Dexter Grant FF

[Digitox]

The following VHS tape was delivered to SCW headquarters via mail, courtesy of Dexter Grant. Despite Dexter’s demands not to do so, the following video was extracted from the tape and converted into a digital format for general viewing.

We start with all the hallmarks of a recorded VHS tape. Blue screen with the occasional crackle of visual white noise, an audible mains hum, the little text in the corner that reads “PLAY” next to the play symbol. Once we move past this however, we see the familiar low quality we’ve mostly come to expect from this man by now. We find ourselves somewhere in the woods, which also seems to be becoming a recurring trend with someone living “off the grid.” As we wander through these woods, we notice several signs that have been speared into the earth, some claiming to be “under protest” while others are flat out denouncing the concept of Fatal Fortunes and referring to it as a scam and a symbol of greed and control, among other things. Eventually, we stumble into a clearing filled with these signs, and sitting on a stump is none other than Dexter Grant, who’s in the middle of using a whetstone to sharpen the blade of an axe cradled in his arms. Whoever’s holding the camera accidentally steps on a twig, snapping it and alerting Dexter to our presence, but he only glances at us briefly before returning his focus to sharpening his axe.

“Fatal Fortunes…what a joke.”

The short, blunt statement lingers in the air as Dexter purposely wastes our time by sharpening his axe, letting the sound of the whetstone scraping against the blade burn itself into our memories before he decides to continue.

“I’m sure everyone out there is waiting with bated breath to hear what I have to say on the subject. At least, that’s what I’ve been told, but I know better than to trust the true puppet masters of SCW at this point. I’m not talking about the guy in charge who refers to himself as the ‘Canadian Heartbreak Kid’ or any of the suits sitting at their boardroom table at SCW headquarters, because I know they’re truly about as in charge of this company as a President or a Prime Minister is in charge of their country. The horrifying truth of the matter is that the big wigs running their tech empires and driving people into their world wide web are the real men and women in charge all over the globe. They tell the supposed heads of SCW what to do to generate buzz and attract attention online, and they commit to it without a second thought. From there, it trickles down into the roster itself.

They’ve even tried to paint me as a hypocrite, ignoring my very explicit instructions not to take these videos and put them online. I don’t care if my opponents can’t see what I have to say about them…hell, the only reason I even do VHS or even DVD is to annoy them with how ‘outdated’ it all is. I could simply just say my piece to someone’s face and let my actions speak even louder from there, but no. ‘Everyone does videos online because people eat up the back and forth and we can promote that,’ they say.

Maybe you want to take a shot at me for playing along even if I give them headaches with how I choose to do this. It’s honestly no different than why I’m going to do what I need to do over the next two weeks. I will comply with my contract and ‘play nice’ but I’m going to do it on my terms, because SCW touts itself constantly as the biggest and best wrestling promotion on the planet. If that’s true…if eyes across the globe are always on this company, then that makes them just as much my tool to spread my message as it does them believing I’m their tool to break and remold as they see fit until I’m fully compliant.”

As Dexter speaks, he finishes sharpening the axe and examines it with a careful eye, and once he’s done speaking he stands up and turns his back to us. With a perfect throw, the axe is flung from his hand and embeds itself deeply in a nearby tree trunk, sticking there. Dexter simply laughs to himself before pocketing the whetstone and turning to face us again, stepping up onto the stump like it’s become his soapbox for the time being.

“Before I touch on the cancerous content that stands before me for the next two weeks, I want to address one person in particular real quick. Rayne Young…I’m sure you’re watching. No one who took such personal offense with my mission as you did would just pretend I don’t exist anymore. Let me ask you a simple, honest question Mr. Young…were you paying attention last Breakdown? Not to me, because apparently my presence was not needed, but I’ll get to that in a moment. Before you proceeded to prove that perhaps SCW needs to evaluate you for anger issues considering you took yourself and your opponent out with your little tantrum over your precious little undefeated streak being shattered by my hands, there was something that took place that I felt was oddly appropriate given what drove you to excessive violence against me in the first place at Under Attack.

