As the curtain was beginning to close on another wild edition of Wednesday Warfare we see R.L. Edgar in the backstage area of San Paolo Stadium getting the sizable gash across his forehead (compliments of Claude Savage’s thick-ass cranium) stitched up. Just above him, rumbling through the ceiling, we can hear the echoes of the fans beating their feet into the bleachers as they pay the talent in the ring with their final few “pops” of the night.

Edgar sits there as the medic finishes her work on his head. He smiles at the passing sight of Donovan Blackwater consoling his son, Arkin after his debut loss earlier in the evening. Seemingly spaced out and twiddling his thumbs as the closing segment of the show fades out from the television screen across the room, a light electric buzzing sound drifts into his senses, and then grabs his full attention as a little metal bicycle bell rings out.

WHOA WHOA!

Donavan hurdles himself and young Arkin out of harms way as XWF Owner, Vinnie Lane barrels through on his pink and black Segway, nearly running them over,

You Blackwaters are like opossums!

He yells, swerving he's ride over towards Edgar and turning his attention toward him, a look of the surest vindication on the face of the XWF's owner,

Am I right, man? Blind, nocturnal and always in the way!

With a comically miffed tone, he shouts that last bit back down the hallway where the Blackwaters were before looking over again at R.L.,

There's an awkward moment with a snarling Lane nodding his head at Edgar in silence. R.L. turns his head over his shoulder, noticing there's no one behind him,

"Oh... oh, you're asking me?"

He says pointing to himself incredulously,

Well yeah, I mean you look like you've had a lot of experience with roadkill, dude.

He probably wasn't wrong, about the look, or the fact. R.L. just sat there though, jaw agape, not only stunned that Vinnie Lane would be wandering around in a common talent area backstage, but mostly grappling with the notion that he'd be addressing him, the two hadn't had much interaction prior to this,

Uh? Dude?

The situation is becoming almost satirical as R.L. continues to sit there, frozen like a star struck fan girl. Lane bends over a bit, snapping his fingers in Edgar's face, but still persists being in awe. Lowly R.L. Edgar, an afterthought, a penciled in filler drifting in and out of our thoughts like suddenly remembering that Richard Simmons exists every few years. How could it be that someone so barren of substance and promise, a gimmick-less heap of fodder, a botch prone, match bungling, 10W-40 reeking-

Okay, cut the bullshit, dude. Seriously.

Taken a bit aback, Edgar breaks starry-eyed shock as his face slumps into a more relaxed manner,

I know, that YOU know, that I know what you're capable of...

R.L. exhales heavily through his nose and looks away from Lane,

Seriously?

Lane says flattening his voice,

You're seriously going to make me talk the entire time?

"No! I mean, but what do you want, sir? Want me to admit openly all my shitty characteristics or something? Talk about all of the times I've-"

Flaked?

Lane finishes Edgar's sentence,

No, that's not what I want. You display all of that shittiness naturally. I want to know if you saw your matchup at Snow Job.

Edgar rolls his eyes, nodding his head back to face Lane as if to say 'of course',

Good. So are you going to ghost again? Like you did when you had a Television Title shot?

"Nah"

he answers coldly,

Okay. Look, I'm not sure why you're always acting all sensitive. Every time you come around you half-ass and turn into a magnet for drama that I don't feel like spinning anymore. Dude, all I want is for you to be here if it's what you want-

"It's all I've ever wanted-"

Hey! Hold up and let me finish!

The two take turns cutting one another off before Lane continues,

I want you to have fun, Edgar, and most of all, I'd like to see you try for once. Can you do that for me, dude?

"That's fair. Yeah I can do that..."

Lane hits his vape pen and exhales a pink cloud of smoke,

Alright. Good talk. See ya' in Greenbay, and be sure to wear your mittens, or your gymsocks on your hands, or whatever it is you rednecks do to keep warm.

Lane speeds away on the Segway leaving a trail of pink smoke,

R.L. Edgar looks up at the camera...




Sup?

R.L.

He says pointing at himself with a sportive tilt of his head and a bit of a smirk pushing out from behind his lightly bloodied lips,

Want me to let y’all in on the worst kept secret in the XWF? Come a little closer.

Edgar motions the camera man in towards him with a wave of his hand, turning his head to peak down the hallway, playing up a facetious attempt of being inconspicuous,

Y'all ready for this?

he whispers,

In eleven days, R.L. Edgar is going to walk out of Lambeau Field as the new XWF Hart Champion.

the whispering ceases,

Shocking, right?!

