Supreme Championship Wrestling

Slayter McKinney vs. Owen Cruze

2 RP Limit for singles matches
Deadline: Noon ET Tuesday, October 9, 2018

“I’m going to level with you. Those last few seconds, looking into the ring and seeing the referees hand rise and fall against the canvas shortly before Selena Frost’s hand was raised in victory… it made me want to quit.”

It’s a relatively familiar sight by now for those used to following Slayter McKinney. It’s a locker room, it could be any locker room in any town or city. She’s cut all of her promos her. The lighting is dim, like a fluorescent spotlight illuminates her, the rest of the locker room is shaded and blurry. Where she sits, on a bench dressed in ring gear, or workout gear, it’s hard to differentiate, she stares soulfully into the tiled floor. It’s a soliloquy.

“I came up short. I came up short at a time when I told myself I wouldn’t come up short, and that’s what I did. They’d call it a good start. They’d say a finish like that is nothing to sneeze at. At least I didn’t take the pin. To some that means something. To me?”

Her eyes, shrouded under her dark, raven hair glare at the camera bitterly.

“It’s a failure. No matter what silver lining you attach to it, I... lost.” The words are like bile in the back of her throat threatening to hiss through her teeth, like acid on the wooden bench compelling her to stand.

“It doesn’t matter how close I came. Or how much respect I earned from my peers, from the fans, from the crowd. None of that matt--” She stops herself there. Slayter McKinney bites her tongue, knowing her own emotions threaten to undercut her purpose.

It does matter…. Doesn’t it? The fans? The ones she stuck around to pose for pictures with after the match, and after each match since she returned to the ring. It does matter that Selena Frost gave her a glowing endorsement following the match. Doesn’t it?

Slayter exhales sharply, bows her head and closes her eyes, beginning once more from a calmer place than the previous righteous anger.

“I don’t care what could have been, what I care about is what happened, and what didn’t happen. And what happened is I didn’t walk away from Breakdown with a win. And that’s final. That sticks, and it stings. I walked back from that ring that night pretending to hold my head high for every single person that had watched me choke, and the second I made it backstage I was ready to call it quits.”

Inhaling, like coming back to life, like rising up out of deep water for a breath of fresh air, Slayter McKinney refocuses that reinvigorated gaze on the viewer.

“But I didn’t quit. A win over Selena Frost would have meant a lot of things. Like the road I didn’t take, who knows where it would have led had I won? A title shot? A bigger, better, bolder Slayter brimming with overconfidence only to make an eventual loss, an assured inevitable loss at some point, seem like a greater fall.

I needed that. I needed to taste that defeat. I needed to feel what the feeling of that type of wind at my back felt like again, to have my resolve tested.

Selena Frost? This isn’t over. You won a battle. A well-earned victory. Your victory… my defeat… I will use to improve myself. I will take it personally. I will use it to light a fire under my ass to propel myself on to the next one. To do better. To be better.

Because the next one?

Might as well be like the first one all over again. This time? I’m a wiser Slayter. I’m a smarter Slayter. Owen Cruze?

You better pray to Go--” Her cell phone buzzes intrusively, interrupting her train of thought. With an annoyed sigh she looks at the screen, takes a moment to read the message with another annoyed sigh, and in a huff she moves to the camera and shuts it off.

As she steps out the locker room slinging her gym bag over her shoulder an older man’s voice speaks out.

“You need representation.”

Slayter slows and turns to regard the older man stepping away from the wall toward her.

“Do I know you?” She asks. He looks thoughtful.

Anyone that knows me, knows that I’m a fan of perspective. I like having it. I like giving it. You don’t know me, so that’s why I’m giving you that little presser now. That one’s free. Information like that forces your perspective. It’ll make you see me a certain way, under a different light. Here’s something else I’m going to tell you right now: don’t trust me. Don’t even trust what I just said. I’m not your friend. I’m older than you. In my prime, I was better than you, and if we’ve ever had a face-to-face discussion it’s either because I think you’re worth my time, or I can get something out of you I think can help me out.

Those are the ground rules.

From here on out? You’re on your own, kid.

My name is Jack Hugg. I’ve been in and out of the wrestling business since the early 80s. Back in 2006, at the tender age of forty-two, that truly Douglas Adams of ages, I made a comeback. SCW was the place I chose to do it.