Did you see it?

Let me refresh your memory.

Prior to your match, there was a little confrontation in the ring. Blake Mason, Polly Pingotti, Selena Frost…they’re the players in this story, along with Mr. CHBK, but they’re ultimately irrelevant in the grand scheme of things. The important detail that came out of it was Blake PAYING OFF someone in SCW’s HR team to leak to him some personal stuff about Selena’s family, which he immediately weaponized.

Now, heading into Under Attack, you had a meltdown over my faithful follower Wendell BORROWING your needlessly advanced ‘phone,’ without trying to break into it and simply sliding it to you to tweet about your latest victory. And why? Because you were paranoid about a breach of privacy. What, pray tell, would you call what Mr. Mason admitted to last Breakdown then, hm? As I told you before, your private contacts are none of my business Mr. Young, but if you’re that concerned for the safety and privacy of your family, then perhaps SCW is not the company for you. After all, if the social media powers that be instructed Blake to expose matters personal to Selena just for the sake of juicy drama they can promote for the rest of the year, then who’s to say someone like you won’t become a similar victim just for the sake of ‘content’?”

Dexter tilts his head, a knowing smile playing on his lips as he lets his words to Rayne sink in, quietly hoping that everything he did to the man and this latest revelation gets through to him and makes him understand what he truly needs to do. The scowl quickly returns, though, at the thought of what’s on the table next.

“Speaking of ‘content,’ since that’s the hot trendy word kids like to throw around these days to describe anything that takes to social media like a wildfire takes to the forests of California every year, let’s talk about this disgusting idea SCW affectionately calls Fatal Fortunes. The short version is that for the next two weeks, whoever usually decides SCW’s cards is going on an undeserved vacation and everything will be decided by a whimsical spin of a wheel. You’ll never know who you’re facing, what kind of match you’re fighting in, any stipulations up to and including your job being on the line, or even so much as WHEN you’re going out to compete until they tell you literally moments before you have to step out onto that stage. Adding to the ‘fun’ is the fact that every champion is being forced to defend their titles as well.

It’s funny to think this concept has supposedly been around in SCW for years and yet it reeks of a desperate attempt to garner likes and clicks. Biggest and best wrestling company in the entire world, right? It even has a catchy alliterative name that you know people are going to invest in.

Sorry SCW, but I see straight through this scam. I watched footage of last year’s Fatal Fortunes, I crunched the numbers, and the data doesn’t lie about how blatantly obvious it is that this whole idea is nothing more than a way for the social czars that are really in power here to flaunt the fact that they have control and will make us dance like puppets for their precious algorithms-” Dexter holds up a hand and starts wiggling his fingers in a manner reminiscent of someone controlling a marionette. “-because they don’t care about any of us. We’re all expendable, we’re all toys for these oversized billion dollar toddlers, and the allure of such a concept like ‘but you could get lucky enough to challenge for a title’ is nothing but a clever ad to hide the fact that this is their excuse to throw gimmicks and matches normally reserved for their pay-per-views onto television to get people talking about it online. Wendell?”

After a moment of the wind being our only source of sound, we hear Wendell’s voice speaking from somewhere behind the camera, revealing the likely possibility that he’s our cameraman.

“During last year’s Fatal Fortunes, there were a total of 20 different matches featuring roughly 50 names, accounting for champions being booked multiple times. Of the six title matches that took place, one for each championship, only about 8 wrestlers actually got that honor, which is only about 16% of that roster. Additionally, of those 20 matches that took place, 14 of them were some sort of gimmick match or had some sort of stipulation attached to it. That is a whopping 70% of all matches across two weeks of programming.”

Dexter nods, audibly growling in response to these statistics.

