rest In Power).

Spoiler

Tag Team Name: Leviathans Tag Team Members Megalodon Man (7'2, 380 lbs, 33 yrs) Gator Guy (7'4, 400 LBs, 38 yrs) Billed From: Megalodon Man Deep Sea Gator Guy The Swamps Tag Team Entrance Music: Tag Team Finishing Move: Nom Nom (Lariat from both Sides) Additional Moves: Corner Dropkicks Spear Facewash Bearhug Backbreakers Suplexes Headbutts Stomps Tag Team Alignment (Cheer or Boo): Cheer Tag Team Gimmick/Backstory: Who knows if they’re just wearing the greatest costumes on earth or if they’re actually part shark and part alligator. Megalodon Man and Gator Guy claim they were freed by J.J. JAY! after being used on for experiments. Inspired by him, they aspire to become professional wrestlers in the FWA. Accomplishments: 1X 24/7 Champ (Megalodon Man) 1X 24/7 Champ (Gator Guy) Tag Team Base Pics: Gator Guy (Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje) Megalodon Man (Sylvester Stallone)​

Frodo the Ring-Bearing Gnome (Rest In Power).
SS_9,000 (A.I. - ship computer) (Rest In Power).

 

[Oz]

where's caesar?

 

[SupineSnake]

in the moot thread

 

[SupineSnake]

Promo history - volume 1.
"My Spring" (September 20th, 2015).
CWA introductory promo.​

Drip.

The room is dim, and if there had been any features of note inside of it you wouldn’t have been able to see them. As it were, the dull, dark paper peeled back from the walls, the concrete floor worked on building its already-thick layer of restless dust, and a single door – its hinges rusting and its paint faded with age – stood slightly ajar and allowed a prism of light to illuminate a corner hidden from the camera’s gaze. In another corner, next to a tap that ceaselessly dripped into the stained, cracked basin waiting beneath it, a woman sat, knees beneath her chin and her eyes open but vacant.

Drip. Drip.

You would be forgiven for thinking that the woman was asleep, or a waxwork, or dead. She gave off no indication that she inhabited the realm of the living, and the soft motion of her breathing – reminiscent in its softness and tempo to the rhythms of the sea – was obscured by her long, defined legs. She wore a long, racing-green t-shirt, three large gold letters spelling out ‘NOW’ across her chest, as well as old-gold boxing shorts. White, knee length wrestling boots sat unlaced next to her. Her perma-bedhead rested atop a calm, pale face, ends dyed green and the rest an untidy golden crown.

Drip. Drip. Drip.

Droplets of dirty, hard water continued to make their way out of the faucet and into the rusting basin, and – eventually, in a subtle move only noticeable because of the stationary nature of the rest of the scene – the woman blinked, twice, and her head tilted towards the incessant noise’s origin. She was not surprised by it or annoyed by it, but she observed it nonetheless.

Drip. Drip.

“Good morning, my darlings,” she said, not acknowledging the camera or the state of disrepair that her living quarters were in. It was, in the objective sense, the late evening, but all minutes belonged to the morning for Michelle von Horrowitz. “Welcome to my humble abode. It’s nothing if not humble. And humble is my word of the day, tulips.”

Her accent was laced with the Dutch homeland, but Americanisms were quite easy to find. She had been living here for years, in her little hole hidden away in the suburbs of New Orleans, and going home was not at the top of her list of priorities. There was very little for her in Europe now, and even that was too much.

“They, and by they I mean the mamas and the papas and the teachers and the bosses, will always tell you that humility is a virtue. That if you are humble, if you pay your dues and work hard and keep the arrogance inherent to our species in a little box, eventually you will be rewarded. You plug away, you slowly place hand before hand and foot before foot as you climb up the side of some steep hill, and the summit will glide slowly and resolutely into the forefront of your visage. It’s like this here faucet, tulips. The basin will get more and more full, drip by drip, drop by drop, until eventually it will overflow.”

Drip.

“They, the mamas and the papas and the teachers and the bosses, are undoubtedly correct. If you overcome your ego and keep on climbing, you will reach the summit and you will fill the basin. You may even win the respect of your peers, or – if you’re able to earn them a handful of loot – even those who decide your matches and the level of your opportunity. This is the correct way, they will tell you. ’She has deserved this,’ they will say. ‘He’s earned a spot at the top.’ And when you arrive at the summit, and you look down at the other darlings clawing their way up the slopes behind you, you will realize that your knees and your elbows are shot, and your head is dizzy, and the mind that was once resolute has begun to slip. You will stand on the summit and you will know that you are too old to stay there, that you must quickly descend again if you are
to endure.”

Here she paused, removing her eyes from the drip-dropping of the water and – finally – allowed her gaze to fall onto the lens of the camera. Her thin mouth, surrounded on either side by pursed lips drained of color, refusing to allow emotion to escape.

“You see, tulips, last night I had a dream. It was a short dream, but it returned to me three times in the same night, and that can only mean one thing. My dreams are no more important than yours, darlings, but I am more important than you, and so I have been blessed with the skills to remember them and to interpret them. The skeptics will tell you that I am delusional, or a charlatan, or both, but you’ll just have to decide for yourself.”

Another drip. A sinister smile.

“I dreamed of a garden, thick and luxurious grass stretching out like an ocean in all directions, flat and vivid and glistening with the morning’s wetness. So full of promise, so sheer and vast and imbued with life. I walk in the grass, feeling the moisture against my feet, watching the greenest green of the grass appear between my white toes, the sun driving its heat against the softness of the skin on my back. The new day has started there like it is about to here and it is clear and bright and beautiful.

“There is one, small break in the unending sea of green, and before long I find myself standing in it. Around me are flowers, dark red and deep blue and a purple so purple it’s almost black. Angry colors. They are arranged in a circle, and around the circumference runs the rose bushes, the fuming red petals fighting for prominence among the dying leaves and the thick, proud thorns. It is now that I realize that I am standing in the thorns, that my feet are bleeding, that I can’t see the division between the red roses and my blood.”

Drip. Drip.

The girl yawned a huge, overly dramatic yawn, stretching her arms up above her and letting her short finger nails scrape against the mold on the walls. Her eyes involuntarily closed as her mouth opened wide, pearly whites peering around the corners of her lips. With something resembling effort, she pushed herself up, back scraping against the wall until the vertical is reached. Bending over with her hands on her knees, she let out three deep breaths amid the incessant panting, almost overwhelmed by the grim reality that the day is here and her dreams are over.

Another drip.

“I reach where the plants are tallest, and a wall of thin but strangely erect stems stretch around my face. The petals of these flowers are dying, wilting in their final minutes, all droopy-like and pathetic. When I touch them I only want to help them but as it draws level with my eye-line I find that the palm of my hand is all ablaze, and my fingers are charred and crumbling. I’m absorbed by it – the oddness and the glory of it – and before I know it the sorry excuse for a garden is absorbed by it too.”

At last, she felt herself able to support her own weight, and stepped cautiously away from the wall. Opening her eyes and placing her hands behind her back, the room seemed smaller still now that she had grown out of her corner. She stared at the camera, her face still calm and plain, anything that could be said to resemble emotion kept in its proper place, a place that she had succeeded in firmly fastening shut.

“The humble man waits for the basin to be full, one drip at a time. The humble woman waits for the ugly flowers to die before planting the pretty, young ones. All of this can take hours. Weeks. Years. The humble grow old and grey and, as they lie infirm and turgid on their death beds and look up at the reaper’s cold, slender fingers, they wonder why they were never rewarded. Why their meek nature didn’t bring them the joys that were promised. They have not and will not inherit the earth, because bold men and women model and re-model it into the world they wish to inhabit.”

A final drip. Michelle’s bare feet padded against the concrete floor, the light sound echoing in the tiny, dank room. She lifted an arm and placed the fingers on the faucet.

“When I pass out, in the heat of the garden, I can still feel the flames. I can taste them and smell them as I tumble through the darkness of my own subconscious, faces screaming into sight, dissipating as I reach out to touch them. It feels like hours before I am lucid again, but I know – and it is something that only I, with the gifts that I have been given, would know – that only seconds have ticked by whilst I slept. I place my fingers against the soot, on my body, and well I pull it away the blackness comes with it, leaving a white hand-print above my waist.

“The flowers are gone, but there are still flowers. The lame and the old have burnt themselves away into nothingness, but the ones growing through now are bold and hopeful. There are tulips of yellow and green and orange, the colors of youth and promise. The colors of the new Spring. Their stems are thick and strong and without thorns. I lay back among them, the coarse blades of the grass and the soft yellow petals marrying their disparate styles against the soft purity of my skin. This is my doing. The Spring is mine.”

With a delicate twist of her wrist, the faucet is turned and the drips cease. Instead, the water gushed out into the basin, violently splashing out onto the concrete and hissing its roar in the camera’s direction.

 

[SupineSnake]

Promo history - volume 2.
"The Box" (October 18th, 2015).
Michelle von Horrowitz def. Anna Malikova (CWA: Adrenaline Rush).​

The lights weren’t on. You could peer into the darkness until your eyes hurt, but it was thick and strong and not for permeating. But you could feel that there was someone – or something - there, lurking in a corner, quite conscious and breathing delicately against the silence. You could feel this even from the other side of your television screen.

“Good morning, tulips,” she said, in little more than a whisper. It was enough within the confines of solitude to feel commanding, the small voice reaching out into each corner of the modest room and echoing softly around the chamber. “This is quite the morning, too – you join me on the eve of my return. For it is a return, even if the curtains marked with a C, a W, and an A haven’t been drawn back by my hands. Tomorrow I climb through the ropes again, I hear the babble of the crowd again, I smell the sweat seeping into the mat again. For it will be the same: it’s always the same even when it’s different. Even the booking is identical. Keep us away from the mannetjes, through tradition and laziness and maybe a bit of fear, and perhaps we’ll go away.

“I’d like to share with you a story that came to me in my night, some point between Monday and Wednesday. I slept for forty hours and saw many things, some of which I can’t even begin to describe, but most of it vivid and bright as if I were walking through the world under the sun. I stepped out of my body and into others, into the bones of trees and the beds of rivers. I won’t bore you with details. I want to take you with me into a small box, not unlike this one, and a darkness, and all darkness is exactly the same.

“The lid of the box was opened, and into it were poured the two smallest snakes, for they had proved violent and unsociable. Across the room the rest of their kind slithered and crawled amongst each other, soaking up the sun’s light through glass, climbing the manufactured landscape of their pit. In the box there was none of this; only the darkness and the other. For a time they would sit in opposite corners, waiting for the seconds when the lid would be lifted and the day’s meal dropped in by gloved hands. And each time she’d catch a glimpse of the other across their prison, its red eyes gleaming back at her, the occasional hiss.”

Here there was a brief suggestion of activity, the sound of a sigh breaking the rhythm of the woman’s soft breathing and comfortable, rolling accent. The souls of feet rearranged themselves onto a concrete floor, and the mattress of a makeshift bed squeaked underneath the woman’s shifting weight. Footsteps padded into the silence, along with the thin hiss of a metal ring being scratched against a hard wall.

“Until one day, of course, the snake killed the other in silence whilst it slept, and then crept back to its own corner to wait. When the lid was lifted for the food that day, she lashed at the hand, small, delicate teeth slicing through latex and then flesh. The last thing she saw of the box were lifeless red eyes peering back at her, and the reflection of her green ones inside of them, all illuminated by a prism of light allowed in by the hastily dropped lid. And then, I was out of the box, crawling back towards the pit.”

The lights were turned on, and Michelle von Horrowitz stood next to the switch, dressed in black biker shorts and a baggy, shapeless t-shirt. Her hair was riddled with the negligence of sleep, its green ends shrouded in a mass of untamed blonde curls that fell to her shoulders. The room wasn’t much. The walls were mostly uncovered but for a few scraps of wallpaper that had been reluctant to her efforts at peeling, and the concrete floor had a frameless mattress as its only company.

“Tomorrow’s match is full of adorable little elements, tulips. Not least of all is the booking. Anna Malikova, some green Soviet girl, is hired at around the same time as three male competitors and myself. Of course, we are fastened away in a singles match, a women’s match, whilst the big, butch men duke it out in a triple threat. The disconcerting nature of this match-up doesn’t stop there, little ones. Things only get more mind-boggling when you consider my opponent. Last week, Annie wanted to show that us women folk can hang with the boys, and in the next breath was calling for the return of the Women’s title. This is either hypocrisy or ineptitude. Either is contemptible.

“Annie wants to emulate her inspirations, her idols, like Alexis and Ashley Adams. Annie wants to take the company by the throat. Annie yearns for a day when the ominous they come to understand that women play as much of a role as the guys do here. And then, when we’re done recovering from the flagrant hurling of clichés, Annie begs the big boys to give us back our Women’s Title, so we can be content in The Box and play on our own.”

Von Horrowitz let out something between a sigh and a giggle and shook her head, almost in disbelief. She turned away from the entrance of the small room and back towards the bed. Again, she scraped the silver ring on her right index against the wall as she went, the steel whining in friction against the concrete. She took a seat, reaching for her shorts, kneepads, and boots. Setting to work in putting them on, the day seemed to loom ominously ahead of her; the morning in the gym and then ten hours on the bus to Memphis. It was doable, and she could sleep on the Greyhound. Soon enough she’d be taking her life into her hands on planes again, so she had decided to make the most of keeping two feet on the ground.

