Ron watched the run down houses and empty lots fly past his window as he drove towards the gym. His Gracie-Barra affiliate wasn't in the nicest part of town and he liked it that way. He loved the attitude that permeated out of that place. It was full of men who would be reincarnated (if you believed in that sort of thing) as junkyard dogs and they tested each other by giving no quarter, expecting none in return.

Ron parked his truck in front of the gym and made his way inside.

"Well if it isn't Buzz friggin Aldrin! Tell me something mother fucker, how come I can't get Joey a fight past Tucson, but you get sent to out fucker space within your first month on the job?!"

Ron laughed in response "Tell Joey if he knew how to defend a fucking arm triangle he'd have better luck fighting outside the southwest."

"I'll make sure I don't, you know how sensitive he gets. What's the deal this week? What have we got?"

"Some roided up clown, he clicked on a Submissions 101 video by accident in between jerking off to Enrique Iglesias YouTube videos and now he thinks that he's (Ron makes finger quotations) "a technical wrestler". He's gonna try to get in the pool with me and I'm gonna take him into deep water and drown him."

"I like it, you said roided up? So he's a bigger guy?"

"Yeah, about 60lbs on me. But he likes to live the pampered lifestyle. Probably spends his time doing Pilates and concentration curls on a BowFlex. He forgot that it doesn't matter if you have muscles if you don't want to work hard to use them."

"Damn I hate guys like that. Just by the way you're describing him I can picture him shadow boxing in a gym, mean mugging everyone, and wearing a TapOut shirt."

"I wouldn't doubt it, you gonna talk about this poser all day or are you gonna take your whooping like a man?"

"Haha, alright mother fucker. Lets do this."

The usual warm up and they were at it. As the two high level practitioners attacked and defended almost a dozen other students entered the gym. Eventually the air grew thick with the smell of sweat, and the thin steel walls echoed with grunts and the occasional "Tap, tap, tap!" when someone made that fatal mistake.

The grappling continued for over an hour until once again, Jeff and Ron were the last two left standing. As the rest of the group began stretching and cooling down, Ron bee-lined towards the weight lifting section and immediately started loading up 45lb plates on the barbell resting in the squat rack. Again and again he drove his hips downward, never cheating and stopping above parallel. The lessons imparted from the coaches at Oklahoma State when your form lagged had stuck with him throughout the years, greatness came from working hard, not a syringe…you hear that “Mr Natural”?

As the sets dragged on, the weights grew heavier until the barbell was sagging across his broad shoulders. Still he continued driving on, pumping his body under the huge weight like a piston in an engine. He struggled, grunted, and strained under his last set with a weight that would make a linebacker in the NFL proud.

But as always, he finished his set. There was no time to slack, not with what loomed on the horizon. He didn’t feel any real threat from his opponent, this was about what lay past his opponent. He was starting to feel it, this had begun as a way to make money and support his family. But Ron was a passionate guy, and someone who’d never accepted defeat at all. Now that he’d gotten a taste of what it was like to stand under those lights with thousands of people cheering him he was hooked. He was as addicted as the Unknown Soldier’s mother was to crack cocaine while she was pregnant with her future waste of oxygen.

But this wasn’t about that walking disease farm. This was about the man who stood in the way of Ron making another cool five figures, as well as fully realizing his potential in this business.

This was about a certain wanna-be gangster known by the name of Mr. Natural.

The young man could barely finish a sentence and when he did, half the words were things you probably wouldn’t want to say in front of your grandmother. The “man’s” lack of intelligence really shown through when he was forced to resort to filler “cuss words” so he could buy time to think of another juvenile insult.

Ron began speaking directly to the XWF camera crew.

You made a point of stating how I made you so mad with my words that you were going to… “grab my damn nine mpiece, find that bitch, and shoot his ass like he owed me some damn money.” Well my main suggestion with respectful regards to this comment would be to bring your “nine mpiece” (whatever that is) to the ring on Saturday, since I’m assuming a “nine mpiece” is some sort of firearm, which is your only chance of walking out of that ring without some sort of career crippling injury.

You were also incredibly eloquent when you stated “It's just another mothafucka talkin shit thinking they gon whoop my ass then turn around and almost gets killed in the rin. See this is what I don't understand about these fuck bitches that Shane hires these days. Nowadays, all peple do is talk shit, they don't back up not adamn thing they say.”

Are you not aware what I’m capable of?

Are you that obsessed with John Madison?

I walked into my first professional wrestling match, in the biggest professional wrestling organization in the world, and dominated two men. Then I stepped my game up in a modified Hardcore rules match and dominated a pretty tough man (Stagger Jones) in every possible facet of a match. What makes you think I’m not worthy to step in the ring with you?

You offer me nothing Mr. Natural, and soon you’ll be just another name on my ledger. One week from now while I continue climbing the ladder, I’ll be mentioning you in passing.

Just like I do Stagger Jones.

At least in a few months people will look back on my match history and your “legacy” can live on there, while you are loan-sharking or bouncing at some back-alley strip club. Would’ve been best to keep your mouth shut kiddo, now you’ve really made Daddy angry.

You’re a footnote in my history.