12-29-2018, 04:49 PM
Perhaps it never needed to be this way…
Then again, sometimes it was hard to argue when you were pushed into a corner and left with no other choice.
That was the thought that ran through the mind of Rupert Adell as he stood here again, just outside the massive ION Wrestledome that had been constructed specifically by the International Operations Network in his hometown of Boston to serve as the host venue for all of their wrestling events. At one point in time, this arena had truly been the envy of virtually every sports facility in the world, except for maybe any of the other arenas those guys poured money into, never sparing any expense to be able to pack a worldwide audience into the most comfortable and luxurious sporting experience imaginable without having to sit at home on your couch. But now? The dimmed lights and empty parking lot served as a tearful reminder of what once was.
And Rupert knew he was to blame.
As he made his way inside, not caring if he came across anybody or if he would get in trouble for technically trespassing, he couldn’t help but think about how laughable that whole idea was. At the end of the day, he would always be blamed for killing ION Championship Wrestling, and while he wouldn’t shy away from that fact when the cameras were on, he knew better. Maybe he had a hand in it, considering that ever since he’d sent Zero on a one-way trip into retirement he began to know the obsession of staying at the top by any means necessary and a mix of dominant performances that very few could keep up with and how likely you were to be injured against him regardless of whether or not his title was on the line had truly torn the roster apart and caused the board to shut things down when they had so little left to adequately work with. As far as he was concerned, though, this all started with the Elites and they were the ones to truly blame at the end of the day for pushing him to this point in the first place.
If he was the bullet, then they were the gun.
As Rupert walked past the locker rooms where those four men used to reside, he scowled at their nameplates as they still hung there even after all this time, collecting dust but otherwise seemingly left alone by Father Time, as if he was also acknowledging this absurd idea that those four always had to be the end all and be all of this company no matter who you were. Zero, Seraphim, Custos and James “Platinum” Howler… the four of them made up the kind of wrestling clique that would put the well-known backstage politics of several notorious names from a certain giant in the industry we all know doesn’t need to be said to shame, all in the name of trying to protect what they thought was their turf when none of them had the right to try and ‘play god’ to begin with. Zero was arguably the greatest wrestler to ever grace the squared circle when he actually wanted to try, Seraphim was one of the most unorthodox and dangerous high-flyers you would ever meet, Custos was a mountain of a man that really knew how to use his size to his advantage, and Howler was easily among the greatest in-ring technicians to ever perfect his craft. Not a single one of them actually needed to pull such a stunt like what they did.
And yet, when you’re one of the originals and you get addicted to that feeling of being at the very top in the wrestling world, maybe it’s not so crazy to believe you’re entitled to being able to tell everyone else how things should be in your eyes, especially when you have a group of authority figures so confident in what they believe is a foolproof system that they only interject to announce the occasional new opportunity or title or idea they want to try and otherwise let the inmates run the asylum.
Rupert couldn’t help but let his hand trace along the nameplate to Zero’s door in particular before he ripped it off and hurled it down the abandoned hallway. If there was anybody from that ‘Elite’ group of assholes he despised more, it was without a doubt Zero. We already established that he could easily be the greatest wrestler of all time, and that’s not simply blowing smoke. When he actually gave it his all, that man was virtually unstoppable and nobody from ICW or SCW or any company anywhere on the planet would be able to defeat him, this was a fact. The problem is that Zero knew it, and that whole idea was like a toy to him. Outside of defending the World Title the man barely tried, giving people false hope when he lost because he just didn’t care enough to put in the effort half the time. Even when he was defending his gold, there was a good chance he might not even try and just ‘phone it in’ that night purely because he was sick of being on top and wanted to start back at the bottom just to see how quickly he could return to the peak and reclaim his throne, giving him a reason to try for at least a few months at best before the cycle began anew. When you combine that with the mere idea that he thought he knew better than anybody how things actually should be run because he was the proverbial alpha of the pack and everyone was expected to shut up and take his word as gospel, it wasn’t hard to see why his nickname of The Last Real Hero of Professional Wrestling might have been a hell of a stretch.
And yet, they all listened like sheep anyway and did what they were told, all because they were afraid they would be made into examples like Rupert had, and the kid’s only real crime was simply being that one in a million rookie that could actually get off to a hot start and back up the dreams he was preaching.
As Rupert continued his trek down the hall towards his known end destination, he couldn’t help but linger on that. All he’d ever done was simply sign a contract for his first major wrestling promotion and have an impressive showing in his debut, despite the fact that it ended in a double countout because one little risk took both him and his opponent out of commission on the floor. The very next week, since the World Champion was exempt from rankings and allowed to pick who he wanted to face every week if he so desired, Zero decided to take a crack at the new kid and lost because he wasn’t putting in his best effort, simply wanting to test the kid. It wasn’t Rupert’s fault that for months afterwards he simply kept adding on to an undefeated streak, and there was certainly no call for him and his buddies to decide the best way to ‘bring him back down to earth’ was to take the match script for his pay-per-view battle with Seraphim and put it through a shredder before having the kid be legitimately beaten senseless and made to look like an untrained joke. Maybe if that’s where it all ended, Rupert would’ve let it go, but considering they used their backstage pull to purposely stack the deck against him in a round robin tournament the following months and he found out the hard way about how Zero plays this game when he finally reached the top of the rankings and took a shot at trying to become World Champion, it was hard to simply ignore how wrong all of this was. And yet, nobody wanted to listen, from the board that didn’t think there was a problem because ratings and ticket sales were through the roof and on-camera their system was as bulletproof as ever to the other wrestlers who simply went about their business and even did as the Elites asked to avoid any issues.