“So, Annie, I’m afraid you’ll have to take the fight to the powers that be over restoring some kind of Women’s Gold Award all by your lonesome. And then you can fight jobbers flown in from wherever you can find them every week. I want no part of it. I don’t want to turn back the clock on women’s wrestling, and I hope that you’ll put your own misplaced desires over such gold to one side. You’ll have more fun if you follow me into the boys’ pit. All you have to do is put your fear to one side. There’s nothing to it.

“But for now, I’m afraid I have a debut to make. And one only gets a singular chance at a first impression, tulips. I would love to carry you into the men’s division on my shoulders, Annie, but it’s been decided that I must instead drag you into it kicking and screaming. Tonight, I’m afraid, will not be pretty for you, but you should find comfort in the notion that you are playing a small part in something larger. Instead of martyring yourself for some segregated championship, you’ll be propelling me head first into my run. Again sticking primarily in your mother tongue of Soviet-draped Cliché, you say you’re here to walk the walk, not talk the talk. I’m afraid that, at least this week, you will end up doing neither.”

 

[SupineSnake]

Promo history - volume 3.
"The Bird Eats Itself" (November 5th, 2015).
Michelle von Horrowitz def. Johnny Adams (CWA: Adrenaline Rush).​

The smell of communal books was as distinctive in the New Orleans public library as it was anywhere else. The space was large, partitioned by low shelves filled with tomes of varying age, tone, and quality, and Michelle found herself sat in the quietest corner of the square room. Across from her, an elderly homeless man slowly nodded off to sleep with a half-eaten pastrami sandwich sitting unattractively in front of him. A young man paced an aisle, picking up the odd book, flicking through it, and putting it back invariably in a different spot. She could hear the faint din of student chatter away across the room and the buzz of the lights overhead. The library was the only public space that didn’t make her want to kill people.

Her face was framed by a set of borrowed, plastic headphones, the computer in front of her playing the same clip she’d been watching for half an hour. The building would be closed soon, her homeless friend turfed out to find a soft patch of concrete, and this would have to be her last watch. On the screen, Johnny Adams stood morbidly, staring at an old tombstone with a complex combination of emotions on his unremarkable face.

“I have to do this for you,” he was saying. She sighed and sat back in her chair. Why would you film this?

Across the room, the frumpish librarian was circulating, informing the patrons that the doors would be locking shortly. She had been here for hours, and the chair had moulded beneath her to match the shape of her thighs. Her eye lids were heavy and her limbs ached with every slight movement. She hadn’t slept in almost ten hours and the effects were making themselves a nuisance.

“… I’ll make everyone proud of me, I’ll make mum and dad proud of me. And I’ll make damn sure I make you proud of me! …”

Pathetic.

She had watched his match from the previous week twice earlier in the afternoon. He’d done well for a green child who, in truth, was little more than a fan. His top rope C4 was almost beautiful, but you could see it coming from a handful of kilometres away, and his two opponents – who were greener still than Adams himself – had exposed some of his weak points.

But the match was not really what interested her. The action was stuttering, the competitors doing their best to find their feet, and as a result it was a bit of a mess. This promo, on the other hand, was telling. The desperation on the boy’s face was clear, giving way at times to what she thought was guilt or maybe even shame. The latter was close to the shame she owned herself, but his guilt came from a different place. It wasn’t the direct guilt that came from culpability, she thought, but rather the misplaced feelings of ’I should’ve been there’ that could drive a weak man insane. And this Addams boy looked weak.

A hand was placed on her shoulder, and when she looked up it was the frumpish librarian, thin-rimmed spectacles balanced precariously on the end of her nose. She looked familiar. Michelle nodded without saying a word and began to stagger towards the bus station, past the city’s drunks and homeless (or both) who were fighting for benches in Duncan Plaza and towards the bug-ridden hotel bed that waited for her in Knoxville.

***​

On the bus, she slept and she dreamt.

She dreamt of many things, but there were two images that stuck with her as she traversed the boundary into the land of the awake. They were images that she’d seen before, hundreds of times, and she sensed that her unconscious form had wriggled and writhed in the regrettably leather seating of the Greyhound. She didn’t feel for her neighbours. These dreams were always uncomfortable, and so was her chair, so why should her fellow passengers expect better than her?

At first, she dreamt of an elderly woman, pottering around her kitchen. She was dropping knives and forks, smashing plates and glasses with her careless hands. At one point, a pan was knocked from the side and free-fell to the tiles below. It didn’t bounce. When the old woman stood on it, the metal folded and crumbled beneath her feet like it was paper.

She watched from the doorframe, flitting between the state of a child and that of a woman, both being her own at a different stage of life. Her hands felt the familiar wood of the doorframe, the paint chipping, the occasional splinter poking against the delicate skin on her pale, white finger. The room itself was a disaster zone; the aforementioned crockery strewn around the space, uneaten and possibly inedible food garrisoned on the kitchen table, mould and damp climbing the walls around the ugly, European curtains. Outside it was snowing. It was Rotterdam in winter

“What are you staring at?” the woman said, her harsh shrill voice escaping without any movement of lips.

You, she wanted to say. You, you stupid old woman. But she didn’t say anything. She hadn’t back then and she couldn’t now.

The old woman was turning, staring at her with a foolish, painted face. Their tiny, third-floor flat had fallen into this oaf’s control four weeks ago, and she wasn’t coping with the pressures of home ownership. She was the sort of working class woman who felts, who knew, that she’d one day break the glass ceiling and make her way into society’s upper echelons. She’d spent her life preparing for it, speaking English or French or German (much more fancy) rather than her native Dutch, insisting they pray before eating, in possession of knowledge surrounding social etiquette even if the actual performance of such norms was beyond her classless form.

Her name was Aunt Maude and she was terrible. She was Mother’s sister and had agreed to look after Michelle whilst the matriarch took her younger daughter to Berlin for the month. Auditions at the conservatoire, whatever that was. Little Bella had packed her cello and a month’s worth of clothes and off they’d driven, without a thought or a care for the poor soul they had left with this half-mad, half-cruel woman.

Maude had finished her one hundred and eighty degree spin, which seemed to take minutes. And then she lumbered forward, walking straight through Michelle as she always did, into the front room to watch her dramas.

Much later in the journey, she dreamt of the nest again. The white, speckled bird was sitting atop her eggs, eyes pointed at the sun. There were no clouds in the sky. There were no cars on the road. Only the bird.

The scene was motionless for a while until the bird’s neck began to crane around, its long, slender neck forming almost a perfect circle. Its beak scratched at its chest, and when its neck was re-extended a thin stream of blood began to run from the gash. Again, the beak reached down, this time to its stomach, beginning to nip away at a little flesh. This continued, the bird insatiable in its hunger, until the beast’s frame looked like a violent and vivid Jackson Pollock painting. Some of the cuts were deeper than others, but all of them brought a thin drip of blood, splattering down onto the eggs or the branches or the grass below.

Eventually, long after the bird’s lifeless form had succumb to loss of blood and gravity, landing with a thump on the ground below, the eggs began to hatch.

***​

She was sitting in the corner of the ring, the empty seats of the empty stadium lining the scene around her. Both of her hands clutched the middle rope and, as the scene opened, she pulled herself up onto her feet. She was dressed in full ring-gear; black biker shorts with a green stipe on one thigh, black knee-length boots, a green, loose-fitting t-shirt, knee and elbow pads. Her match wasn’t for hours but she was ready, had been ready for days.

“Good morning, tulips,” she began, arms reaching out onto the ring ropes, back leant against the upper turnbuckle.“I am going to assume you watched this little Adrenaline Rush program last week. I am not one for boasting, so there is no real need for me to commemorate my crushing win, the first of many in a long, storied CWA run. I assume you all saw the manner in which little Annie was vanquished. I assume you all saw the beauty and majesty of my four hundred and fifty degree splash. I assume you all saw whose hand was raised when the final bell was rung. These points need no analysis. They are only facts.”

She stepped forward into the middle of the ring, the souls of her boots lightly padding against the mat. The springs of the ring gave slightly with each step, the structure almost squeaking as she moved to centrality. The camera was stationary, the entire ring framed in its picture. When the journey was complete, she placed her hands behind her back and stared into the lens.

“You are only interested in what I will do this week. And you should be. A hundred competitors have come through these curtains, walked down that ramp, and climbed into this ring to opening day victory. It is easy to start well. But they all begin to stammer when they’re expected to perform on a weekly basis. No staying power. These people are worthless, to be considered only for your contempt. Talent will only take you so far, tulips, before training and conditioning will have to pick up the slack.

“Which brings me, rather neatly, to Johnny boy. Mr Adams fought last week also, in a match that I have commented on before. Whilst Annie and I were locked in the box, consigned to a Women’s ‘proving grounds’ match, he and two other green boys fought in a Triple Threat directly afterwards. Many of you will think the manner of his victory impressive, most notably his finishing move. But this was little more than dancing. An elaborate choreography that takes longer to set up than to complete. Johnny boy has sacrificed impact for showmanship – substance for style.”

The woman walked forward, placing her forearms on the top ropes and continuing to stare at the camera, the hypnotism only broken fleetingly for the occasional blink.

“I would like to tell you all a story that came to me in dreams. I want to take you away to the sea. Not the sheer, blue oceans you have here, but the smaller, livelier seas that lap up onto our European beaches in autumn. The foam formed with each wave before being destroyed by the jagged rocks they were thrown into, and two forms rummaged in the sands of the beach. They were at opposing ends of the space, either unknowing or indifferent to the other’s presence. The closer whistled an upbeat working tune as he went, whilst from afar the hushed tones of a hummed funeral dirge permeated the occasional note. When it did the two songs clashed and clanged and then died.

“On the beach, behind the figures, flowers began to grow. Behind the closer figure the suggestion of roses, thorns on the stems beneath stunted, red petals. The further shadow had produced tulips of all colours, yellow and purple and red. The green stems were strong, the leaves large and resistant to the wind. As the shadow stood, it observed the sprouting of the latest bud, before returning to the sand to sow more seeds. But the roses were not taking, and they limped towards adolescence before beginning to wither.

“The closer figure would pace from side to side, stroke a dying flower, pull out strands of his thick hair in frustration. Occasionally, he would stare across the beach, at the tall, strong flowers that his counterpart had brought forward, the line of trunk-like stems getting closer and closer. Ever more frantic, ever more a failure, he forges a small chasm in the sand with his hands and pours the contents of his seed bag into it, screaming at the skies a prayer that reads more as a thinly-veiled threat. But nothing happens. The seeds are content in the ground and their brothers flop forward to die pathetically.

“Eventually, the tulips have grown higher than their planter, a horticultural success with no equal, and more of them appear organically, immaculately. They swallow the far shadow whole and eat up the beach, the malformed roses disappearing entirely in the tangled mass of colours. The sea comes in around them, watering the roots, the flowers climbing out of them like proud, leaping fish yearning for a taste of sun.”

A pause. A smirk.

“If you will suffer it, I will have to make one more assumption. I believe I do not have to explain these images, even to you, Johnny Boy. The symbolism of my dreams are obvious, but they never lie. The ring, Mr Adams, is no place for fans. It was made by greater men than you, and needs the tending of greater ones to remain strong. Your sweat and blood cannot nourish it. Your hopes and dreams cannot sustain it. This little venture, which you have lived out a million times on tacky British furniture, can only end one way. Desire can only bring you to the dance, and your talent is not equal to its rhythm.

“Way up high, beyond even the rafters, your brother has the best view in the house. When we are done, Johnny boy, he will shake his head in shame, and turn away in disbelief.”

 

[SupineSnake]

Promo history - volume 4.
"Burns Right Through" (November 25th, 2015).
Michelle von Horrowitz def. Wolf (CWA: Adrenaline Rush).​

When the drink had arrived, transported from bar to table by a young, well-groomed man wearing a white shirt and one of those ridiculous slender ties, she noted that the ice had been formed into perfect cubes that bobbed like buoys on the amber surface. Over time, the heat of the room and the warmth of the alcohol – a warmth that roared into her chest in song with each sip – had begun to erode the blocks. First the vertices lost their sharpness, and then the edges were gradually contoured. Bit by bit, molecule by molecule, the ice melted away and diluted the rest of the drink. The process was slow and Michelle looked on impatiently as the volume in the room leapt and then lulled and then leapt again around her. Gradual but incontrovertible. Each sip less strong than the last.

Michelle had taken up residence in a booth set away in the corner of the room. Behind her and in front, wooden boards separated her own silence from the excited chatter of her fellow punters. Each dialogue would take its turn to rise into prominence, a few snippets straying into the loner’s ears before fading again, another unrelated exchange taking its place.

Behind her, a young couple were eating noisily, their steel blades slicing through the meat and scraping at the plate below. After a couple of minutes of silence, the man would ask a banal question about the woman’s day, and she’d return a one word answer before returning to her food. In front, two fathers were doing their best to control four rowdy children, all of whom were intent on competing for the prize of most obnoxious sprog. A waitress brought a glass of wine to an old man by the window. Three men in football jerseys raised a toast at the bar. Others pushed beer mats around their tables or sipped lethargically at overpriced drinks or let their food go cold in front of them.