“I would ask if those numbers sound fair to any of you, but I know none of you care. After all, you get to glimpse at some crazy match happening on free TV and then jump online to tweet about it and argue with someone else over whatever happened. You get what you paid for, because you’re the mindless masses SCW is marketing to with garbage like this. You look to people like Gavin Taylor, who’s found some new soap opera evil twin bullshit to hide from the truth that haunts his very existence, and see this as his moment to bounce back into the spotlight. If you actually hate this idea like me, then you ignore my existence and turn to people like James or Waylon or Colleen, who preach about restoring order and fixing what’s wrong with SCW because they’re the robots programmed by SCW’s social media team to spout that nonsense and stir up the very drama they claim to be against for the sake of their manufactured egos because it gets you talking about this company.

Why follow the words of the man who’s made it abundantly clear I’m trying to save all of you from yourselves and this social sickness when you can instead invest your faith in who THEY tell you is trying to save you?

‘But Dexter,’ I hear you ask. ‘If you don’t like Fatal Fortunes, then why don’t you just not participate?’ The answer to that, my devoted followers few and far between I hope I’ve gotten through to along the way, lies in two words that I knowingly committed to for the sake of this cause: contractual obligations. You remember how I said earlier that I was told my presence was not needed at Breakdown last week in San Francisco? Well, if I were to simply choose not to show up for the next two weeks and tell SCW that I’m not going to dance for them like a monkey for an organ grinder, then they have free reign to axe my contract and that’s the end of that. They would be free of me and I of them…that, however, would rob me of my position to take the fight straight to them and use this global platform to bring the entire system crashing down around me. After all, no one listens to my words, you’re all programmed not to…but my actions speak volumes that can’t be ignored.

For that reason alone, I am SCW’s worst nightmare in a situation like this, because whatever match ends up being spun for me will expose this whole corrupt concept and prove that none of this is ‘fate’ or ‘luck’ like everyone believes…just an elaborate ruse to see who’s willing to prostrate themselves before our social media overlords and compete outside of their comfort zone under false pretenses.”

At this point, Dexter reaches into his pocket. While we expect him to perhaps pull out the whetstone from earlier, instead he shockingly pulls out a pair of handcuffs and hooks one of them around his right wrist, taking a moment to make sure it’s completely secure before holding up the dangling cuffs for all to see.

“Let this be my declaration for this Fatal Fortunes bullshit. You want to make me take part in it SCW? Fine. But know that I will be wrestling under protest, and that means I will be playing by MY rules regardless of what your little wheel says. You see these handcuffs? I will have one cuffed around my wrist just like this no matter who you throw me against or what kind of match it is, and I’m going to use this to rewire the brain of whatever social zombie you think ‘fate’ claims can make me fall in line. If you think ‘fate’ can pair me up with anyone because surely I’ll have to play nice with your hand-selected accomplice to get the brainwashed fans buzzing, I will use these cuffs to shed my partner’s blood and leave them cuffed and at the mercy of whoever you’ve pitted against us because that’s they’re problem, not mine.

And as for a title opportunity? I know ‘fate’ won’t give me one. It’s a convenient excuse to disguise the fact that you cannot afford any of those precious trinkets to bear my name. On the off chance ‘fate’ does decide to grant me this opportunity, however, in some desperate bid to prove my words wrong, then just as I will with whoever I share that ring with, I will dig my fingers into their skull and rip out the USB cable you’ve plugged into their brains, severing them from your programming whims before I take whatever trinket made them the face of your little operation and burn it, right in front of everybody.

I don’t need a hunk of gold to validate who I am. I’m not everyone else in this company, including the false prophets claiming they’re going to save everyone because it’s mere ego stroking that people online will suck them off for within seconds just for a taste of that validation by proxy. I am Dexter Grant, the Digital Detoxer, and the rules you try to make everybody play by do not apply to me. My protest in that ring for Fatal Fortunes will prove to the masses that you don’t need championships or an online presence to make something of yourself. All you have to do is bear in mind these three simple words:

Disconnect…to Reconnect.”

Dexter steps forward, making sure we get one last good look at the handcuffs that symbolize his protest against Fatal Fortunes, before he storms off, leaving us with one final view of that axe he threw and embedded into the distant tree before the video is lost to white noise that inevitably returns to the familiar blue screen, and from there, the whole thing cuts.