Maybe it all could’ve been avoided if Rupert had just fallen in line like the rest, but he was never one to back down from something he knew was a problem no matter how much it came back to bite him in the ass.
“Even if I had to become the problem just to be a solution to another problem.”
It was a quiet musing on his part that only his ears would pick up on in the empty hallways, but it was the truth. After four years and finally regaining all of the momentum that had been stolen from him, after the board finally looked into his complaints and realized there was one hell of a backstage politic problem and started to do something about it, in the process driving the Elites away because they refused to play the game without their rules in place, to see himself have his clearest shot at reaching the top only for Zero to once again slip in and, despite the fair means he did this one by, try to rip the rug out from under him caused him to finally snap. He refused to put up with the nonsense anymore and decided that if he was going to play that game, he would have to insert a few rules of his own. When that night came and went, Zero would retire due to injury not as the arrogant asshole people came to hate, especially once his backstage pull finally came to light, but as the battle-tested hero he always proclaimed himself to be every chance he got. Rupert, on the other hand, went from being the beloved King of Hearts that would always keep fighting no matter how much the odds were stacked against him or how little chance he seemed to have to win, to being a ruthless, vicious, Heartless terror that cared only for one thing: becoming World Champion and keeping it that way by any means necessary.
And that’s exactly what he did for the first few months of 2018, until his newfound way of doing things finally brought this entire train to a screeching halt.
“I wonder how SCW would think of me if I actually walked in, willing to start at the very bottom like every other misguided peon they think they’re dealing with on the first day, and learned about any of this.”
As Rupert walked through the curtain out onto what was once the stage for easily one of the most awe-inspiring sets and seating arrangements ever laid out for a wrestling event, even easily putting anything done for the so-called ‘sports entertainment super bowl’ to shame and on a weekly basis no less, he thought to the company he’d discovered in the aftermath of ION Championship Wrestling’s downfall, which the history books would always attribute to him in the end. The mere thought of having to start at the bottom all over again after four years of putting up with something that no wrestler in history ever should and he doubted very many actually did to finally get to the top, only to have it taken away from him because he was ‘too dangerous’ disgusted him. Something about Supreme Championship Wrestling piqued his interest, if only because he saw the constant turmoil the company seemed to be in and felt like a lot of the roster could relate to him on some level, primarily the idea that once you become World Champion it’s like a drug addiction that you just can’t get rid of, only feeding it until it either destroys you or everything around you. Still, if he was going to have to go back to hunting for World Title gold, he wasn’t simply going to accept being at the bottom of the barrel all over again.
That’s where fate presented him with the perfect opportunity.
As Rupert proceeded down to the ring, knowing the task at hand for what he wanted to do, he thought to the sheer amount of time he’d spent researching this open invitational event that was always held during SCW’s End of the Year Special, a show they always held on New Year’s Eve to help bring in the new year and celebrate everything from the previous calendar year for better or worse. The idea was simple: a giant clusterfuck of a match where people were eliminated by pinfall or submission, and the last person standing got not only bragging rights, but also a brand new car and a quarter of a million dollars. SCW competitors that weren’t already booked, or wanted to be double-booked perhaps, could throw their names in if they didn’t want to simply relax and take it easy going into the following year, and it was one of the extremely few times where they allowed anybody not already signed to the company to dive into the deep end and see if maybe they want to stick around.
Rupert could already hear the bell ringing to tell him that he had a winner on his hands here.
If nothing else, abusing that loophole gave him the opportunity to walk right into a new home and lay waste to any poor soul who thought they were going to stop him from repeating what ultimately got him to the top in ICW and kept him there on day one. The money and the car were irrelevant as far as he was concerned, but being able to say he destroyed so many young dreams the same way his were smashed so early in his career and maybe even take a few years off the careers of some SCW veterans, hopefully even a few World Champions trying to prove they’d kicked the habit by letting that top prize play second fiddle for a night?
Once he was all set up in the ring, it was time for the newest chapter of this Heartless wrestler to unfold at long last.
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The first thing we see when our shot opens up is the silver center plate of a title belt. Perhaps at one point in time this silver plate and the green strap it’s attached to would’ve been looked upon with pride, especially since the letters etched into its design clearly spell out that it’s a World Championship. But an immediate sign that things might not be as they appear is the fact the silver has been stained red. Droplets and splatters of blood now decorate the once-pristine metal, letting it be known that this title has seen its fair share of horrors as time has gone on. As the camera pans back, we see that this title is resting on somebody’s lap, their hands clenched tightly into fists at the edge of the leather strap almost in a mixture of not wanting to let go quite yet and showing disdain for the prize they hold. As the panning speed increases, we soon find this figure is a man, his messy blonde hair hiding part of his face as he sits on a black steel chair beneath a lone spotlight in the middle of a ring. This ring is located in an arena, though it doesn’t exactly look like the arena where SCW will be holding court from on New Year’s Eve. No, this arena once looked like the pinnacle of a sports entertainment venue, but it’s clearly been shut down and abandoned for some time and the disrepair is noticeable. Perhaps the perfect setting for a man who looks like he’s been through a lot and has quite a few stories to tell, with none of them having a happy ending. Finally, we hear the man’s voice, and right away we can tell he’s not in the mood to play games.