Michelle was reasonably fond of bars and extremely fond of drinks. Her natural impediments – primarily a distinct lack of interest in human interaction – meant that she would never get quite the experience from these places that they intended. But this is where they kept all the alcohol, so Michelle was reasonably fond of bars.

“But you have to go into work tomorrow?” the young man was asking behind her.

“Yes,” his partner replied, bluntly. These people were everywhere. She imagined that their conversations had been more elaborate – or at least more interesting – at an earlier stage in the relationship, but relationships have a short half-life and this was the husk that was left. The bird eats itself and the eggs begin to hatch.

She sipped at her drink, allowing it to work its oesophageal magic, closing her eyes to maximize the sensitivity of her taste buds. It was good whiskey, especially for Michigan. She had been to the state once before, and although Grand Rapids was less dilapidated than Detroit (what wasn’t?) she still felt uneasy here. She yearned for the comfort of the South, an ease bred from familiarity and anonymity. The North was different somehow. Harsher. Less forgiving.

“Chantelle-Marie, would you please just stop eating the salt?” one of the parents was saying, ever-frantic.

“It’s no use. That one’s just wild,” his husband replied. “Maybe if she keeps eating the salt her heart will explode and she’ll finally sit still.”
When her glass was empty (but for the now crumbled remnants of ice) she caught the eye of her waiter with the ludicrous tie, and soon enough the reinforcements arrived.

“How’s the whiskey?” he asked.

“It burns right through,” she replied.

As she poured a mouthful of the amber down her throat she let the tip of her tongue rest upon a cube, its cold, smooth texture contrasting and complementing the music of the whiskey. Outside the moon was ascending and occasional groups lumbered unsmiling in front of the windows, pulling their jackets tightly around themselves to shield from the cold. She wondered if they knew the drabness of their own city, the source of their discontent. Occasionally someone would laugh or shout out in excitement and the effect was jarring, even startling.

“Are you who I think you are?” a meek voice said. Michelle dragged her eyes from the window and placed her glass down on the table. In front of her stood a young woman – perhaps twenty – clutching the straps of her rucksack. She stood close to the ground and was dangerously slender. Her hair had been cut short and slicked back, a quiff giving her two much-needed additional inches, and a pair of circular glasses were fixed on her face.

“Who do you think I am?” Michelle replied.

“You’re Michelle,” the girl replied, almost giddy with excitement. She wore a pair of black jeans and a white Jonathan McGinnis t-shirt. The t-shirt looked homemade. “Michelle von Horrowitz!”

“Indeed,” she said. Michelle opened her mouth to continue but didn’t know where the natural extension of this was, so she stopped short and closed her mouth.

“Oh my goodness,” the girl said. Staring around at the others in the bar. She greeted the room’s apathy with incredulity. Why weren’t they fawning, too? “I’m such a massive fan. Of the CWA and of you especially, of course. Please, please –“ as she pleaded she whipped her bag around her torso and began to root through its main compartment. “Would you sign this for me? I already have Jonathan McGinnis… Snowmantashi… Craig Owens… a few others. I would love to add yours to my collection.”

The girl handed over a notepad. The cover had an image of a yellow crocodile on a blue background. Inside were frantic notes on every imaginable topic – recipes, diary entries, calculations, formulae. Michelle took the book from her and realised she didn’t have a pen. Or a signature.

“So, do you think they are going to bring the Women’s title back?” the girl asked, desperate for the conversation to be prolonged.

“I hope not,” Michelle answered. She was trying not to sound blunt but she was out of practice. “I don’t have a pen.”

“But you’re going to enter the Wrestle Royal, right?” the girl continued, returning into her bag for something to write with. Michelle just shrugged. She didn’t know anything about the Wrestle Royal, other than that it was happening soon and would involve thirty competitors. She didn’t know the process. She didn’t know the prize. She didn’t need to know. Either in the fast lane or the slow, her destination remained the same.

“You were so good against Johnny Adams last week,” the girl continued, picking up the conversational slack. A perma-smile was plastered on her youthful, pale face. “I was really worried about you, going against a man and all. Who do you have this week?”

“Wolf,” Michelle responded blankly, taking a pen out of the girl’s hands and beginning to scratch ‘MVH’ onto an empty page of the notepad. When she looked up to return the book, the girl’s face had changed.

All remaining colour had been drained, the size of her eyes and the shape of her mouth depicting the sort of desperation and misery usually reserved for recently-neutered dogs.

“Wolf?!” she replied. She hadn’t taken her book back and Michelle was left holding it out rather pathetically. “But he’s… he’s an animal! What are you going to do?”

“I’m going to wrestle him,” Michelle replied.

“But surely you need some strategy?”

“That is my strategy,” Michelle replied, with some sense of premature triumph. “I’m going to wrestle him.”

***​

Michelle von Horrowitz sat in the corner of the ring, the empty stadium rising up around her and the expectant mat below her. Her head rested against the second turnbuckle, her legs stretched out in front of her, one calf propped up atop a shin. She had her arms wrapped around the bottom rope, the coarse material scratching softly against her palms. She had donned her ring gear; baggy green t-shirt, black biker shorts, knee and elbow pads, long, unlaced boots. All that she needed now was an opponent. And an audience.

“The scene opens and all at once it’s majestic. Vast. Impenetrable. Away in the distance stars dance heel and toe. In the forefront, taking up perhaps a third of the image, a barren, dying planet looms ominously. Its rotation reveals a patchwork of brown rock and fire, burning vividly and violent against the sheer black of space. This is the scene that waited in my dreams. This is the scene I wish to tell you about now, tulips.”

The camera had begun to move towards the woman, steadily and slowly. As she concluded her opening gambit, the camera had traversed perhaps half a metre, the speaker still positioned across the ring. She continued, staring straight ahead, straight past the camera.

“Tomorrow I face a FWA Hall of Famer. Tomorrow I face Mr ’Gold and Glory’. Tomorrow I face the Beast, Wolf. Over two metres tall, almost a hundred and thirty kilograms. Calves the size of tree trunks, arms the size of my body. He cuts an impressive figure, without a doubt, and his history in the ring is both well-documented and highly regarded. A hardcore legend, if you’ll excuse the overused terminology, and a brawler. A loner, fixed in place. Solitary and impenetrable.

“It must have been hard for the Big Bad Wolf to finally jump ship, tulips. A hero in his own habitat, he’s stumbled his way through the opening weeks of his CWA career. A few wins, a few losses. The very definition of mediocrity. Consistency is king in this business and the Wolf-man has been consistently inconsistent. One big win at the pay-per-view does not alter the fact that our legend has already been beaten twice. Shoulders down for a three count, twice. You shall have to tell me what that feels like some time, Mr Wolf.”

We had traversed maybe a third of the ring, and it had become clear that the woman’s eyes were closed. Her head was tilted back slightly, allowing the harsh, bright lights of the arena to shine down upon her pale skin.

“The planet continues to spin against its black canvas as, from beneath my visage, a small meteor appears, tumbling and turning on its direct path towards the surface. Its speed is such that it scratches the sky. I watch it as it gathers speed, hurtling through the darkness in silence. As it hits the atmosphere it somewhat crumbles, chunks of rock crumbling away and diverted this way and that. But for the most part it remains, faster and hotter than ever, scorching the sky red as it prepares to land.

“And when it does it burns right through. It hits the surface and we see before we hear. Dirt and rock and whatever else are thrown up around the point of impact, and then we get the thud, the crash, and the roar of uplifted earth. The planet’s wildfires envelope the crater before tumbling into it, biting away at the body’s wounds. A few moments later, the meteor reappears out of the other side, hurtling onwards towards its next target. The tunnel left rumbles and moans with the pressure. When the holes at either side begin to expand, huge bodies of rock breaking off into the atmosphere surrounding it, it looks to be devouring itself, spawning ten thousand new meteors to spew at ten thousand far-flung planets.”

The camera crawled over the CWA logo in the centre of the ring as the woman paused. She allowed her head to fall forward, away from the turnbuckle, but her eyes remained fixed firmly shut. She used her left hand to muss up her hair, which sat lop-sided towards her left.

“You see, Mr Wolf may be the number one contender for the High Voltage Championship. He may have ripped through the competition in some other small pond away across the horizon. You may have won a six-person circus at last month’s pay-per-view. You may be big and you may be strong. But you are still a lumbering, feeble-minded, weak-willed individual who has been floundering for months in an angry, semi-coherent mediocrity. You’re too well regarded, your history too storied for you to open the show, but – and how can I say this tactfully – nobody cares enough about Wolf to put you in the main event. And so you just go on floating, because you can’t swim but you refuse to sink.

“You see, my little tulips, the Big Bad has blown any momentum he may once have had with just a pair of lacklustre performances. He can win as many clusterfucks as he likes, he will still be the man who was pinned twice in consecutive weeks. To me, anyway. I have spoken to some who seem to hold the Wolf-man in reverence. He’s big, they say. He’s strong. But he is a man and he is fallible.

“Some of you may wonder what authority I have to speak like this. Two wins, you might dare to say, and already I speak like a champion. And you would be right to say this, tulips. My crushing victories against little, darling Annie and sweet, green Johnny are only worthwhile as statements of intent. Tomorrow, with Wolf in my sights, these statements become actions, intentions become reality. And the night’s sky runs red as the Wolf howls at the moon in pain.”

The camera slowed to a halt around a metre from Michelle’s face, and it was here that she finally decided to open her eyes. They glistened deviously beneath the unnatural blue arena lights as she teased a smile.

 

[SupineSnake]

Promo history - volume 5.
"Interview" (December 5th, 2015).
Michelle von Horrowitz wins the Wrestle Royale.
Harrison Wake def. Michelle von Horrowitz, Elijah Edwards ** [Triple Threat Match, CWA High Voltage Championship] (CWA: Wrestle Royale). ​

Everything about her surroundings had Michelle von Horrowitz experiencing pangs of discomfort. First, there was the lighting, unnaturally bright and producing enough heat to force the occasional bead of sweat through her pores. Secondly, there was the room itself, dressed up neatly like somebody was trying to rent it out, with no peeling wallpaper and even a window. The camera was different, too; more imposing, staring at her with its large, round eye in deep expectation. And finally there were all these people. Two men behind the camera - one staring at its small, square screen whilst the other held a comically large boom - and a woman sitting next to her, flipping idly through a pad of notes and avoiding eye contact in what seemed a deliberate fashion.

“You ready?” the man behind the camera asked. The woman placed her notes out of the lens’ sight, fixed on a smile, and nodded in lieu of a starter’s pistol. “And… action!”

“Good evening and welcome to CWA.com’s build-up coverage of one of the most anticipated events of the year, the Wrestle Royale. I’m Michelle Kelly, and I’m joined now by the undefeated Michelle von Horrowitz. Three matches, three wins, but zero interviews, until now. Michelle, it’s wonderful of you to join us.”

There was an uncomfortable pause, during which von Horrowitz shuffled awkwardly in her chair. She looked at the camera, and then to her interviewer, and then back at the camera. She said nothing. The uneasy effect was only half-deliberate; the wrestler didn’t really know whether a response was expected.

“Erm, so, it’s been a few weeks since your debut victory against Anna Malikova,” Kelly pushed on, keeping her gaze on her continually shuffling guest. “And since then you’ve amassed a small collection of scalps, first seeing off Johnny Adams and then FWA Hall of Famer Wolf. But no interviews. What has caused you to break your silence now?”

“Well,” the wrestler started, still confused as to whether her attention should be directed towards the interviewer or the camera. She took the average and stared off idly towards the floor. “They told me I couldn’t keep talking into a camera every week, so here I am.”

“I see,” the Interviewer replied, momentarily flustered. She stared once at the man behind the camera, who shrugged, and then at the gormless soul holding the boom. He didn’t offer a response. “In just two days you return to the ring in a Triple Threat match, the winner of which will go on to face the High Voltage Champion, whoever that may be after the pay-per-view. A Triple Threat match will place you out of your comfort zone. How have you been preparing for the new challenge?”

“I’ve been in Triple Threat matches before,” Michelle said, a little bluntly. This isn’t going well, she thought to herself, but what were they expecting? She had told them this would happen, whether she desired the event to be awkward or not.

She recognised the man behind the camera. He’d spoken to her after each of her victories, offering timid congratulations as she escaped from the arena and from the mindless troglodytes lining the bleachers. She’d seen him again shortly after arriving in Detroit, whilst she drank in the corner of a dive bar and stared at the passing traffic. The cars in Detroit were as tainted and worn down as the people. It was a disgusting city but not one without charm.

“Michelle?” he’d said to her as she swirled the amber liquid around in her glass. “It’s me, Jasper. We work together.”

The wrestler had nodded. She had thought she’d smiled, too, but looking back she couldn’t be sure either way. The cameraman was there with some more of her colleagues, he’d said. They’d got a list of bars from the concierge at their hotel, he’d said. She was welcome to join them, he’d said. When Michelle had politely declined he’d looked at her as if she’d just killed his dog with a shovel. People didn’t understand that loneliness wasn’t always to be avoided. To some it was meant to be embraced. Most are so desperate to fill their life with the inane chatter of others that they refuse to even consider those that shun it.