It didn’t last.

I’ll tell you why. It’s cause I didn’t care for the backstage politics. I didn’t like having to earn my way through a crowded field of pedantic children who had no idea of the battles I’d already been through, who didn’t know what it meant to respect someone for the sake of respecting an elder, who looked at me like I was just someone like them.

I wasn’t. And I’m not. I’m a whole different breed of man.

Always was.

Always will be.

They called me “The Bear”. Not these SCW kids. They weren’t worth the time or the breath to educate. Back in my heyday they called me Jack “The Bear” Hugg. Cute, huh? I liked to say I invented the Bear Hug, and for all anyone knows maybe I did. Prove me wrong. They called me the bear because I wrestled a bear. A real bear. I didn’t have ropes, four corners with turnbuckles. Just snow, rocks, and my fists.

I won.

From that height, I stepped in to SCW and promptly stepped out, and went on my way.

They say anybody has really only ten years worth of talent in them, anyway. Like a cow, all you’ve got is ten years for milking, and anything extra is just that. I did my time but never lost the taste for it. A few failed marriages, plenty of kids, tons of memories, the only thing I’ve kept returning to is a wrestling ring.

It’s in my bones. It’s in my blood.

Sometime in September I decided I’d give SCW another shot. I’m sixty now, so if you’re thinking I tried to step back through the ropes, you’re mistaken. I’ve had that perspective. I’ve had it all my life. You step through the ropes like through a wardrobe into another world. That was my world. The fans, the cheers, the boos, all of it is on the periphery of my consciousness wherever I went. I became a pure spirit inside that ring. Nothing else mattered. I grew up in a wrestling ring. And when the time came to retire, I think most of me died in a wrestling ring. Everything else is like bad sex -- it makes you missing the good sex. I’ve never lost that taste. I dream about it. I relive matches. I feel the dull thud of fists against my face, and the crisp sound of the referee’s hand smacking the canvas.

This time? I went back to SCW looking for a different perspective.

I sat in the nosebleeds. I smelled the smells. I drank the beer. I cheered along with the people who would have been cheering me if my body had held up. I got to experience wrestling as it is today.

It’s different, if you’re wondering.

I mean I liked the product. I see some names on the playbill I remember. Allocco. Steward. CHBK. But it’s different. I’m not walking among them in the back, being sneered at or doing the sneering. They've long since forgotten me. And I'm all the way up here, watching now.

I’m up in the nosebleeds. I’m a fan. Not a competitor.

Perspective. It’s different, it’s uncomfortable, and I don’t think I like it.

I won’t bore you with the minutiae of it. Some folks won. Some folks lost. They hit all the notes, gave the fans pretty much what they expected, if not entirely what they wanted, and made sure that everyone left reasonably satisfied.

It left me with ideas.

It took my feet around Omaha, Nebraska till four in the morning with one name on my mind: Slayter McKinney.

I’ve been following SCW ever since. You might say, elements of the product caught my eye. You might say some unfinished business resonated for me. You might say I can see a way to stick my foot in the door.  You might say I’m a dirty old man leering at some pretty young thing. You might say a lot of things.


“No. You don’t know me,” he said looking apprehensive. Slayter eyed him over a moment.

“Yes, well. Thanks for interrupting me. It was nice meeting you.” She started in walking again.

“Is it the kid?” He asked, and she stopped to look once more back at this old man who had suddenly stepped into her life and was already making her regret coming to this gym.

“I’m sorry?” She asked, flustered. He swallowed and took another apprehensive step forward.

“The kid. Your kid. Dylan. Family ruins careers. And, in turn, this business eats families up and spits them out.” Her eyes narrowed coldly, as if to silently ask who the hell this man thought he was interjecting his nose into her business. He continued.

“I know because it ruined mine. Well, not ruined. Set it back. The more kids you have, the more eyes you need, the less time you spend doing the things you love, the fewer waking moments there are to chase your dreams. It’s a black hole. A bottomless pit of misery. I feel for you, kid.” He smirked.

“Kid?” She asked turning to face him head on. Something he was saying hooking ever so slightly in to her. “Who are you?”

“My name’s Jack. I used to wrestle. I want to help you.”

“Okay…?”

“I want to help you keep your eyes on the things you need to keep your eyes on, Slayter.”