“Kids of all ages always look at this ring with nothing but hopes and dreams. They all want to break into the wrestling business and climb to the top by any means necessary. They scratch and claw and fight and bust their asses, always hoping they’ll make that impact that will get them noticed. Some actually do make it, and many others don’t. But all those starry-eyed rookies and big dreamers out there don’t know what it’s truly like until they truly get into the thick of it.
This business is built solely on the idea of breaking every last shred of hope you hold dear and forcing you to either become the monster that everyone despises, or simply watch as your world burns around you with no hope of salvaging it.
I know what’s immediately running through your minds. Who the hell am I to say such a thing? What right do I have, on the eve of a match that’s hoping to likely introduce several bright young new stars to the industry, to try and scare them into thinking twice about going through with it? And that, of course, isn’t even getting into the obvious of why I’m holding championship gold and why it should matter to any of you, since that old song and dance of what you did elsewhere doesn’t mean a damn thing will most likely leave somebody’s mouth while it’s still working before this all begins. Simply put… I’m a man who’s gone through far more bullshit in just four years of being a wrestler than I guarantee ANY of you have gone through in even decades of being part of this sport in some fashion.
For the sake of formalities… the name’s Rupert Adell, and I’m the Heartless son of a bitch that’s going to take all your hopes of winning that open invitational in SCW on New Year’s Eve and send them up in flames.”
He knows that’s a bold claim to make, and no doubt everyone from the egotists to the self-righteous will dispute that, but he could care less. After all, he knows he’s telling the truth when he says he’s been through more than any of them have in this game, even if he has far less experience. For him, the dream of bright lights and seeing your name in the main event lost all its luster almost half a decade ago when he was still so young and new, and now all that’s left is a bitter man stuck with the addiction of being the best, the same drug that everybody gets hooked on in this business no matter how ‘innocent’ or ‘pure’ they try to convince you they are. It’s just like Hollywood: sooner or later, everybody’s hooked, and nobody is ever the same person they first walked into the business as.
“So, now that the river of nonsense that sums up every reason all of you will throw out as to why I’m full of shit for saying such a thing has dried up, let’s give the man a chance to explain himself, shall we? Or you could always just keep talking because you love the sound of your own voice, which just gives me an easy target to concuss when this party actually gets started. Yeah, maybe a company with as long as prestigious a history as SCW sounds like the kind of place where I’m going to regret saying such things right out of the gate, but I’m not going to hide my intentions:
I’m here to win this match in such a fashion that it immediate makes SCW management realize the only place I belong is at the top of the mountain.
I know, more bold claims, but no matter how much people like Sienna Swann or Syren or whoever else is clogging up the World Title drain right now want to take offense to that, I’m just speaking from the same facts they should know all too well if they have any brain cells left. See, the important thing to know about this business, something they really should teach you before you go diving into the deep end on the very first day, is that it’s laced with a very addictive drug called ‘being the best.’ Don’t lie, we all have these dreams of reaching the top of the mountain, and regardless of whether it’s SCW or somewhere else, once you actually get there you just never want to let it go. I’ve become more than familiar enough with watching SCW to know that’s the exact thing that ruined the Syren you all thought you knew, because she finally let it be known that she’s clearly a junkie for main event stardom and will settle for nothing less. I’m no different, except that unlike most of you I don’t hide what it’s done to me and pretend that I’m still some kind of patron saint that will right all the wrongs of this business or just smile and wave and pretend that everything’s exactly as you see it on television each and every week.
The belt I hold in my hands is proof of that.”
Rupert pauses for a moment to look down at the bloodstained championship resting in his lap, the look in his eyes clearly triggering all the memories both good and bad that this belt seems to have brought him. As he reminisces, he slowly shifts the title so that it’s now resting over his shoulder, making him look like a proper champion. Or at least as much of a proper champion as he can be considering this particular title no longer has a home to be defended in. That’s perfectly alright with him though, as this belt is now more of a message than anything else. It serves as a warning to those who oppose him and a reminder of where he once was and what he has to do in order to get there again, and if each drop of blood covering this belt is a new page to that story, then clearly a sequel won’t look any prettier once he’s done writing it.
“As much as I know it doesn’t matter to you because not a single one of you is physically capable of removing your heads from your own asses to see beyond your own little worlds where you’re the king or queen just begging to be beheaded, you should still listen because you might actually learn something that will save you. This title that I hold? At one point in time, it belonged to this wrestling organization run by a big conglomerate that never really had a focus beyond starting up several big sports endeavors under their umbrella, but their wrestling brand was certainly one of the most popular. The best from all over the world would get a crack at this place, and this title I hold was, at one point in time, the crown jewel of the whole parade. Anyone who’s ever fought for a World Title will tell you that trying to earn one of these things is never as easy as you think, and anyone who tells you otherwise is lying to themselves in hopes of patching up their bruised egos from the experience.
What makes the fact that I hold this belt so damn special, you ask? Well, aside from the fact I’ve already implied I’m the last person to actually hold it? Simply put, it was the sheer amount of backstage politics I had to fight through in order to actually get this thing in my hands even once. Everyone on the SCW roster is so up in arms right now about this ‘family civil war’ with everyone picking sides and the people in charge making power plays and all this other garbage that I just laugh at because there isn’t a single member of the family in charge around here that could compare to what I went through. Let me ask you something… how many of you have actually put up with an honest-to-god clique backstage? I’m not talking about some stable of people like Dark Fantasy or the Beauty Factory or anything like that, I’m talking about a small group of people with enough collective influence that no matter who’s in charge, they’re always able to swing things in their favor and come away smelling like roses no matter whose reputation they have to destroy both inside and out of the ring to keep their precious status quo. Sure, you might think that sums up Dark Fantasy right now, but take Katya out of the equation and what do they have?