It had always been like this, though. When the boys and girls in Holland had asked her whether she fancied the pubs or the coffee shops she’d chosen neither. She declined offers to walk along the canals with acquaintances even if she liked the idea, deciding instead to go alone. She’d refused to play with her sister’s new toys so often that their mother had eventually bought the younger girl her cello, ’something you can enjoy without relying on Michelle’s company’. And now Belle was playing with orchestras in Berlin and Paris and Madrid. Everything she had she owed to Michelle’s sullen insistence on loneliness.

“Let’s try a different avenue,” Michelle Kelly continued, persistent as ever. “As well as your Triple Threat match, Detroit will be the setting of the Wrestle Royale contest, where thirty competitors will climb into the ring to vie for a world title shot. First, will we see Michelle von Horrowitz amongst the thirty? And if so, what’s your strategy? Most of the field will have the size and power advantage over you, two important attributes in an over-the-top match like this. And please, Michelle, more than a sentence in response. You owe the viewers that much.”

The wrestler raised an eyebrow, looking sideways-on at her counterpart. She wasn’t sure whether she enjoyed her directness. It was bred from a mistrust of anyone who took their job as seriously as she did, especially when their job wasn’t as serious as hers to begin with.

“The Wrestle Royale match will indeed be graced by my presence, tulip,” she began, looking properly at Kelly for the first time. She was beautiful in the most conventional of senses, refusing to stray even an inch from society’s picture of what a woman should be. “It would be ludicrous of me to pass up such an opportunity. I would be lying if I claimed that the World Heavyweight Championship wasn’t my ultimate goal. Anyone in the locker room who says otherwise is a charlatan. Size and power will only get you so far though, darling. Just look at the Big Bad Wolf, quivering in pain after a DDT and a 450 splash last week on Adrenaline Rush.

“But that is different to a battle royal, you will say. Technical skill and speed can win out in a one-on-one wrestling match, but perhaps not in an over-the-top contest. But strength and mass are no guarantees of victory, either. In fact, the biggest man paints the biggest target on his chest, and my fellow minnows will be clamouring over each other to shoot down a prize buck. I maintain that the key in any type of match is intellect. And I think you’d agree, Michelle, intellect is a rare trait to find in our industry.

“But as for strategy? The same as always, tulip. Take them as they come, one-by-one.”

“Take them as they come?” Kelly replied, seemingly smelling blood and beginning to circle. “For someone who claims ownership of great intelligence that doesn’t seem the most well thought out strategy.”

“You’re right, darling,” von Horrowitz answered, without shame. And then, with unintentional candour; “I’ve had a lot on my mind this week.”

And that much was certainly true. In a good week, Michelle’s nights would stretch out until they met each other in middle of the day, and she’d amass close to a hundred and twenty hours of shut eye. This week she’d had maybe a tenth of that, and it was beginning to show. The cubes of ice in her glasses clinked ferociously with the shaking of her sleep deprived hands. The tar from many frantically smoked cigarettes clogged in her arteries. The weight of bastard consciousness hung heavily on her eyes.

It was not for want of trying, either. It was down to the dreams. Not the good dreams that placed her in the souls of beings thousands of miles away or lost in leagues of harsh, drastic landscapes. These were the bad dreams. Dreams of her childhood, either direct or analogous, that had her waking suddenly at half-hour intervals. Many would call them nightmares, but she tried not to. All offerings of the night are gifts, no matter how painful, and she wasn’t usually one to flee from them so pathetically.

It had primarily been the bird that eats itself, played over and over again on a sadistic loop. The branches of the tree bled with it, dripping down onto the vivid grass below and hanging there like violent dew drops. Without fail, the bird would eventually flop over, out of its nest and into a sorry heap on the floor beneath. And always, with a sense of great horror and something close to sorrow, the eggs would begin to hatch, and she’d wake before she could observe what had been left behind.

Maude was prominent, also, as she always was. Her stupid, fat aunt stomping around in the kitchen with her stupid, fat face, crushing and crunching crockery beneath her stupid, fat feet. She’d watch her young self watching this woman, hating this woman, seething with a yet unnamed rage that she’d only come to understand in adulthood. Maude often visited her in the night, and it was usually in the same despondent guise, going about her messy business with complete disregard for any observers. But sometimes other events would creep amongst these dreams, usually at times when Michelle’s fears and anxieties were beginning to build. And that was the case this week, which was lamentable but, of course, explainable. It was perhaps the biggest week of her professional career.

It had begun to affect her on the bus ride across from Grand Rapids, where she’d walked in the night through their deserted family home. She pushed open each door and observed the stillness within. Every sense was hyperactive. She could see the dust building upon the surfaces; smell the mildew building in the corners of windows; almost hear the day turn into night and then back into day. Every room but one. She’d been into the small box that Aunt Maude had made her home a few times since The Night It Happened, but soon enough it had lost its thrill. Now the bedroom seemed to contain only dread and doom. She would walk right up to it each time the night placed her in this scene, reaching out for the brass door handle which hummed and then screamed as it waited for her. And then she’d awoken, thrashing about in her chair and causing quite the scene. Her fellow travellers stared at her in something resembling indifference. It was the Greyhound, after all, and they were quite used to it.

The next night, though, as the moon crept up above Detroit and cast its white, otherworldly light on a city in ruin, the dream she feared most had come back to her again. The door – Maude’s door – was pushed open by a hand that didn’t quite seem her own. It creaked on its hinges, dust popping upwards from the carpeting as new oxygen surged in to replace the stale air. Her Aunt lay in a mound on top of her bedding, face pale even for a von Horrowitz, eyes staring up at the light fixture fastened to the ceiling. Spittle bubbled in the corners of her mouths. She blinked, and her subconscious removed her two yards from her previous perch, Michelle now finding herself staring over the shoulder of herself at the very age that she was on The Night It Happened. And then again, so that she could observe her teenage self observing the child. And again and again, a human Russian Doll unravelling itself, compounding the fact that this event had played on her mind at each and every stage of her life.

She’d awoken in a Detroit hostel with her forearm pressed against the throat of a poor, unsuspecting British boy who occupied the bed opposite. Fear flashed and somersaulted in his eyes, and it had taken her perhaps thirty seconds to gain control of herself and the situation, retreating first across the room and then out of it. Even the night wasn’t safe for her now. A place she’d seen as a refuge had taken the first opportunity to turf her out.

Instead, she had sat on the bank of a large hill, staring at Ford Field. She’d run her hands over the long grass that the city couldn’t afford to mow and regard smashed windows that the city couldn’t afford to replace. The night was cold and she’d wrapped her coat around her, waiting for the morrow, when Michelle Kelly would sit beside her with her notepad and her boom. She smoked cigarette after cigarette, watching the thick plumes of smoke escape from her lungs and tumble upwards towards the stars. It would’ve almost been beautiful, if it wasn’t so fucking cold.

“Um, Michelle?” Kelly was saying, pushing a finger into the wrestler’s shoulder to snap her out of a self-inflicted daze. “Are you still with us?”

“It would appear so,” von Horrowitz answered, shuffling in her chair in a failed attempt regain something close to comfort. “I’m afraid I lost myself, tulip. Where were we?”

“We were discussing strategy for the Wrestle Royale.”

“Ah, yes!” the wrestler replied, almost in triumph. “The Wrestle Royale. No strategy necessary, really. We can all pick an attribute that we believe to be most important in over-the-top matches. Some will say the power to throw another out of the ring gives you the edge. Others, that the speed to evade a larger opponent will keep you alive. Some will pluck for brains, others for technique, and yet more will tell you that self-preservation is the key. Of course, all of these things are helpful in their own way, but it is equally true that one can possess each of them in bucket-loads and still be dumped out of the ring within a minute. Would you like to know the one, fool-proof strategy or the Wrestle Royale match?”

A slight pause, for effect.

“Luck, of course. If one is lucky, this match is his. Or, of course, hers. This is the biggest clusterfuck available in the CWA. We could re-run this match every night for a month and get a different winner each and every time. If the Lady smiles on me kindly, you can be sure that I’ll seize the opportunity with both hands, but it doesn’t really matter either way. All roads lead to Rome, as they say, and my destination is fixed on the gold trinket around Mr McGinnis’s waist. It could take a month or it could take a year; it makes no matter to me. The cream rises to the top, my darling tulips.”

“Another match in which luck is sure to count towards the result,” Kelly continued, concerned that she’d exhausted the Royale and pressing on to a new thread. “Is your triple threat match, the winner of which will go on to challenge for the High Voltage Championship. One of your opponents, Elijah Edwards, debuted on the very same night as you, whilst Harrison has stalked these halls for weeks. Do you agree with some who are saying that Wake’s experience gives him something of an edge?”

“Some? Who is this ominous some?” von Horrowitz replied, almost beginning to enjoy herself. “Experience, my darling Michelle, is yet another buzz word, spouted out by a unique combination of has-beens and wannabes drowning in the ineptitude of their own punditry. Wake has been in this specific organisation for a handful of weeks longer than me, it’s true, but I have waltzed in the rings of Europe and Japan and From Sea To Shining Sea. Whilst he was scraping up roadkill for his momma’s dinner I was lifting gold across the pacific. The only experience that this man holds over me is that of losing. The same goes for ‘Lijah, too. I know that they can be beaten, and they can only hope the same is true for me.”

“Do you worry,” Kelly put in, chin placed delicately between a finger and thumb; her best affectation of thought. “That with this attitude towards your opponents, a Triple Threat could quickly mature into a handicap match?”

Michelle indulged in a smirk. She was used to handicap matches. Her entire childhood had been one.

“Worry is for people like Edwards and Wake,” she replied, turning her attention back toward the camera. “Tough Guy Harrison has shown his weaknesses to the world and to me. He was the first eliminated in the mess of a match that elevated the Big Bad Wolf into new realms of delusion. He looked on flaccidly whilst El Pecado drove a flag in the ground in Lexington. A six-man tag loss to the Vanity Brigade. Harrison has a long history of watching on whilst other people win matches, which is almost fortunate. Because as much as I dislike Harrison Wake as a monotonic vacuum of a primate – and I do so very much dislike him – it cannot compare to the feelings of blood-boiling rage that I feel every time Elijah Edwards steps through those ropes.

“Elijah Edwards is a man blinded by hypocrisy, floundering in the torrid guidance dished out to him by his manipulative little pipsqueak of a manager. Rollings is a cretinous leech driven by money, and a man like that is to be neither trusted nor admired. Edwards’ association with this creature only highlights the magnitude of his double standards. He paints a mundane picture of himself as a respectful, honourable soul. A general solid guy. Yet he buys into the spin of a squalid little runt like Rollings, eyes wide and starry at the merest suggestion of accolades, wealth, and power. Edwards is full of the ugliest of lusts, and unintentional vanity is just as bad as deliberate.

“Double E, as we are expected to call this odious little man, has been equally as uninspiring as Tough Guy Harrison in his short tenure here. A pair of wins, one in a thrown together six-man and the other thanks to a dubious finish. A loss to my old friend Johnny Adams, a green boy that I myself pushed aside as if he were a feather in the wind. ‘Lijah has plodded his way through the month, up and down but never too far either way. He speaks of prestige and titles but he dreams of the coin. I see it in his manager’s ugly black eyes.”

Von Horrowitz paused momentarily, and the camera crept inwards along with the interviewer. Michelle Kelly had fallen silent, sensing the natural build to the climax.

“But Tough Guy Harrison and Double E are two more names that could be replaced by any others, eventually just statistics lining the foundations of my reputation. In a year’s time, your two names will be appendices to my ascendency, alongside the twenty seven others I outlast in the Wrestle Royale match. But that is for the future, and I do like to keep at least one foot in the present, tulips. And so, I will endeavour to enjoy the inevitable warm-up victory, boys, and I don’t doubt for a minute I will enjoy pinning the one so unfortunately known as Double E. And it will be you, ‘Lijah, don’t doubt it. So when you’re staring at the lights on the arena ceiling, counting along one-two-three with the referee, I want you to put your ambitions of championship gold to one side. The shadow I’m casting needs occupying for the time-being.”

 

[SupineSnake]

Promo history - volume 6.
"Saviour" (December 21st, 2015).
Michelle von Horrowitz def. Jonathan McGinnis (CWA: Adrenaline Rush).​

As she gripped the arms of the seats tightly, feeling the edges of her fingernails permeate the fabric, she wondered to herself; why is this a thing? As the stale, unventilated air filled her nostrils, occupying her lungs with a stubborn insistence, she asked herself; why is this a thing? The baby three rows in front of her gave the first signs of its intentions, and they were loud. The digitalised sounds of a mobile gaming device clicking into life resonated from a row back. No, three mobile gaming devices. The feet of the little boy directly behind her began to prod into her spine, as if trying to count individual vertebrae. And, as the flight attendants came forth into the aisles to perform their piece, and the ‘fasten seat-belts’ light flicked into action with a familiar sound, and the pilot’s voice announced its presence with a southern drawl and a prognosis of it’s gonna be a windy one, she openly murmured the words; why is this a thing?

