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Thomas Nixon · **12-17-2016, 09:04 AM**

Thomas Nixon is back in his small row home, in the Old City neighborhood of Philadelphia, after an eventful, emotional week. He had a day of rest before he has to travel down to Richmond, Virginia for Savage Saturday Night.

Nixon was still recovering from his emotionally taxing action at the hotel. He wishes his life didn’t have to be that way, but it was a ritual that he had to do. He didn’t have much of a say in it.

Thomas rests on his couch that is positioned in front of his large television set. With the remote in hand, Nixon seeks for the XWF promotional material leading into the next television show.

“No, no, no,” Nixon mumbles to himself, as he scrolls past promos from the likes of Robbie Bourbon, Barney Green, and Ronnie Cage. Nixon hovers over the three Gabe Reno promos. Having already seen the first one, Nixon clicks on the promo entitled “Imagination”.

After several minutes of Gabe Reno trashing a house, the video fades away.

Thomas Nixon’s jaw is wide open, not in shock, but in confusion.

This fucker must have lost his mind. I feel like I just watched ten minutes from some shitty MTV show from the mid 2000s. Now I think I get it, Gabe Reno doesn’t take the XWF seriously, he doesn’t take our match seriously. That’s the problem he faces. He bothers to find a nice building to trash, to find a Willy Wonka costume to wear, and he gets a guy to play dead on the floor dressed as a butler of sorts. But he didn’t want to take the time to study both my matches and my promos. He would know that’s not my lifestyle. I don’t live in a beautiful mansion or a large home, I live in a small house in the city. But that doesn’t matter to Gabe. That would require research or actually finding where I live.

Gabe cares about coming off as flamboyant and high energy. He wants to be seen as a wildcard. He wants the fans to watch this segment and think “Holy shit! This guy is a lunatic! What is he gonna do next?!” And he may very well make that impression on the viewers, but when it comes down to it, you’re just a person with a schtick. Plain and simple. You have an act that you play, but I don’t have any reason to believe that it will translate well to the ring. Sure, he has a solid record in XWF, but what happened when he wrestled a formidable opponent like Chris Chaos? He crumbled.

Reno cares about creating an image far too much. He tries to mock me, paint a false picture. Even if it worked, it doesn’t change a damn thing when we step foot in the ring on Saturday. He criticizes me. He tells me I’m the least interesting character here. I’m just not a caricature like Reno. I don’t turn things up to 11, I’m a fucking person. I don’t need an act or a schtick to make an impact and succeed. I don’t need to construct a fake set, take a piss on some pictures, or hide trash in someone’s bedding.

The fans have a positive perception of me, not because I try to spell it out for them. It’s because I walk into the ring with three other men, and I pin all of them to win the XWF Television Championship. In my debut match, I beat the tar out of a women who told me that her past concussions could kill her. My ring work and my clear passion has built a perception of me, and I don’t need to act like an insecure teenager.

Disparage me all you want, but you aren’t going to win a match just because you know how to drop a one liner here and there. I've watched sitcoms that do a better job of making a play on words. I could still beat the crap out of Jerry Seinfeld. So make all the little jokes you want, it won't get you far.

Nixon grabs the remote and turns on the last promo, entitled “Zephyr”. Nixon watches intently as Reno gets lost in a forest, before he encounters gnomes. As he views the promo, Nixon’s mouth slowly becomes agape, as his head tilts to the side.

The promo fades out leaving Nixon with a shocked expression. It was almost as if Nixon was doing an incredible Trevor Noah impression, when he plays a clip that he thinks is ridiculous and then acts confused to get a laugh from the crowd.

What the fuck did I just watch? That may have been worse than him destroying a set of my fictional house. Holy shit.

I don’t want to give the impression that gnomes aren’t real, they very well may be. We live in a world with people of all different kinds. From lizards to humans. We even have rapists, the kind my good friend Guppy kills, and absolute lunatics, like Gabe Reno.

With that being said, Reno must have been on some hard drugs to loosely tie together magical pebbles, gnomes, a curse, and my lack of belief in the afterlife. Not to poke plot holes, but I didn’t realize that gnomes and pebbles are some sort of biblical figure that punish people for their lack of faith. I must be missing some sort of connection, but I won’t get too fixated on it.

I don’t understand Reno’s fascination with attacking my character. It’s as if he believes that making up things about me serves him some kind of purpose. I don’t venture into the Midwest. I live in a big city, and I travel when I need to. I don’t find myself tossing pebbles into a lake, while I discuss the afterlife with gnomes. That’s not an experience I’ve had. I don’t know what he has to gain, he must be afraid to talk about himself.

Who is Gabe Reno? Why does he wrestle here? Why does he feel so entitled to rival the world champion? Why is he such a lunatic? What traumatized him and led him down this path?

There’s a whole lot of things I don’t know about Gabe Reno, and I can’t say that I’ll find the answers. He’s a man trapped in a persona, and as long as he feels the need to dance around and spout absolute gibberish, I can’t look at him as a serious figure. He’ll put up a hell of a fight, but he has no motivation.

I watched the main event of Wild Card Weekend Night 2 backstage, and I saw a few men fight through their pain because they felt that they needed to win. Chaos came out on top, but every competitor took vicious shots to the head and body. They found a reason to fight through it.

Gabe Reno doesn’t have the same drive. He’s an athlete, he can hit all kinds of cool wrestling moves. But he doesn’t have the resilience to make a name for himself in the ring. When I get knocked down, I get back up. I don’t think Gabe will. He’ll think about the XWF Television Championship as a prize, nothing more and nothing less. When he’s light headed and the wind is knocked out of him, a hunk of gold isn’t going to be enough to get him to kick out. It isn’t significant to him.

That’s why I’m going to beat this stupid fuck. He can be as loud and ridiculous as he wants, but he’s just making a fool out of himself. Sooner or later, everyone is going to think you’re a joke. Get it together you pathetic child, we don’t need another arrogant loser in XWF.

After that rant, Nixon found himself annoyed and riled up. He grabs a hoodie and a pair of sweatpants, and he prepares to go for a run, despite oncoming rain and the snow on the ground. The scene fades to black, as Nixon turns off the television and heads outside.

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