Exactly, nothing.
I didn’t have the luxury of that option. All I had was a board of directors that tried as much as possible to stay out of the decision making and let their precious and ‘flawless’ ranking system do all the work for them. Problem is, four of the best this company had to offer decided to join forces backstage and throw everything you think you know about this business out the window all in the name of making sure they always looked like a million bucks even in defeat. Have you ever seen Syren or Ravyn just flip the bird to the idea of a match plan and simply curb stomp somebody to claim a win they weren’t actually supposed to have in the show notes? Even if you think you have, did you ever see them actually get away with it? It’s putting up with things like that for almost four full years of my career that turned me from a young man with dreams of climbing the mountain into the jaded, bitter Heartless soul sitting before you now. Yeah, eventually it was finally stopped, but by that point I had already been screwed out of opportunities countless times and left little chance to actually recover all the momentum that was crushed just because a couple of guys needed to make damn sure I ‘knew my place’ in the business because the idea of a rookie making so many waves just didn’t sit right with them and they refused to look bad when push came to shove.
I ultimately paid them back by taking their leader’s career from him and eventually burning down the house that offered me a chance to compete and opened the door for me to see the worst of what this business has to offer.”
Rupert lays the belt out on the mat in front of him before he looks around at the arena, once filled with people from all around the world that would flock to this one location year-round just to see some of the biggest names compete, now simply left to rot because nobody could handle what it had made him. Injuries, the fear of getting injured or simply having their precious dreams crushed by a man who had become unstoppable through the hatred that transformed him… no matter how much they threw it all around, as far as he was concerned they all had it coming. They all watched as his dreams eroded before his very eyes and they all played along with the bullies and their rules for fear of losing their own stock, so as far as he was concerned they had no right to complain when he went from being the bullied to the bigger, badder bully that all but crippled the old bully and usurped his throne with authority.
“The point I’m trying to make is that this business is not what you think it is. For every dreamer awaiting their chance at stardom, there’s a jaded cynic that will gladly rip them back down to reality even in the dirtiest way possible, regardless of whether or not anyone actually gets to see it. For every person pretending to be a hero, there’s someone who used to try and uphold that ideal that became burned by it one too many times that they can’t be anything more than the villain now. For everyone that tries to tell you why they’re in this business, each and every one of them are lying both to you and to themselves, because the only reason any of us do this is to be the best, and most simply haven’t realized they’re already addicted until it becomes too late and they’re either too broken to continue or have become everything that you people despise once they can no longer hide it.
Sounds a lot like everyone in SCW past and present when you really think about it, doesn’t it?
I know all of you hate this idea of reality creeping into the product you’re trying to enjoy, but the more you try to hide from the reality of what this business can do to a person, the worse the scars will be when it all comes crashing down around you and you’re left to either pick up the pieces or simply die along with all those beliefs you once thought would always be your safety net. No matter how much you hate me, at least I’m willing to be honest and upfront with all of you about my intentions. After all, I’ve been where Syren is, where Sienna will be once she finally falls from her perch, where so many others either have been or will be soon enough… I’ve been to the top and I can’t accept anything less than getting back there all over again, to the point where I refuse to simply start at the bottom because I’ve long since moved past that stage of my career. I’ve been screwed over to the point where the idea of basically destroying an entire company by literally cutting down its roster was my only option to get to where I wanted to be, and I did it without hesitation because there was no other way. And now, I’m coming to SCW to do it all over again, and if you think I’m going to be caught up in any of that backstage political bullshit a second time on my way up, then I want you to take one good look at the remains of the world that used to exist around me, at every drop of blood that stains what was once the most prestigious championship you would ever find in this venue, and tell me with a straight face that I can’t find a way to cut straight through it all and be SCW World Champion unscathed.
I’m not here to play games, I’m here to be the best, plain and simple.
It all starts on the eve of 2018’s end, when I dismantle each and every bright-eyed scrub from SCW veterans to pure rookies with no sense of mercy or remorse not because I need a new car or a cash prize that I can simply set ablaze to further prove my point, but because I’m here to send the kind of message that goes beyond Sasha, Katya and their father and goes straight to SCW’s headquarters so they know exactly what kind of monster I am, and why they’re better off giving me what I want sooner rather than later. Otherwise… well, maybe the SCW roster is in need of a little ‘scorched earth’ treatment to thin it out a bit, wouldn’t you say?”
It is here that our scene comes to an end, the spotlight shutting off with authority and the darkness giving us no sound to indicate Rupert plans on continuing. He’s made his point loud and clear, but he knows full well a bold opening statement will only get him so far. It’s the actions that drive the words after all, and while anyone can look up what he’s done in the past for themselves, only by experiencing it firsthand will they truly understand the pure hatred that took a once promising young man who many said would be a bright hope for the future of the business and turned him into perhaps the purest definition of a living, breathing cancer on the wrestling world that wasn’t going to stop until he got exactly what he wanted, no matter how much had to be destroyed in the process to get there. After all, everyone knows how devastating an addiction can be, and some addicts are always worse than others. And Rupert Adell? Everything he suffered through just to get to the top one time after so long of fighting might’ve made him the most dangerous addict of them all.