Of course, it shouldn’t be thing. It’s a metal box, suspended high in the air by a force all-to-easily explained away in the name of science, whizzing around the globe from an exact, pinpoint location towards an exact, pinpoint location. There was no reason for it to work, but she was willing to accept that it did at face value. But beyond that, she didn’t understand why something so majestic and so precise was carried out in a way as if to make it seem both mundane and suffocating. Knees pinned mercilessly beneath her chin, sucking at someone else’s air, eyes fixed on the grey, endless runway through the miniscule, plastic window, Michelle von Horrowitz was filled with nothing but dread for the two hour flight that lay ahead of her.

It was nobody’s fault but her own. By the time she’d left the arena on the night of the Royale, she’d not slept for almost four days, and even that had been a few hours of forced and stuttering unrest. As her arm had been raised in victory and she surveyed the somewhat disappointed, partially confused faces of her adoring public, she had decided upon one thing; drink until you sleep. It had taken almost twenty hours, but she’d managed it. After checking into a cheap hotel in the city centre, she’d occupied a series of bars within a hundred metre radius. And then she’d slept, for almost ten hours before the night terrors came again. But that almost ten hours had been bliss, and so she’d spent breakfast picking the prior day’s best bar before heading towards it. Five days of this can wear on a person.

In the end, she’d left it too late to travel from Detroit to Albany by bus and still manage to study McGinnis’ tape, cut a promo, and squeeze a few hours in at the gym. A flight it had to be, and all the joys that came with that; the arduous journey to the ‘just outside the city’ spot that airports invariably occupy, the interactions with the port’s employees who were so far gone in their contempt for the repetition of their jobs that they utterly resented the fact that you needed to travel somewhere, and then the journey itself. The journey itself was the worst bit, and that was still to come.

The pilot had made his announcements and the supposedly reassuring safety precautions relayed, clearing the way for the engine to begin its roar. Before long, the plane was sliding forward down the runway, a constant and sluggish pace adhered to whilst the final checks were made. The tarmac through the window was only creeping away beneath them, but Michelle found it dizzying. She closed her eyes and placed her head against the cushion, just in time for the vehicle to begin accelerating. Her breathing sounded uneven, unnaturally loud, and she became hyper-aware of the force with which she was locking her eyes shut. The engine roared louder still, the whole vestibule shaking under the pressure of its motion. And then the floor disappeared from beneath her, and her stomach endeavoured all of a sudden to migrate upwards.

She opened her eyes to see the city beneath her, shrinking into obscurity as they climbed towards the blue. The ascension was sheer and unnerving. She felt as if she were standing atop a ladder, her fingers a few inches from the clouds, reaching a little too fast and a little too early to feel the wisps against her skin. The earth began to stretch out before her and she felt, if only for a moment, that they were flying with enough speed such that she should see its curvature at any moment. And then they hit the clouds, and plunged onwards.

“Are you okay, my dear?” he asked, he being the man sat two seats down. The place between them was empty, and he peered through a furrowed brow at his counterpart by the window. She shuffled uneasily and pulled her coat around her.

“Fine, thanks,” she said, pushing the fringes of her hood over her eyes. She attempted to flatten her hands, giving the arms of her chair some much needed respite. “I’ll be alright; it’s only a short flight.”

“You should have one of these,” he said, offering her a tube of what looked like mints, individually wrapped within a green cylinder. She looked at the man’s face; wearing its age plainly as age had worn him, pockmarked and freckled and ridged deeply with wrinkles. Some white hair stubbornly clung on around his ears and on his neck, and he was obviously quite proud of it. “I got them on prescription from England, for some acute angina problems I was having back then. Really quite the ticket, as they say in London. Or, at least, as they should say in London.”

The man then smiled, revealing a mouthful of chipped, yellowing teeth.

“Truth be told,” he said, checking around him for any snooping attendants. “I’m higher than the rest of you by a good few thousand feet.”

Michelle couldn’t help but return the grin. She took one of granddad’s sweeties and carefully unwrapped it, popping the capsule into her mouth and forcing a swallow.

“There really isn’t anything to worry about,” he said, sitting back in his chair and staring forward at the upcoming in-flight entertainment. “I’m sure you’ll agree, in roughly five to eight minutes.”

In roughly five to eight minutes, she agreed. The opening scenes of ‘Paul Blart 3: Blart Harder’ were playing on the shared screen that hung a few rows forward, flight attendants walked in slow motion down the aisles of the plane, other travellers seemed to be having silent conversations that she couldn’t decipher. Michelle caught her reflection in the small square of plastic that substituted as a window. She was smiling, apparently.

“You should try and get some sleep,” the man was saying without looking over (or moving his lips). “You’ll wake up in Albany, most probably.”

“Can’t sleep,” von Horrowitz replied, waving him away haphazardly with the back of a hand. “Shouldn’t sleep.”

“As you will,” he said. One of the attendants had stopped next to him and was busy pouring a small bottle of clear liquid into a plastic cup. Michelle thought she caught the old man staring into the young boy’s eyes, a playfulness evident within the rich, deep blues of his irises, transfixed by either his youth or his beauty. The boy moved on to the next row, disappearing as quickly as he’d arrived. “But, if you don’t mind me saying, I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone in quite so much need of sleep as you right now.”

A long period of silence seemed to follow, but the linearity of time is often broken by Kevin James movies. And then, Michelle said, rather suddenly; “Sometimes, when the plane is taking off, I worry that it’s try to climb too high too quickly and it’ll just snap in two.”

“You worry too much,” the old man said. “And it would most likely be far more than two pieces.”
Michelle didn’t appreciate his sense of humour.

“The bags under your eyes are heavier than my luggage,” he continued, regarding her as a doctor might a patient before diagnosis. “And you’re whiter than Trump. You really should try and get some sleep.”

“It wouldn’t be peaceful,” Michelle said, staring down at the bleak clouds that masked their velocity.

“Ah, a dreamer?” he replied. “I have another pill for that back at home.”

Another elongated period of silence followed, which was eventually broken by the announcement of upcoming turbulence. As the vehicle punctured the air-pockets it skidded and bumped over nothing in particular, the whole metallic tube creaking and moaning under the strain. An unfamiliar feeling housed itself in the pit of Michelle’s stomach. She felt - cocooned as they were in their own little corner of sky, higher than any point on earth but far below the stars - as if she was slightly abstracted from it all. The planet below seemed like someone else’s problem. The temporary haven-in-the-clouds was a world of its own. Its population was listed on the flight manifest. Its leaders wore blue dresses or ties and greeted their subjects with safety precautions.

It was this alien feeling, this sudden bout of otherness, that placated Michelle to the point where talking didn’t seem quite as arduous and unnecessary as in everyday life. With a sigh at her own insistent conventionalism, she began.

“It’s the same scenes each time. Snippets from my childhood, memories of family members, that sort of thing. But then there’s one little montage that crops up more often than all the others. Sometimes three or four times in a night. There’s a large tree with thick, gnarled branches and no leaves, and beneath it a sea of grass that extends all the way to the horizon. And on the tree there’s a nest, and a large white bird with brown speckles that stares at me for a long time. An unnaturally long time. When it next does anything it’s pecking at itself, scratching and gnawing at its own body, removing chunks of its flesh and feathers until the blood is dripping thick and fast. Eventually, of course, it dies, and falls out of the tree, leaving two large white eggs in its nest. The sky gets bluer and the grass gets greener and the blood gets redder, and then they start to hatch.”

The two sat quietly for a while, the old man with his chin between index and thumb, staring listlessly at the ceiling of the vestibule.

“Do you know what it means?” he asked. Michelle nodded. “Who’s the bird?”

“The bird is lots of people,” she answered with a shrug. “The bird is me. This bird is my mother. The bird is my aunt.”

The man nodded and turned away from her, staring back at the screen. He folded one leg beneath the other and exhaled heavily.

“This movie is terrible.”

***​

Michelle von Horrowitz stood, back propped up against a plain, white wall, arms folded across the baggy, creased t-shirt that covered her torso. Her gaze seemed to be directed beyond the camera. The heel of her right boot tapped rhythmically against the wall behind her, a wall that had as its only feature a large flat-screen television showing footage from last week’s pay-per-view. We join the Royale as it’s gaining momentum, the clock counting down to the entrance of number thirteen.

“We all wait, holding our breath, inching forward in our seats, for something to happen. Some people will wait for years, others for three short weeks.”

The screen showing the match was muted, but Michelle herself appeared at the top of the ramp and began to walk down towards the carnage in the ring. She checked the tape on her wrists, staring intently at the sea of humanity before her. Little did they know. Little did she know.

“I realise it’s been a while since I’ve treated you to one of my night-time narratives, my dear tulips, and so I wish to regale you with a tale that came to me for the first time yesterday evening before we talk about my riotous, thrill-a-minute victory. Our scene opens in a lounge. An entirely ordinary, suburban, Americana lounge; a little tarnished by age but well-managed and well-kept. Lying on the ordinary couch of this ordinary lounge is a young woman – perhaps thirty or forty years old – who would herself be considered quite ordinary, if it wasn’t for the fact that she was dead.

“Beneath her, clamouring for attention that just isn’t going to come, is a gaggle of fur-balls who are themselves extraordinary in their diversity and their quantity. Thirty – no, thirty one, even – each of which are tackling each other, burying their head into another’s sternum and attempting to barrel roll them away from the prize. Slapping with weak paws and nipping with brittle, malformed teeth, they eventually converge into little more than a frantic mass, tumbling and pulsating and folding in on itself. Except for one; the smallest and the whitest, sat on its haunches a few metres from the melee, its tail raised high in the air behind it and gently swaying with a peculiar brand of excitement.”

Here she paused, choreographed to coincide with a spike in the action. Michelle was hurled over the top rope by Eddie von Gunner, only to hold on for dear life as the countdown clock towards Gabrielle’s entrance begins. She sighs and continues.

“Obviously, before long, the disaster-zone is cleared. All of the little runts have expended themselves, more through their own giddy excitement and rampant but unfulfilled blood lust than anything else. When the dust settles and the last combatant gives up the fight, our hero stands, elegantly padding her way through the carnage towards the trophy. Clambering up onto the couch, she bears her teeth and claws, scratching the first scrap of meat away from the young woman’s face.”

On the screen, Jonathan McGinnis entered the arena, the tone in the ring shifting towards one of anticipation. The former heavyweight champion of the world; the saviour of the company.

“Of course, the little beasts are myself and the other thirty, less successful Wrestle Royale combatants, that is plain enough. But I have had some trouble determining who lies in waiting on the couch, having sucked their last breath of air and shed their final tear. The natural assumption is Mr Snowmantashi, my opponent-in-waiting at Five-Star Attraction. But he is more alive now with the gold around his waist than he has been in years. Also, our deceased protagonist was once young, and beautiful, and not even vaguely Japanese. This does not fit. Perhaps, then, it would be Darling Jonathan; withered and stagnant as he is, ripped down from his perch by a man he thought was his friend. This could work. But, of course, nobody would put themselves through the bother of fighting for a shot at McGinnis anymore. He is a champion without a championship, and that is no champion at all.”

A sideways glance at the screen as the pixelated version of herself dumps a distracted Gabrielle over the top rope and out of the match.

“And then it dawned on me, a few hours after I’d awoken. The woman is not a person. The woman is this promotion. You see, before my debut, before I’d even been announced as an employee of CWA, I stood before you on tape at Global Collision and stated my intentions. This company has become rotten. It has devoured itself with half-baked gimmicks and cataclysmic booking decisions. I told you that the revolution was coming, and that the impure and the desperate and the just plain bad would be cast out. I told you that it was time for a real rain to come and wash all the scum from the streets. The boil must be lanced before the pain becomes too much.

“The only place from which this eradication can be administered is, of course, the top. Which, coincidentally, is the place I have just earned a direct ticket to. You see, this is the difference between myself and Jon Snowmantashi, and the difference between myself and Jonathan McGinnis. The latter, our renowned, former World Heavyweight Champion, wanted his place on the top for very different reasons. He saw the frame of CWA – once beautiful and proud, so full of hope and promise for the future – and knew just as well as I know that its final breaths are on its lips. But, of course, Hero McGinnis wanted to save it; to save our company and to save us. He would show the world that a ridiculous gimmick and muscles the size of bowling balls weren’t necessary for success. And he did show that, which was nice. Until he lost.”

Behind her, Jonathan McGinnis is eliminated – along with Johnny Vegas – by a face-painted figure skulking around amidst the chaos. Shocked faces are panned to in the audience as McGinnis fumes on the outside, staring up at Shade. And still, Michelle sits in a corner and waits, watching it all transpire before her.

“Mr Snowmantashi seeks the top spot for different reasons. He has no interest in saving the company. He’s more interested in saving himself; saving a career plagued by mediocrity and disappointment. He wants the top spot for honour and for renown. These are all valid reasons to desire the belt, or at least they are more valid than McGinnis’ motives. But this is selfish. McGinnis climbed the mountain to save the company. Snowmantashi climbed the mountain to save himself. I have the precipice in my sights, and I do it to save all of you.

“Yes, my tulips, I do this for you. I do this to spare you from the worst excesses of this company, from Snowmantashi’s self-indulgence and McGinnis’ self-importance. I do this to reward your patronage with an at least vaguely interesting champion. I do this to give hope to those in wrestling schools who aren’t eight foot tall, for those who don’t own a face painting manual, and for those who don’t look like a four hundred pound Japanese man-baby. I do this so this vile company has a chance of not offending our collective sense of truth when it calls itself a wrestling promotion.”