Grudgingly, she swung the gym bag down and set it on the floor beside her and folded her arms defensively, glaring with accusing eyes.

“What are you talking about? You know my name? You’ve been researching me? Is that it?”

“Yeah. I want to help you out.”

“I don’t need a manager.”

“Sure you do. You lost a tough one. You would have won. It’s the kid, and everything that comes with him. I know all about it, because it happened to me. All the little distractions add up. I was a wrestler, too. I know the business. I’ve been looking you up. I know what you’re about. I wouldn’t be approaching you if I didn’t do my homework. I know you mean business. I know you’re worth it. I know you just need a bit of a boost to put you over the top. I can help you. I can help keep you organized. Keep you from juggling too much.”

“What’s in it for you?”

“Five percent. I’d say that’s generous, considering the going rate of most of the sharks in this business. You won’t find a better deal and you know it.” Slayter eyed him as coldly now as when he’d first introduced himself. Suspicion gnawing on the back of her mind.

“You’re some strange man who approached me after a workout in an all women’s gym.”

“I don’t have an office. I’m new at this. And it’s nothing I haven’t seen before, honestly.” He smirked, his palms sliding eagerly and hopefully together, plying his best sales pitch. She looked like it was something she’d considered once before, like he was asking at the right moment in time, and that was a fact that made her even more suspicious. She sighed, regarding him as his smile grew, like he knew he’d seized an opportunity.

“I’ll think on it.” She said, finally, and lifted her gym bag once more and slung it back over her shoulder giving him a last look.

“I’ll find you again.” He called after her. That wasn’t creepy at all.

“You did it once. You’ll do it again, if you’re serious.” She called back, and exited.

Round one: Draw. Jack Hugg smirked and looked after her.
“I look across from me in the ring on October tenth and I see a man, Owen Cruze, who reminds me an awful lot of myself at one point.” Slayter began.

This was a similar locker room set up as before, but clearly somewhere else, like Slayter runs an exclusive tour of cutting promos in the locker rooms where she works out as she tours along with SCW. The opportunity to segue this into a potential YouTube channel isn’t lost on her.

“Owen,” she looked towards the camera stationed somewhere on the tiled floor, fixed on her, “all due respect, but wherever you’re at in my career has put you squarely in my way. I have all the honor and respect for you, but I’m at this brand new moment in my career. Where you are? I respect it more than some might in this company. I remember it well. I remember feeling fresh and excited. I remember starting out.

I still feel like that, truthfully.

I still feel like I’m at square one.

I still feel like every match is my debut, like I could explode before I hit the ramp and see the lights, and hear the roar of the crowd front and center in my face.

I’m not here to put you down. I’m here to help you put on the match of your life. I’m here, as your opponent, to make you the best Owen Cruze you can be. That’s what this business needs, if you ask me.

Someone willing to recognize the give and the take of this sport.

I saw that firsthand against Selena Frost, and I want to see more of it.

I want to shake your hand after this match, Owen.

I want to help you up off the canvas and raise your hand for the fans who will leave BReakdown absolutely POSITIVE they just watched two competitors leave everything they had in the ring, and then some.

I want to give you everything I’ve learned about competing in a wrestling ring, and leave you a better competitor than when you entered.

But, Owen?” She stopped and looked deathly serious. “I want to win. I need to win. To do that I need to put you down for three slaps of a referee’s hand on the mat. That, or I need to make you tap out. I am not here to end your career, or out you on ice indefinitely. That much is a promise.

But I am here to defeat you.

I’m sorry for that.

Everything I’ve gone through in my career, now, ten years past my best before date has set me on a path and I have every intention of sticking to it. That path leads me straight through you, straight through everyone that stands before me until I get to the top of this company, where I know I can be. Where I know I will be.

Owen Cruze, I have every intention of helping you have the match of your life, at Breakdown.

The only problem being that for you to have the match of your life is I have to give it to you, and I need to walk out of the ring having done just one better than you.

That’s it.

No hard feelings, Owen.

But I need this.” She stares coldly into the camera before turning it off.

OK, so the latest instalment for Owen, and goes back about a month. Hopefully the PPV rp will bring us up to date

Best of luck, I think its Hannah apologies if not lol, first time we've faced off so hopefully it will be a good one :-)

Vs Slayter