Then again, sometimes it was hard to argue when you were pushed into a corner and left with no other choice.
That was the thought that ran through the mind of Rupert Adell as he stood here again, just outside the massive ION Wrestledome that had been constructed specifically by the International Operations Network in his hometown of Boston to serve as the host venue for all of their wrestling events. At one point in time, this arena had truly been the envy of virtually every sports facility in the world, except for maybe any of the other arenas those guys poured money into, never sparing any expense to be able to pack a worldwide audience into the most comfortable and luxurious sporting experience imaginable without having to sit at home on your couch. But now? The dimmed lights and empty parking lot served as a tearful reminder of what once was.
And Rupert knew he was to blame.
As he made his way inside, not caring if he came across anybody or if he would get in trouble for technically trespassing, he couldn’t help but think about how laughable that whole idea was. At the end of the day, he would always be blamed for killing ION Championship Wrestling, and while he wouldn’t shy away from that fact when the cameras were on, he knew better. Maybe he had a hand in it, considering that ever since he’d sent Zero on a one-way trip into retirement he began to know the obsession of staying at the top by any means necessary and a mix of dominant performances that very few could keep up with and how likely you were to be injured against him regardless of whether or not his title was on the line had truly torn the roster apart and caused the board to shut things down when they had so little left to adequately work with. As far as he was concerned, though, this all started with the Elites and they were the ones to truly blame at the end of the day for pushing him to this point in the first place.
If he was the bullet, then they were the gun.
As Rupert walked past the locker rooms where those four men used to reside, he scowled at their nameplates as they still hung there even after all this time, collecting dust but otherwise seemingly left alone by Father Time, as if he was also acknowledging this absurd idea that those four always had to be the end all and be all of this company no matter who you were. Zero, Seraphim, Custos and James “Platinum” Howler… the four of them made up the kind of wrestling clique that would put the well-known backstage politics of several notorious names from a certain giant in the industry we all know doesn’t need to be said to shame, all in the name of trying to protect what they thought was their turf when none of them had the right to try and ‘play god’ to begin with. Zero was arguably the greatest wrestler to ever grace the squared circle when he actually wanted to try, Seraphim was one of the most unorthodox and dangerous high-flyers you would ever meet, Custos was a mountain of a man that really knew how to use his size to his advantage, and Howler was easily among the greatest in-ring technicians to ever perfect his craft. Not a single one of them actually needed to pull such a stunt like what they did.
And yet, when you’re one of the originals and you get addicted to that feeling of being at the very top in the wrestling world, maybe it’s not so crazy to believe you’re entitled to being able to tell everyone else how things should be in your eyes, especially when you have a group of authority figures so confident in what they believe is a foolproof system that they only interject to announce the occasional new opportunity or title or idea they want to try and otherwise let the inmates run the asylum.
Rupert couldn’t help but let his hand trace along the nameplate to Zero’s door in particular before he ripped it off and hurled it down the abandoned hallway. If there was anybody from that ‘Elite’ group of assholes he despised more, it was without a doubt Zero. We already established that he could easily be the greatest wrestler of all time, and that’s not simply blowing smoke. When he actually gave it his all, that man was virtually unstoppable and nobody from ICW or SCW or any company anywhere on the planet would be able to defeat him, this was a fact. The problem is that Zero knew it, and that whole idea was like a toy to him. Outside of defending the World Title the man barely tried, giving people false hope when he lost because he just didn’t care enough to put in the effort half the time. Even when he was defending his gold, there was a good chance he might not even try and just ‘phone it in’ that night purely because he was sick of being on top and wanted to start back at the bottom just to see how quickly he could return to the peak and reclaim his throne, giving him a reason to try for at least a few months at best before the cycle began anew. When you combine that with the mere idea that he thought he knew better than anybody how things actually should be run because he was the proverbial alpha of the pack and everyone was expected to shut up and take his word as gospel, it wasn’t hard to see why his nickname of The Last Real Hero of Professional Wrestling might have been a hell of a stretch.
And yet, they all listened like sheep anyway and did what they were told, all because they were afraid they would be made into examples like Rupert had, and the kid’s only real crime was simply being that one in a million rookie that could actually get off to a hot start and back up the dreams he was preaching.
As Rupert continued his trek down the hall towards his known end destination, he couldn’t help but linger on that. All he’d ever done was simply sign a contract for his first major wrestling promotion and have an impressive showing in his debut, despite the fact that it ended in a double countout because one little risk took both him and his opponent out of commission on the floor. The very next week, since the World Champion was exempt from rankings and allowed to pick who he wanted to face every week if he so desired, Zero decided to take a crack at the new kid and lost because he wasn’t putting in his best effort, simply wanting to test the kid. It wasn’t Rupert’s fault that for months afterwards he simply kept adding on to an undefeated streak, and there was certainly no call for him and his buddies to decide the best way to ‘bring him back down to earth’ was to take the match script for his pay-per-view battle with Seraphim and put it through a shredder before having the kid be legitimately beaten senseless and made to look like an untrained joke. Maybe if that’s where it all ended, Rupert would’ve let it go, but considering they used their backstage pull to purposely stack the deck against him in a round robin tournament the following months and he found out the hard way about how Zero plays this game when he finally reached the top of the rankings and took a shot at trying to become World Champion, it was hard to simply ignore how wrong all of this was. And yet, nobody wanted to listen, from the board that didn’t think there was a problem because ratings and ticket sales were through the roof and on-camera their system was as bulletproof as ever to the other wrestlers who simply went about their business and even did as the Elites asked to avoid any issues.