… the Echo high five in glee as Shade plummets out of the ring …

“But tonight isn’t about all of that. Tonight is about Jonathan McGinnis, and proof of credibility. Darling Jonathan likes to speak about his craft, about his many years scraping out a living in backwoods promotions. He talks about ‘leaving it all in the ring’. He talks about this a lot. He talks about this almost every week, in fact. But this is the very essence of his problem. Darling Jonathan, and many others like him, can’t grasp a simple fact of this industry. If you leave it all in the ring every single week, soon enough you don’t have anything left.”

… Harrison Wake manoeuvres into position behind the Echo, ready to strike and bring about their elimination …

“Jaded, cynical, going through the motions… Jonathan McGinnis is not the man that he once was. And the man that Darling Jonathan once was is not the woman that I am today. ‘A McGinnis on his game’, he enjoys saying, ‘is a McGinnis who can’t lose’. Of course, this pre-supposes that our Darling Jonathan very often falls well short of his best. And tonight, old man, it’s about time somebody told you that this isn’t your game.”

The video footage ends with a drop kick.

 

[SupineSnake]

Promo history - volume 7.
"Passion - Part One" (January 9th, 2016).
Michelle von Horrowitz and Phillip A Jackson def. Bell Connelly and Jon Snowmantashi [Tag Team Match] (CWA-FWA Supercard).​

Kevin DuPont Building, New York City, NY, US
30th December, 2015

The two sets of eyes had only one thing in common, and that was that they seemed to be slowly burrowing into her skin. The larger, brown set, belonging to the huge faux-Soviet man with the greying-black beard, were dull and lifeless. The smaller, blue eyes, the possessions of the thin, short man with only thin tufts of white hair around his ears and above his top lip, danced with deviousness, almost in accusation. They had been sitting there for almost thirty minutes, whilst the thin man played with various dials and buttons on the panel in front of him and the big man leafed through notes written in a childish scrawl. Michelle hadn’t said anything important. Michelle didn’t have anything important to say.

“You said a lot about Jon Snowmantashi last week,” Black Bear said, stroking his beard in an affectation of intellect. “A career plagued by mediocrity and disappointment, for one thing. A four hundred pound Japanese man-baby, for another.”

“Yes?”Michelle said, tapping idly on her knee with a pair of finger tips. She couldn’t find the question in the Bear’s statement.

“Well,” Hank Microphone cut in, leaning forward in his chair and examining the small, fidgeting woman in front of him. She had dressed down in black skinny jeans and a loose green t-shirt, although Michelle didn’t really own the clothes necessary to ‘dress up’. “This is a man who has been all over the world, proving his name and proving his ability in a variety of different promotions on several continents. He’s the current CWA World Heavyweight Champion. These don’t seem like things that you could say about a mediocre, disappointing, Japanese man-baby.”

“Well he is a four hundred pound Japanese man-baby, that much is plain to see,” Michelle responded, slowly and thoughtfully. “But the title histories of many companies are riddled with mediocrity, and you don’t need a Wrestling God Card to perform in Japan. I’ve been there myself, and to Europe, and Mexico. That doesn’t prove anything. Mediocrity, my dear Hank, does not necessarily mean that Snowmantashi is without talent. He would not be able to get a contract with this company if he didn’t possess some skill. But Snowmantashi is not a lion; he is a jackal. McGinnis too. The carcass of CWA has been left to rot for too long, decomposing in the open air, and it’s only logical that the vultures would circle eventually. McGinnis was first in, picking off whatever scraps he could. And now Snowmantashi has run him off.”

“Well, you face the vulture twice in the next week,” Black Bear interjected, turning a page in his notepad. “Both in tag team matches. Let’s forget about McGinnis for the time-being –“

“I wish we could,” Michelle put in.

“Beforehand, you and the FWA’s Phillip A Jackson will take on Bell Connelly and the current CWA World Champion. Have you spoken to Jackson?” Bear.

“No,” Michelle.

“Well, why not?” Hank. It always seemed to be Microphone who framed the questions, whereas the Bear just seemed to stumble through meandering statements. It was his show, after all.

“We have nothing in common,” she answered. “I’m not really sure what we’d say to each other.”

“What do you mean, you have nothing in common?” Hank.

“Well,” Michelle started, sighing heavily, more through boredom than anything else. “He has his way of climbing to the top, and I have mine. He’s surrounded himself with powerful men. Men who can carry him on their shoulders to whatever end they decide is the correct one for him. I am physically repulsed by this idea. He is a man of plenty, who enjoys the finer things in life. I’m not particularly sure that fine things exist. I guess, if I’m pushed to it, I would admit that I share Jackson’s ambition. But he has very different ways of going about his business, and he wants the prize for very different reasons. As far as tag partners go, though, there are worse. My team-mate for Adrenaline Rush, for instance…”

“But getting back to the super-show,” Bear interjected, doing his utmost to drag her back on topic. “There’s another person involved, besides yourself and the two champions…”

“Indeed,” Hank interrupted, shaping up for another question. Michelle began to predict just how inane this one would be. “Bell Connelly, another champion. She is the current holder of the FWA Women’s Championship, after successfully defending it at last week’s Trial By Fire pay-per-view. We’ve heard you speak about Snowmantashi rather extensively. He seems to be your specialist subject, in fact. But what about Connelly?”

“What about her?” Michelle asked. She disliked open-ended questions even more than direct ones. “She’s one of the most insubstantial people I’ve ever come across in my life, if that’s what you mean.”

Bear and Hank looked at each other, and the smaller man raised a bushy, white eyebrow.

“What do you mean by that?” he asked.

“Well, I’ve spoken a lot about the women’s division, and the lack of a need for one in modern professional wrestling. There is no such thing as the CWA Men’s Championship, nor in FWA as a matter of fact. But still the Fantasy Wrestling Alliance persists in boxing up their female talent” – she almost spat out this last word in derision – “in a division all to themselves. I’ve always thought this was mostly through fear; a fear that one day soon the patriarchy of pro-wrestling will come tumbling down. But that day is never going to come when people like Bell Connelly are still sucking my oxygen. As long as she, and the rest of the FWA shills, buy into this bullshit partitioning, we’re never going to see women regularly main-eventing pay-per-views. The only reason I have such an opportunity is because I have earned it. But, I guess Bell has her reasons to hold onto this 1950s nostalgia circus. The gold comes with prize money, of course, and perhaps she’s saving up for a second brain cell. The one she has now must get so lonely, rattling around inside that massive head.

“But Bell is only the beginning of the problem,”she continued, leaning back in her chair and placing a boot on the edge of a table inside the rented studio. Above her, the word ‘RECORDING’ was lit up next to a small, red circle. The show wasn’t live; it wouldn’t be aired until after the supercard. That fact made the whole event seem all-the-more pointless. “I don’t think people like Snowmantashi and Jackson have even stopped to consider that a woman might strip them of their titles, and thanks to Austerio we know exactly how much respect for women Jonathan McGinnis has. Johnny Vegas reduces his wife to little more than a valet, polishing his boots and leading his cheers. But I know what I am capable of – what we are capable of – even if the rest of them need their faces pushed up against the glass to really see. I see it now. That’s what sets me apart from the rest of these people.”

A long silence followed, and Michelle felt she could almost hear Black Bear rolling his eyes.

“Another thing that sets you apart,” he started, placing his notepad to one side for the time-being. “Is passion. Nobody can doubt McGinnis’ love for this industry and his desire to succeed. Snowmantashi and Vegas, too. I had a guy on my show the other week who spoke about his love of the competition, of the music he hears as the battle crashes around him. With you, all I get is a peculiar contempt for, well, everything and everyone. You’re clinical… abstracted… I don’t see the same passion as I do from those guys.”
It was Michelle’s turn to raise an eye-brow. Such big words for such a stupid man. She wondered how long he had been practising that outburst for.

“Passion?” she said, and then she drifted off, into the past, taking refuge within her head.

***​

Shibuya Junior High School, Tokyo, Japan
4th March, 2009

She remembered being surprised by the noise that such a small group of people could make. It wasn’t necessarily the volume, which was moderate but never overwhelming, but its sustained nature was alarming. They were the main event, owing to the night that they’d stolen the show down the road in Roppongi, and the eighty or so punters that sparsely lined the bleachers had been braying from the first minute. They’d been going for thirty already. She was nineteen years old.

Iwao was coming at her again, lumbering across the ring with arms stretched out at his sides. It was an odd, unsettling stance, forcing you to confront the large man’s power head-on. He was twenty centimetres taller and forty kilograms heavier and he’d been letting her know about it. She was rocked by a blow to her right temple, followed by a forearm, and finally a knee into the midriff. She remembered vividly the fans counting in Japanese after he’d hoisted her up for a delayed vertical suplex, words she didn’t readily understand but could easily work out. For twenty six seconds, Iwao Karasu had let gravity slowly drain the blood through her body and into her head, before dropping her on it with a brainbuster.

Karasu was her first great rival. They’d fought up and down the Japanese archipelago, twice more in Europe, and once in Pittsburgh. Eleven bouts in total, this being their third, and she was yet to score a victory over him. He was a relentless foe, always stumbling forward at you on the front foot, all grapple and cheap shots and power moves. They had always put on a great show together, and she was fond of remembering this particular occasion. She fancied it as their best.

He continued to work her with blows, even whilst she lay helpless in a head scissors or a bear hug or an arm bar. Each submission hold, held until she could inch and claw her way to the bottom rope, was punctuated by a suplex – a t-bone or a fisherman’s or, at one point, a nasty full nelson throw that dropped her on the top of her head – and a cover. Each time she’d throw a shoulder up at two and he’d stay on her, locking in the next rest hold.

Eventually she’d managed to reverse an attempt at a headlock into a standing arm bar, and although he was too big and powerful for her to hold it in she seized the shift in momentum. She remembered the next ten minutes better than the rest of the match. She must’ve kicked the big man close to forty times, peppering his legs and abdomen with her boots. After throwing him through the middle and top ropes into the steel post, she’d exposed the opposite middle turnbuckle whilst the referee checked on her opponent’s condition. A brutal drop toe hold had followed, drawing a thin line of blood from Iwao’s forehead.

She’d managed to lift him up and over the top rope with a big back body drop, and followed it up with a suicide dive. When she’d risen to taunt the crowd, to offer them the spent body of their hero, she’d found herself unable to raise her right arm. It was the first of a trio of times that she’d break it, and if the adrenaline hadn’t been pumping through her veins she’d have fainted from the pain of it. It took all of her effort to pick the big man up and throw him back into the ring, the blood now flowing thick and fast from above his left eye. When she rolled in after him, her weight shifted over the broken bone, and she thought the darkness would take over.

Iwao was on her in a flash, stomping away at her torso, throwing her throat onto the bottom rope and standing on her back. She could still see the faces of the crowd as she stared out, Karasu atop of her and the air being driven from her lungs. There were so few of them. There was a world championship match at the Korakuen Hall, so she imagined she should be grateful even this many had come. Obviously, all of this thinking was retrospective; at the time all that she could consider was the pain searing through her right arm.

The next thing she knew, she was hoisted up into the air in a torture rack. Iwao folded her up with his trademark Burning Hammer, and she didn’t even remember being covered. She didn’t really remember kicking out, either, though she must have done, because the match continued, and her opponent began to hoist her up onto his shoulders again, looking for a second verse the same as the first. More though instinct than anything, she slipped through the big man’s grasp, and – as he turned – she nailed him with a Busaiku Knee Knick. Iwao lay spent on the mat as she climbed up to the top turnbuckle, leaping off with a 450 Splash.

The referee must have then counted the three, but all that Michelle remembered was passing out on top of Karasu, clutching her arm in vain.

Iwao had come to see her after the match, as a pair of doctors chatted away in Japanese. Michelle couldn’t understand a word of it.

“They are saying it’s broken,” he’d told her. “In two places.”

She’d stared down at her arm and nodded – it made sense. Her opponent had explained that he’d needed eight stitches in his head, and she’d almost felt compelled to apologise. With some effort, she managed to resist. He had a small scar above his eye. She’d be out of action for months. Swings and roundabouts.

Generally speaking, though, Iwao was one of the good ones. She would hardly say that she had friends in the industry, but there was a handful of wrestlers that she’d enjoyed working with. You could form a bond with someone if you danced with them often enough – where the freedom existed to shout usually unspeakable things at a rival down a microphone before throwing him on his neck for forty five minutes in a wrestling ring. She built that bond with Karasu, eventually. This wouldn’t be the last time she put stitches in his head, or the last time he’d break her arm. And they would apologise, eventually.

 

[SupineSnake]

Promo history - volume 8.
"Passion - Part Two" (January 11th, 2016).
Michelle von Horrowitz and Johnny Vegas def. Jon Snowmantashi and Jonathan McGinnis [Tag Team Match] (CWA: Adrenaline Rush).​

Staatsoper Unter den Lendin, Berlin, Germany
8th November, 2005

It had been two years since Belle had moved to Germany’s capital, and this was the first time that Michelle had been allowed to travel with her mother on a visit. They’d spent the day drinking coffee in cold, dour cafes adjacent to tourist spots. The Reichstag, Checkpoint Charlie, the Brandenburg Gate. The evening had brought them out to the State Opera House, and mother had insisted that Michelle wear a new dress that she’d picked up from a boutique on Kurfu ̈rstendamm. It was green with a gold neckline, and it had that ’simple elegance’ about it her mother was always talking about. Michelle hadn’t put up too much protest through fear of being left in Marseilles next time Belle invited them out.

Their seats were excellent, Michelle thought, although the quality of vantage points in opera houses was hardly something she could claim to be an expert about. The orchestra had taken the stage, her baby sister sat far out on the left lank with another pair of cellists. They began to play and the audience sat, a thick anticipation laying in the hall. Michelle surveyed the faces in the auditorium and placed their nationalities; the solemn, quick-to-age Germans, the angular, Gallic French, some pasty, unfashionable English. The music floated over them as they traced their eyes across the orchestra, inspecting each instrument and musician in turn. She thought it an odd event. It was striking in its passivity.

The music was pleasant at first but, to Michelle’s uneducated ears, it seemed only to repeat and build rather than re-invent or start afresh. Two hours of it was about a hundred and eighteen minutes too many. She clapped when her mother clapped through politeness. When it was finished, she watched the older woman next to her beam with pride as her youngest daughter took her bow. It seemed to Michelle that the whole thing had been a success. She would later justify that it was only a student performance from the junior class at the conservatoire, so they were hardly going to heckle. But her mother was in an inexplicably good mood. Perhaps it was the wine.

They’d gone to a reception afterwards, where she’d watched her mother and sister speak to the teachers about her progress. The matriarch was doing her best to sound professional, and Michelle shuffled uncomfortably, waiting for the event to see itself into the past. There was an obnoxious deference to it all, as if any modicum of excitement had been drawn away in the refining process. She squirmed each time one of the faculty members addressed her, either to enquire where she schooled (“Rotterdam.” – Michelle, “But she’s off to Marseilles soon enough.” – mother) or if she played music herself (“no.”), and would eventually retreat into a reasonably unoccupied corner of the hall, waiting for the ordeal to run its course.

She was fifteen years old. It had been two years since the incident with Aunt Maude, a tragedy that she did her best not to think about. Their mother, though, had always associated it with Belle’s acceptance into Berlin’s College of Music, and having Michelle accompany her to the city brought awkward connotations. For twenty four months, the woman had point blank refused to take her elder daughter to Germany. Eventually, she’d relented, and Michelle had enjoyed some of today. The history of the city spoke for itself, and she enjoyed the bleak quality of its people. But tonight had been nothing but a stark reminder of the leagues between Michelle and her family.

She drank her third glass of wine, the last that her mother had rationed for her young body, and stared up at the high, elaborate chandeliers. Beneath them, some of the students and teachers had fetched instruments – mostly brass and percussion – and were beginning to play some generic twenties American swing. Some of the others were beginning to dance. Michelle went outside, bumming a cigarette from a seedy looking French man, and sat on a bench across the street. She waited, patiently and dutifully, for her family to come outside.

***​

Kevin DuPont Building, New York City, NY, US
30th December, 2015

“Um, Michelle?”

The voice was meek, unassuming, but enough to break the spell of her memories. She’d been swimming in her mind as of late, all-too-ready to dive out of the now and spend some time with Bell back in Berlin, or Iwao in Tokyo, or Franz in Marseilles. Now was no different, even if she was still sitting in Hank Microphone’s rented studio, talking with the host and his guest, Black Bear, about her upcoming tag matches.

“How long was I away for?” Michelle asked, leaning back in her chair and lifting her heels onto the seat, clutching her knees beneath her chin.

“Five minutes or so,” replied Hank. “It’s okay, we’re not live, but this studio is expensive. You ready to carry on?”

She nodded, lethargically, bored.

“So,” Black Bear began again, picking his notes up once more and finding his place. “Next week, you team up with Johnny Vegas to face off against Snowmantashi and McGinnis. Your opponents are long-time friends, occasional tag partners and frequent opponents. They will obviously know each other very well. They’ll be used to each other’s styles. But you and Vegas have never come across one another before. Do you think that leaves you at something of a disadvantage?”

“Tag team matches are inherently unfair, I’ve always thought,” Michelle started, tapping a couple of fingers idly against the arm of her chair. “I like to rely on myself, and myself alone. If you bring in another variable like a tag partner, you find yourself thinking about them and whether they’re going to hold up their end of the bargain. I’ve managed to avoid tag matches so far in my short tenure here, and that’s probably the biggest contributing factor to the success I’ve had. It’s made all the worse by the fact that my opponent is a man like Vegas.”

“What do you mean by that?” Microphone asked with a sideways glance to his co-host. “Vegas has had his share of victories in this company, too, not to mention a pin-fall victory over then-champion Jonathan McGinnis.”

“Yes, yes, yes,” von Horrowitz replied, a derisive tone evident in her voice. “The Man Who Beat The Darling, as he so often tell us. But he’s not the only one who’s done that, and any semblance of prestige has since disappeared from such statements. Snowmantashi crushed the champion at Wrestle Royale and stole his title. I myself held Darling Jonathan’s shoulders down for three last week. McGinnis is on a downward spiral, and whether Vegas was the catalyst for that or just took advantage, I can’t say.”

“So are you telling us that you aren’t confident in your partner?” Black Bear asked, rather pointedly.

“I don’t know very much about my partner, and I’m not particularly bothered about him either, to be honest,” Michelle began, waving a hand as if to throw away the question. “I’ll be concerned about myself, and self-preservation, mostly. If Vegas climbs into the ring and does some damage to either of the Dive Squad, then so be it. Good news, hey presto, and all that. But I’m not relying on Vegas. I’m not relying on anyone. Next week’s Adrenaline Rush is just a second opportunity to get my hands on the Man-Baby, to weaken him before Five Star Attraction. If Darling Jonathan gets in the way, or my partner for that matter, then… what’s the term? Collateral damage?”

Black Bear placed his notes down in front of him and leaned back in his chair, folding one leg over the other. He exhaled deeply as if in frustration before picking up his earlier line of questioning once more.

“It sounds to me like you’re not overly concerned with this match,” he started. “Do you think it’s wise to be so flippant about your opponents, let alone your partner? It probably won’t inspire his confidence in you.”

Michelle looked at the clock above the hosts, watching the big hand creep towards the eight. She had things to do, tape to watch, champions to study. These things didn’t seem to matter. They never had. She opened her mouth to answer two or three times before closing it again. Her mind began to drift once more. Later, looking back, she could never be sure if she’d answered Black Bear or not, and she certainly hadn’t listened to the podcast back. She was constantly pulled back to Berlin, to Japan, to France, as if some gravitational force was commanding her into the past. The hands crept around the clock, charging forwards towards Five Star Attraction, but Michelle was forever drifting, receding, into memories that were hers and hers alone.

***​

Acade ́mie des Phillipe Lacroix, Marseilles, France
4th February, 2007

She sat in the library, a book open in front of her, turned to a page on the Siege of Leningrad. Next to it was a pencil and a notepad, disused for the time-being and slowly being forgotten about. Michelle sat on the low chair, slowly tilting it onto its hind legs with a foot pressed against the edge of the table. It was getting late, and away at the counter the librarian was making his final checks for the evening. Winter was still stubbornly clinging on, refusing to let Spring take the helm.

Isobel returned from the hunt grasping a trio of text books. The only one visible was on differential calculus, which was probably the primary cause of the look of sheer woe that had latched onto her face. She dumped the books down onto the table and took a seat across from Michelle, leaning back on her chair and rubbing at her heavy eyes.

“It’s time to go,” she said, tapping her fingers against the front cover of a book on the Algerian War of Independence that sat atop her pile. “The Russkis can wait until the morning.”

Michelle had a coffee rested on her knee, housed in a cardboard cup. She took a sip at the bitter, lukewarm liquid, and then surveyed her notes as if they were lost relics.

“I don’t think I’ve read a thing since you left,” she said, picking up her pencil and using it to push long strands of brown hair away from her eyes.

“It’s late,” Isobel replied, looking over at the librarian. He was sitting at his desk and staring back over at the pair, his last unwelcome guests. He waited patiently for them to get up and go. “You taking anything out? It’s Sunday tomorrow so this place’ll be closed.”

“Just this Soviet bullshit, I guess,” Michelle said, squinting at the thought of a Sunday wasted with the German army. “Maybe one of those snazzy calculus tomes you got yourself, too.”

“We’ll drop them off at the dorms, and then to le Cavalier?” Isobel asked, standing from her chair and picking up her books. Michelle followed suit, packing her notes away into a rucksack and picking up the history book. Margot continued. “They have some band on from Munich. Mathieu and Pierre are going, and that English boy from le e ́cole d’e ́glise.”

“I can’t,” Michelle said, with not a hint of disappointment. She followed her dorm-mate to a specific aisle on the ground floor, where the girl from Lille pointed at a maths book bound in purple. She picked up a copy and turned away from the spot, heading towards the exit. “I’m meeting Franz. In fact, would you mind taking my books back for me? I’m late already.”

“’The mysterious Franz’, how delightful,” Isobel replied, passing her tomes over to the employee. He began to scan them through. “If you insist. But bear in mind you’re consigning me to an evening with Jeanne, if I can even persuade her to sign herself out.”

“You will overcome,” Michelle offered, handing her rucksack over to her counterpart after the librarian had finished with the books. After reaching the exit the two went their separate ways, and von Horrowitz pressed on towards her bus stop. It was an unnaturally cold night, so she pulled her coat around her tightly and smoked one of the six cigarettes she’d managed to save for the evening. She was banking on Franz having some spare.

The ride through the city was short in terms of distance, but the roads were choked with the Saturday night revellers, the people flowing in and out of the centre for the festivities. She watched large groups of youths, usually single-gender packs, waiting for taxis and sharing the dregs of cheap bottles. Eventually, the bus pulled up at her stop, and Franz was waiting for her across the street.

Franz was a Hungarian boy who went to the university in Marseille. He was eighteen and he’d moved to the city from Budapest the previous summer, studying literature and working in a bakery in the village near Michelle’s school. He offered her a cigarette upon approach and lit it for her, too. He pointed away to the north, towards a large building that a few dozen people were hovering around.

“Did you manage to get the money?” he asked, stuffing his free hand in his pocket in a vain attempt to conceal some warmth. His voice was thick with a Hungarian accent. Michelle shook her head. “I guess it’s on me, then.”

“It would appear so,” she said, watching a group of young men filing into the small gymnasium in front of them. “Who is on, anyway? And how much is it?”

“The main event is le Boucher de Bordeaux against L’Guerrier des Irises’,” he replied. “And it’s fourteen euros, but I can cover it. I think it’ll be quite the evening.”

The two filed up the street towards their destination, where the boy paid through a small hole in the wall before entering via a narrow tunnel into what was a gymnasium of a public secondary school. It was reasonably wide, and all around a small, old wrestling ring sat bleachers, a steep ascent from floor to ceiling. It was already near full, punters of all ages moving towards their seat as the ring crew made their final checks. Franz was beginning to move down towards the ring, spotting a patch of seating only thinly populated on the fifth row back. When they’d taken their seats, Franz lit another cigarette and stared over at the top of the ramp, attempting to spot any wrestlers that may be sneaking a look at the night’s environment. He pointed at a smartly dressed woman and explained that it was Delphine Heracles, the owner of the promotion that was running the event. Michelle stared at her and took Franz’s cigarette from his hand, taking a drag before returning it to the boy.

Eventually, the lights were dimmed and a man in a tuxedo took his position in the middle of the ring. He raised a microphone to his lips and introduced the capacity audience to this live Full Pro France event. The fans roared with anticipation, staring at the makeshift ramp and the small entrance at the top of it. As a small, stocky man came out to a chorus of boos, Michelle found herself staring wildly around herself, eyes fixated on each individual face and ears absorbing each individual sound. His opponent came next; a taller and more slender man, pale white and in gold tights. He high-fived a few audience members at the top of the ramp and shouted something in Italian, which was cheered even if it wasn’t understood. His hair was closely cropped and a thick, greying goatee grew around his thin, pursed lips. Around his waist was a small, gold belt, the words ’Champion National de France’ engraved across it.

The two stood in the middle of the ring and the referee took the belt from the taller man, holding it high above his head and presenting it to the boisterous audience. The announcer lifted his microphone up again and introduced the combatants; the small, conceited Fracois Bellatroix from Lille versus the larger, older veteran from Florence. Finally, the bell rang, and the two jockeyed for position around the middle of the ring, a collar and elbow tie up kicking off the match.

She was seventeen years old and the music was sweet.

 

[SupineSnake]

Promo history - volume 9.
"The Silent Kingdom" (January 30th, 2016).
Michelle von Horrowitz def. Johnny Vegas (CWA: Adrenaline Rush).​

“The hills roll into the horizon, white-grey tufts of cloud forming and disintegrating overhead, the walls of the palace rising sheer in the foreground. An old, diminishing king walks alone amongst the trees… stares out over vast knolls from high windows… sleeps without partner in an oversized bed. These are the things I saw last night, from afar and in close. His sons and the occasional daughter walk amongst him, and the kingdom without subjects is alive with discontent and accusation. But it is silent. It is always silent.”