Maybe it all could’ve been avoided if Rupert had just fallen in line like the rest, but he was never one to back down from something he knew was a problem no matter how much it came back to bite him in the ass.
“Even if I had to become the problem just to be a solution to another problem.”
It was a quiet musing on his part that only his ears would pick up on in the empty hallways, but it was the truth. After four years and finally regaining all of the momentum that had been stolen from him, after the board finally looked into his complaints and realized there was one hell of a backstage politic problem and started to do something about it, in the process driving the Elites away because they refused to play the game without their rules in place, to see himself have his clearest shot at reaching the top only for Zero to once again slip in and, despite the fair means he did this one by, try to rip the rug out from under him caused him to finally snap. He refused to put up with the nonsense anymore and decided that if he was going to play that game, he would have to insert a few rules of his own. When that night came and went, Zero would retire due to injury not as the arrogant asshole people came to hate, especially once his backstage pull finally came to light, but as the battle-tested hero he always proclaimed himself to be every chance he got. Rupert, on the other hand, went from being the beloved King of Hearts that would always keep fighting no matter how much the odds were stacked against him or how little chance he seemed to have to win, to being a ruthless, vicious, Heartless terror that cared only for one thing: becoming World Champion and keeping it that way by any means necessary.
And that’s exactly what he did for the first few months of 2018, until his newfound way of doing things finally brought this entire train to a screeching halt.
“I wonder how SCW would think of me if I actually walked in, willing to start at the very bottom like every other misguided peon they think they’re dealing with on the first day, and learned about any of this.”
As Rupert walked through the curtain out onto what was once the stage for easily one of the most awe-inspiring sets and seating arrangements ever laid out for a wrestling event, even easily putting anything done for the so-called ‘sports entertainment super bowl’ to shame and on a weekly basis no less, he thought to the company he’d discovered in the aftermath of ION Championship Wrestling’s downfall, which the history books would always attribute to him in the end. The mere thought of having to start at the bottom all over again after four years of putting up with something that no wrestler in history ever should and he doubted very many actually did to finally get to the top, only to have it taken away from him because he was ‘too dangerous’ disgusted him. Something about Supreme Championship Wrestling piqued his interest, if only because he saw the constant turmoil the company seemed to be in and felt like a lot of the roster could relate to him on some level, primarily the idea that once you become World Champion it’s like a drug addiction that you just can’t get rid of, only feeding it until it either destroys you or everything around you. Still, if he was going to have to go back to hunting for World Title gold, he wasn’t simply going to accept being at the bottom of the barrel all over again.
That’s where fate presented him with the perfect opportunity.
As Rupert proceeded down to the ring, knowing the task at hand for what he wanted to do, he thought to the sheer amount of time he’d spent researching this open invitational event that was always held during SCW’s End of the Year Special, a show they always held on New Year’s Eve to help bring in the new year and celebrate everything from the previous calendar year for better or worse. The idea was simple: a giant clusterfuck of a match where people were eliminated by pinfall or submission, and the last person standing got not only bragging rights, but also a brand new car and a quarter of a million dollars. SCW competitors that weren’t already booked, or wanted to be double-booked perhaps, could throw their names in if they didn’t want to simply relax and take it easy going into the following year, and it was one of the extremely few times where they allowed anybody not already signed to the company to dive into the deep end and see if maybe they want to stick around.
Rupert could already hear the bell ringing to tell him that he had a winner on his hands here.
If nothing else, abusing that loophole gave him the opportunity to walk right into a new home and lay waste to any poor soul who thought they were going to stop him from repeating what ultimately got him to the top in ICW and kept him there on day one. The money and the car were irrelevant as far as he was concerned, but being able to say he destroyed so many young dreams the same way his were smashed so early in his career and maybe even take a few years off the careers of some SCW veterans, hopefully even a few World Champions trying to prove they’d kicked the habit by letting that top prize play second fiddle for a night?
Once he was all set up in the ring, it was time for the newest chapter of this Heartless wrestler to unfold at long last.
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The first thing we see when our shot opens up is the silver center plate of a title belt. Perhaps at one point in time this silver plate and the green strap it’s attached to would’ve been looked upon with pride, especially since the letters etched into its design clearly spell out that it’s a World Championship. But an immediate sign that things might not be as they appear is the fact the silver has been stained red. Droplets and splatters of blood now decorate the once-pristine metal, letting it be known that this title has seen its fair share of horrors as time has gone on. As the camera pans back, we see that this title is resting on somebody’s lap, their hands clenched tightly into fists at the edge of the leather strap almost in a mixture of not wanting to let go quite yet and showing disdain for the prize they hold. As the panning speed increases, we soon find this figure is a man, his messy blonde hair hiding part of his face as he sits on a black steel chair beneath a lone spotlight in the middle of a ring. This ring is located in an arena, though it doesn’t exactly look like the arena where SCW will be holding court from on New Year’s Eve. No, this arena once looked like the pinnacle of a sports entertainment venue, but it’s clearly been shut down and abandoned for some time and the disrepair is noticeable. Perhaps the perfect setting for a man who looks like he’s been through a lot and has quite a few stories to tell, with none of them having a happy ending. Finally, we hear the man’s voice, and right away we can tell he’s not in the mood to play games.
“Kids of all ages always look at this ring with nothing but hopes and dreams. They all want to break into the wrestling business and climb to the top by any means necessary. They scratch and claw and fight and bust their asses, always hoping they’ll make that impact that will get them noticed. Some actually do make it, and many others don’t. But all those starry-eyed rookies and big dreamers out there don’t know what it’s truly like until they truly get into the thick of it.
This business is built solely on the idea of breaking every last shred of hope you hold dear and forcing you to either become the monster that everyone despises, or simply watch as your world burns around you with no hope of salvaging it.
I know what’s immediately running through your minds. Who the hell am I to say such a thing? What right do I have, on the eve of a match that’s hoping to likely introduce several bright young new stars to the industry, to try and scare them into thinking twice about going through with it? And that, of course, isn’t even getting into the obvious of why I’m holding championship gold and why it should matter to any of you, since that old song and dance of what you did elsewhere doesn’t mean a damn thing will most likely leave somebody’s mouth while it’s still working before this all begins. Simply put… I’m a man who’s gone through far more bullshit in just four years of being a wrestler than I guarantee ANY of you have gone through in even decades of being part of this sport in some fashion.
For the sake of formalities… the name’s Rupert Adell, and I’m the Heartless son of a bitch that’s going to take all your hopes of winning that open invitational in SCW on New Year’s Eve and send them up in flames.”
He knows that’s a bold claim to make, and no doubt everyone from the egotists to the self-righteous will dispute that, but he could care less. After all, he knows he’s telling the truth when he says he’s been through more than any of them have in this game, even if he has far less experience. For him, the dream of bright lights and seeing your name in the main event lost all its luster almost half a decade ago when he was still so young and new, and now all that’s left is a bitter man stuck with the addiction of being the best, the same drug that everybody gets hooked on in this business no matter how ‘innocent’ or ‘pure’ they try to convince you they are. It’s just like Hollywood: sooner or later, everybody’s hooked, and nobody is ever the same person they first walked into the business as.
“So, now that the river of nonsense that sums up every reason all of you will throw out as to why I’m full of shit for saying such a thing has dried up, let’s give the man a chance to explain himself, shall we? Or you could always just keep talking because you love the sound of your own voice, which just gives me an easy target to concuss when this party actually gets started. Yeah, maybe a company with as long as prestigious a history as SCW sounds like the kind of place where I’m going to regret saying such things right out of the gate, but I’m not going to hide my intentions:
I’m here to win this match in such a fashion that it immediate makes SCW management realize the only place I belong is at the top of the mountain.
I know, more bold claims, but no matter how much people like Sienna Swann or Syren or whoever else is clogging up the World Title drain right now want to take offense to that, I’m just speaking from the same facts they should know all too well if they have any brain cells left. See, the important thing to know about this business, something they really should teach you before you go diving into the deep end on the very first day, is that it’s laced with a very addictive drug called ‘being the best.’ Don’t lie, we all have these dreams of reaching the top of the mountain, and regardless of whether it’s SCW or somewhere else, once you actually get there you just never want to let it go. I’ve become more than familiar enough with watching SCW to know that’s the exact thing that ruined the Syren you all thought you knew, because she finally let it be known that she’s clearly a junkie for main event stardom and will settle for nothing less. I’m no different, except that unlike most of you I don’t hide what it’s done to me and pretend that I’m still some kind of patron saint that will right all the wrongs of this business or just smile and wave and pretend that everything’s exactly as you see it on television each and every week.
The belt I hold in my hands is proof of that.”
Rupert pauses for a moment to look down at the bloodstained championship resting in his lap, the look in his eyes clearly triggering all the memories both good and bad that this belt seems to have brought him. As he reminisces, he slowly shifts the title so that it’s now resting over his shoulder, making him look like a proper champion. Or at least as much of a proper champion as he can be considering this particular title no longer has a home to be defended in. That’s perfectly alright with him though, as this belt is now more of a message than anything else. It serves as a warning to those who oppose him and a reminder of where he once was and what he has to do in order to get there again, and if each drop of blood covering this belt is a new page to that story, then clearly a sequel won’t look any prettier once he’s done writing it.
“As much as I know it doesn’t matter to you because not a single one of you is physically capable of removing your heads from your own asses to see beyond your own little worlds where you’re the king or queen just begging to be beheaded, you should still listen because you might actually learn something that will save you. This title that I hold? At one point in time, it belonged to this wrestling organization run by a big conglomerate that never really had a focus beyond starting up several big sports endeavors under their umbrella, but their wrestling brand was certainly one of the most popular. The best from all over the world would get a crack at this place, and this title I hold was, at one point in time, the crown jewel of the whole parade. Anyone who’s ever fought for a World Title will tell you that trying to earn one of these things is never as easy as you think, and anyone who tells you otherwise is lying to themselves in hopes of patching up their bruised egos from the experience.
What makes the fact that I hold this belt so damn special, you ask? Well, aside from the fact I’ve already implied I’m the last person to actually hold it? Simply put, it was the sheer amount of backstage politics I had to fight through in order to actually get this thing in my hands even once. Everyone on the SCW roster is so up in arms right now about this ‘family civil war’ with everyone picking sides and the people in charge making power plays and all this other garbage that I just laugh at because there isn’t a single member of the family in charge around here that could compare to what I went through. Let me ask you something… how many of you have actually put up with an honest-to-god clique backstage? I’m not talking about some stable of people like Dark Fantasy or the Beauty Factory or anything like that, I’m talking about a small group of people with enough collective influence that no matter who’s in charge, they’re always able to swing things in their favor and come away smelling like roses no matter whose reputation they have to destroy both inside and out of the ring to keep their precious status quo. Sure, you might think that sums up Dark Fantasy right now, but take Katya out of the equation and what do they have?