Michelle sits alone, naturally, in a plain room. The walls and floors are bare concrete, one tall, metallic locker positioned in a corner. A rucksack, filled with ring gear, a fistful of bills, and a half-full bottle of Jameson’s is propped up against it. The camera is positioned in an opposite corner, offering a hardly-expansive wide shot of the basic locker room.

“When the king and his offspring are together, he sits above them, out of reach and aloof upon his throne. He surveys them carefully, checking their movements, their schemes and plots obvious and evadable. Some stand at his side, subservient and safe. They tend his table, serving his drinks and delivering his food. They circle the throne like reverent jackals around wounded prey, ever hungering and ever hoping.”

Her back is leant against the cold wall, one foot lifted up onto the wooden top of the bench and the other stretched out in front of her. She is wearing black skinny jeans and a baggy red t-shirt, her hands stuffed lazily in her pockets.

“But there are others in the grand hall. The Silent King watches them, sat comfortably in his excessively lavish chair. They are the hunters, and they regard both the scavengers and the prey carefully, mistrustfully. And each time one approaches his father, he is pulled back by the pack, equally uneasy around each other as they are their prize. They fear the next son along; that he will steal their place in the line, their chance to approach the throne. And the King reigns on supreme, unchallenged by a mob of rivals too busy quarrelling amongst themselves. These are the things I saw last night, from afar and in close.”

She leans forward on the bench, crossing her legs in front of her and staring into the camera. Heavy bags, the sign of uneasy nights, sit unhappily beneath her eyes. Her short, blonde hair is untamed in more of a mass than a style, the green highlights an oily bundle of split ends.

“Mr Snowmantashi,”she begins anew, for the meantime ignoring her next opponent and taking the long view. “I speak to you now, and only now, in the hopes that you can watch this little video in whatever five-star, downtown hotel you’re checked in to. I also hope you’re finding it restful, and that you’re enjoying life as a part-timer. When we finally meet at Five Star Attraction, it will be your fourth match since Wrestle Royale. Your fourth and my seventh. But I guess you must enjoy the champion’s advantage whilst it lasts, and the view is surely enhanced by arguably three of your top contenders – the two Johnny’s and myself - fighting amongst themselves. I imagine it’s quite the picture out of your palace, whilst your man-servants fan you with palm leaves and feed you grapes.

“But believe me when I say that whatever it is that you’re currently doing is not within the remit of the champion that I am going to be, once I beat you for a third time at Five Star Attraction. Running scared and living a peaceful life do not have a place in my plans. The CWA will never be saved if its champion is not waving its banner each week. Our Hero is showing his true colours, revealing himself and his self-interest. This company deserves better.”

Finished with the champion for the time being, she leans back against the wall and shifts her focus. As the subject moves along to Johnny Vegas – her competitor in tonight’s Adrenaline Rush main event – her body language transforms along with it. When discussing Snowmantashi, she appears uncharacteristically on edge, as if the weight of the match lay uneasily on her shoulders. Vegas appears less of a concern, for better or for worse, and she places her hands back into her pockets as if there is no need to defend herself.

“But between myself and the Man-Baby stands yet another rival… another pretender to his throne. Johnny Vegas, the Man Who Beat the Darling, propelled forward by a misbelief in himself and the first taste of momentum he’s had in his sorry little career. Twice last week he revealed himself as a petulant little boy, first when he whined and wailed in despair at a situation which he himself has steered into, and then again after I dragged him through the main event intact. He believes himself to be as much of a contender for the belt as myself, thanks to… well, I’m not quite sure, actually. A sixth place finish in the Wrestle Royale? A pin-fall victory over a once-champion who has since been beaten by half the roster? He is either delusional or reaching. Perhaps both.

“But, my little tulips, I am more than happy to give Vegas an opportunity to prove himself. He was part of a winning team last week on Adrenaline Rush, after all, which is more than can be said for the last two champions of this company. And I can even see why Johnny might feel a little bit hard done by. If Vegas had defeated the world champion any week other than the one directly before the night he lost his title and a number one contender was crowned, he probably could expect a title shot. But, with all due respect – and I say that in the knowledge that very little respect is due – it would’ve been a dark day for the CWA if these two midcarders were competing for the company’s biggest prize.”

Here, Michelle affords herself a small, smug smile. Perhaps an allusion to Vegas’ demands that his match be added to a double main event at the next pay-per-view.

“And then there was the little... fracas… at the culmination of Adrenaline Rush’s tag team main event last week,” she begins once more, dispelling all emotion from her pale face. “Little Johnny is getting too big for his size six-and-a-half boots. He’s not happy, apparently, that I carried his useless carcass through the biggest match of his career and earned him a victory. He wants the glory for himself. He’s desperate, my little tulips, to show you all that Johnny’s Big Night wasn’t a fluke. And I agree, it couldn’t have been. And do you know why, Vegas? Because – had McGinnis been on his game – you wouldn’t have beaten him. What they’re all thinking, what they’re all saying, there’s truth to it all. And you’re beginning to fear this yourself.

“I’m not sure why Darling Jonathan was only half-present for your encounter. Perhaps Austerio was right about his… extracurricular activities. Maybe the worries of finalising his new multi-million dollar contract were still over him. Or, quite probably, he already had more than half a mind on his big title match at the Wrestle Royale. Part of you probably thinks that you can do the same tonight; that another scalp is yours for the taking because your opponent is already focusing on the Man-Baby. Dispel such thoughts. They will betray you to your downfall. The Wolf-Man couldn’t stop me; Darling Jonathan couldn’t; thirty other wrestlers including yourself at the Royale fell at my feet. Even Bell Connelly, the great hope of the FWA and of the people, tapped and screamed as I broke her ankle in two. Why do you think you’ll be any different?”

Another brief pause. Michelle leans forward again, closer proximity to the camera allowing it a better view of the glint in her eyes. Her hands have come loose from her pockets and she massages each wrist in turn, as if loosening herself up for the battle to come.

“I admit that you weren’t even a blip on my radar screen two weeks ago, but the ridiculous claims that you make for yourself have forced my hand. Not only is your little… grudge match… not worthy of main-eventing such a prestigious event as Five Star Attraction, but the fact that you think for half a second that last week was anything other than my win makes your delusions plain. I will turn you into a statement, and then a shell.”

The screen fades to black, Michelle von Horrowitz propping herself against the wall and lifting a boot up onto the benchtop once more, as if this promo has been nothing more than an interruption in her busy day of sitting and thinking.

***

​

Michelle could hardly believe that this was all happening, and that it wasn’t just another one of her subconscious visitations. If it wasn’t for the fact that she hadn’t been sleeping enough to dream anything this creative, she wouldn’t have accepted the reality of it. But here she was in a small Brooklyn coffee shop, sat across the table from Bella von Horrowitz, the sister she hadn’t seen in nearly three years. It could’ve been longer than that, for all Michelle knew.

She looked much the same. Black hair - long and straight - framed her youthful face, and she still dressed with the sophistication and class that their mother had hoped they’d both gravitate to. Michelle had made some effort; she’d borrowed an iron from someone at her flea-ridden hotel and pressed her favourite green t-shirt. Black, rectangular-rimmed glasses perched on the end of her sister’s small nose, and some artificial colour had been added to her pale cheeks. The only real clue that the two were sisters were their eyes; the same violently piercing green, large and knowing and clear as the ocean.

The wheels had been set in motion by an employee at the Barclay’s Centre, who had cornered her after she’d finished with the camera. Michelle had thought it would just be another useless, overlong interaction, where some underling thought – with a bit of luck and a lot of charm – they could manage to break down the wrestler-crew barrier and become her new best bud. When he’d thrust Bell’s letter into her hand and explained that it had arrived that morning to the ticketing department, she’d considered it carefully and with apprehension. It was only upon noticing the beautifully crafted handwriting with its delicate and deliberate cursive strokes that she’d come to realise who it was from.

’I know that you must be extremely busy,’ it had said, towards its culmination. ’But I will be at Fowler’s Café in Midtown Manhattan at five on Saturday, if you’d care to join me. It would be wonderful to finally see you again, sister’. Bell always wrote like this. Loaded with melodrama, hopeful and precious and begging for approval. Every few years they seemed to find each other, and – as much as she enjoyed the sweet, tandem refuges of secrecy and solitude – Michelle felt it best to keep at least one final bridge to the distant past intact.

“Why are you here?” Michelle asked, and in retrospect perhaps a little bluntly. They had been in the café for just over half an hour, whilst Bella ate her way through a Caesar salad and Michelle forced down half a bowl of soup. The moon had taken over for the nightshift whilst they’d been inside, and a steady string of custom lined the coffee shop’s cash register. Michelle, the older of the two by a pair of years, stared with resentment at the coffee in front of her. It was dark outside and she hadn’t moved onto the harder stuff yet. Still, she thought, looking over at the glass of water in front of her sister. It could be worse.

“My orchestra’s here for a few performances,” the younger girl replied, idly pushing the last few leaves around her plate with her fork. “We’re doing two weeks in New York City, then up to New Hampshire, Vermont, Maine.”

They’d mostly been talking about Bell’s life back in Europe (frequent touring around Germany, France, and Italy, and then three bi-weekly residency performances in Berlin when they were at home), the English fiancé she’d picked up six months ago (tall, handsome, rich, the classic catch), and her thoughts on – not to mention critiques of - the Wrestle Royale match (’Giles insisted we buy the thing…’). Usually, they didn’t really mention their mother or the Netherlands, a country in which neither still lived and only one still visited. It had always been a comforting arrangement, but now, with the memory of Aunt Maude’s lifeless lump of a body never far from Michelle’s mind, it felt like something of a barrier.

“Are you seeing him while you’re here?” the older woman asked, sipping at the bitter, lukewarm coffee and staring out of the window. The city revellers were beginning to replace the haggard, day-worn tourists, choking up the sidewalks whilst taxis and buses streamed alongside them. Michelle was awkwardly attempting to shift the dialogue around to family.

“I might as well,” Bella replied, setting her fork down at long last. She seemed to half-shrug as she spoke, readjusting her glasses before she continued. Michelle judged them to be nervous tics. “He’s only in Montreal. It’s more of a short jump than a flight, really. He is our step-father, after all.”

“He's nothing to me,” Michelle answered. “The one sensible thing our mother ever did was ignoring that old fool, after all these years.”

Bell flinched a little at her mention, setting her water back down and staring directly at her sister for what felt like the first time in years. She still spoke to their mother on a regular basis, calling her three times a week at timetabled points and writing once a month for the novelty. And there were frequent visits back to Rotterdam, too, where their mother still lived in the house that Aunt Maude had died, whiling away the hours knitting scarves that nobody would wear and launching rambling rants that nobody would hear.

It had never been the same between Michelle and her mother since Bell’s first successful interviews at her music school in Berlin, which had also been the summer that her sister – Aunt Maude – had come to Rotterdam. She’d been meant to watch Michelle whilst mother and daughter travelled to Germany, but had seemingly given up on the task halfway through in favour of dying. She’d been gone for two weeks, apparently, by the time the musician and her mother returned and finally called an ambulance, though Michelle had only found her ten days ago.

The relationship had strained almost immediately, and had always been close to breaking point for a couple of years. Michelle felt mother blamed her for the whole affair, or at least wondered why a girl of her age hadn’t thought to check on the elderly woman, or call someone once she had found her. Michelle often wondered the same things herself. It had seemed to get better for a while afterwards, when time had its chance to lessen the memory. But then their father had arrived with apologies and demands, both of which had been turned down, and the drinking had begun. And all the old resentment and mistrust slowly seeped back into their relationship.

“She does ask about you, every now and then,” Bell said, carefully treading through the dialogue’s minefield. “Maybe once a year, but more recently as of late. I think she was worried that I hadn’t heard from you in a while.”

“I’d tell her not to waste her worry,” Michelle offered. “She has so little of it to go around.”

“I think she’s mellowed a little, recently,” Bell answered, as if in negotiation. Michelle raised an eye brow, having none of it. “She’s a little more passive, at least. Not drinking nearly as much. I don’t think she’s quite herself sometimes, though. When I mentioned that I was coming here for a month, she said ’make sure you see Michelle’. And I caught her watching a re-run of Adrenaline Rush last time I was in Holland, too.”

“Well, you can tell her I’m fine,” Michelle said, feeling inexplicably angered by news of her mother’s vague attempts at concern. It was a little late.

“I can see that,” her sister interjected, sensing the rising temperature and seeking a shift in topic. “Is it that big one next?”

“Not yet,” Michelle asked, quite easily pinpointing who she meant. Vegas was many things – a confused, self-interested, pompous, egotistical punk, for instance – but he was hardly big, in stature or significance. “Soon.”

As they finished their drinks, they spoke briefly about Bell’s upcoming performances (‘We start on Sunday at the Lincoln Center, if you want me leave you some tickets for collection?’ – left unanswered), Michelle’s decision to return to the ring (‘I thought you’d just disappeared, and then eighteen months later you pop up again in the biggest promotion on the earth?’ – received a non-committal response), and about the food (you can say nothing interesting about salad or soup), before drifting their separate ways.

Their goodbyes were always subdued and a little nervous, though this evening was sustained by an amiability to the meeting that Michelle neither expected nor remembered. She stood on the corner of an adjacent street, smoking a cigarette and staring down the road, patiently waiting for the bus that would take her back to the hotel and another night of bastard consciousness.