Exactly, nothing.
I didn’t have the luxury of that option. All I had was a board of directors that tried as much as possible to stay out of the decision making and let their precious and ‘flawless’ ranking system do all the work for them. Problem is, four of the best this company had to offer decided to join forces backstage and throw everything you think you know about this business out the window all in the name of making sure they always looked like a million bucks even in defeat. Have you ever seen Syren or Ravyn just flip the bird to the idea of a match plan and simply curb stomp somebody to claim a win they weren’t actually supposed to have in the show notes? Even if you think you have, did you ever see them actually get away with it? It’s putting up with things like that for almost four full years of my career that turned me from a young man with dreams of climbing the mountain into the jaded, bitter Heartless soul sitting before you now. Yeah, eventually it was finally stopped, but by that point I had already been screwed out of opportunities countless times and left little chance to actually recover all the momentum that was crushed just because a couple of guys needed to make damn sure I ‘knew my place’ in the business because the idea of a rookie making so many waves just didn’t sit right with them and they refused to look bad when push came to shove.
I ultimately paid them back by taking their leader’s career from him and eventually burning down the house that offered me a chance to compete and opened the door for me to see the worst of what this business has to offer.”
Rupert lays the belt out on the mat in front of him before he looks around at the arena, once filled with people from all around the world that would flock to this one location year-round just to see some of the biggest names compete, now simply left to rot because nobody could handle what it had made him. Injuries, the fear of getting injured or simply having their precious dreams crushed by a man who had become unstoppable through the hatred that transformed him… no matter how much they threw it all around, as far as he was concerned they all had it coming. They all watched as his dreams eroded before his very eyes and they all played along with the bullies and their rules for fear of losing their own stock, so as far as he was concerned they had no right to complain when he went from being the bullied to the bigger, badder bully that all but crippled the old bully and usurped his throne with authority.
“The point I’m trying to make is that this business is not what you think it is. For every dreamer awaiting their chance at stardom, there’s a jaded cynic that will gladly rip them back down to reality even in the dirtiest way possible, regardless of whether or not anyone actually gets to see it. For every person pretending to be a hero, there’s someone who used to try and uphold that ideal that became burned by it one too many times that they can’t be anything more than the villain now. For everyone that tries to tell you why they’re in this business, each and every one of them are lying both to you and to themselves, because the only reason any of us do this is to be the best, and most simply haven’t realized they’re already addicted until it becomes too late and they’re either too broken to continue or have become everything that you people despise once they can no longer hide it.
Sounds a lot like everyone in SCW past and present when you really think about it, doesn’t it?
I know all of you hate this idea of reality creeping into the product you’re trying to enjoy, but the more you try to hide from the reality of what this business can do to a person, the worse the scars will be when it all comes crashing down around you and you’re left to either pick up the pieces or simply die along with all those beliefs you once thought would always be your safety net. No matter how much you hate me, at least I’m willing to be honest and upfront with all of you about my intentions. After all, I’ve been where Syren is, where Sienna will be once she finally falls from her perch, where so many others either have been or will be soon enough… I’ve been to the top and I can’t accept anything less than getting back there all over again, to the point where I refuse to simply start at the bottom because I’ve long since moved past that stage of my career. I’ve been screwed over to the point where the idea of basically destroying an entire company by literally cutting down its roster was my only option to get to where I wanted to be, and I did it without hesitation because there was no other way. And now, I’m coming to SCW to do it all over again, and if you think I’m going to be caught up in any of that backstage political bullshit a second time on my way up, then I want you to take one good look at the remains of the world that used to exist around me, at every drop of blood that stains what was once the most prestigious championship you would ever find in this venue, and tell me with a straight face that I can’t find a way to cut straight through it all and be SCW World Champion unscathed.
I’m not here to play games, I’m here to be the best, plain and simple.
It all starts on the eve of 2018’s end, when I dismantle each and every bright-eyed scrub from SCW veterans to pure rookies with no sense of mercy or remorse not because I need a new car or a cash prize that I can simply set ablaze to further prove my point, but because I’m here to send the kind of message that goes beyond Sasha, Katya and their father and goes straight to SCW’s headquarters so they know exactly what kind of monster I am, and why they’re better off giving me what I want sooner rather than later. Otherwise… well, maybe the SCW roster is in need of a little ‘scorched earth’ treatment to thin it out a bit, wouldn’t you say?”
It is here that our scene comes to an end, the spotlight shutting off with authority and the darkness giving us no sound to indicate Rupert plans on continuing. He’s made his point loud and clear, but he knows full well a bold opening statement will only get him so far. It’s the actions that drive the words after all, and while anyone can look up what he’s done in the past for themselves, only by experiencing it firsthand will they truly understand the pure hatred that took a once promising young man who many said would be a bright hope for the future of the business and turned him into perhaps the purest definition of a living, breathing cancer on the wrestling world that wasn’t going to stop until he got exactly what he wanted, no matter how much had to be destroyed in the process to get there. After all, everyone knows how devastating an addiction can be, and some addicts are always worse than others. And Rupert Adell? Everything he suffered through just to get to the top one time after so long of fighting might’ve made him the most dangerous addict of them all.