I mean who'da thought that the "botch" guy who was getting railroaded by a midget commentator two weeks ago could turn things around so quickly?

Want me to let y'all in on another secret? It wasn't a "turn around" by any means.

Just twenty-five days ago I made my return to in-ring action in the XWF for the first time in nearly two years and here I am, where I always knew I could be if I ever was to put forth even the slightest bit of hard work: ready to cement myself as a staple of this industry.

It's not because I'm some physical specimen, or some cagy ring technician, a hardcore brawler, or some edgy demon-type-thing of one form or another. I mean those traits are a dime-a-dozen throughout this industry, and are put on display by people who lose matches and shit themselves in the ring week in and week out.

What sets R.L. Edgar a part from the rest is what lies just beneath the surface. Just on the other side of the chest. I'm a fighter, and I want this shit more. I need this shit more. This isn't some game to me, people. This is my life, my story in the making, my chance to prove to everyone what I've always known: that I'm more than just a one-off.

This opportunity, this matchup for the title in Title Town will be the moment, years from now, where everyone one will look back to remember the night my star was hung in that snowy sky. They'll remember it as the moment that some heart was restored to the Hart Championship, because let's be real folks, our "notorious" champ is living up to that handle and making that great championship a proxy of everything that's so "notoriously" Ned.

Ned Kay, just because you're a nice and likeable guy doesn't mean that I'm going to blow smoke up your ass. There's too much on the line to sugar coat these exchanges with pleasantries. Come Sunday the thirty-first, all the stones you've been throwing in your glass-house of a championship reign will become fully realized as I send you packin', bub. Make no mistakes about it, this IS personal.

You and I, along with everyone else who even half-way pays attention to the XWF knows that you're flat out lucky to be in this position. Seriously dude, you should be on your knees and thanking every damn star in the sky that you've counted to get to this point. Let's be honest, I know you had your one shining moment or whatever that awkward little speech was when you won the strap, but beating the most disinterested version of Robbie Bourbon is nothing to go beating your chest about, bruh.

See, besides the optics of your title win not really meaning much to anyone besides being the filler between the good matches at High Stakes- I don't think it really meant much to you either. I mean you straight up went and told your stupid comedy skit of a shrink as much like the very next week, dude.

You, the pluckiest of underdogs, the fucking crème de la fèmme, the "notoriously" sub five-hundred record of an old piss stain in your indies tights, YOU catch a whiff of some dumb luck smelly enough to win yourself the third most prestigious championship in this industry, and you're still fucking depressed? Give me a break, dude. It's either this industry is everything to you, your lifelong dream, or it isn't. You can't have it both ways.

You can't extol the honor of restoring the Hart Championship while at the same time stay palling around with some sloppy van-dwelling doctor who would just as soon turn the belt into some pathetic parody on par with the shitty advice he's feeding you. You know as well as anyone else all of the bullshit the Hart Championship has been through lately. Getting kicked around between other federations by lazy chumps who somehow give less of fuck about it then you do, treating it like it's some cheap plastic prop, or one of the stupid action figures you play with.

It means more to me than that, Ned. To me, the thought of being crowned a champion in the XWF is like ether. That's why, hate to break it to you, hombre, but I'm ripping it away from you at Snow Job. I'm going to give it a proper waist to line. You may be more technically gifted then me in that ring, but you ain't got the heart to properly square up, or the head to rock with my shit. You'd rather still cry about losing to the Engineer rather than act like anything resembling a champion.

It's because you're not, it's because you're spineless, it's because everyday when you wake up and look in the mirror you look for excuses as to why you can't be better... and because of all of that you're going to lose, again.

It's painfully obvious that I'm the only one in this match who gives a damn about winning. Shawn Wylde, the cartoon character with a bum knee doesn't give a fuck either. This guy, like Ned, is just obsessed with some stupid Indy Fed that no one has even heard of... Knuckle dragging his way around Italy searching for stinky old wrestling costumes rather than giving a fuck about, well, literally anything relevant to his current predicament.

Did you all not just see this clown tonight?

I can't tell you how frustrating and cringy it was to watch this dumbass act terrified of a group that we've all seen be beaten before. Shawn was just fucking standing there and not attacking Geri, the only accomplished member in the group of his sworn enemies?

How stupid are you?

Then letting Lycana and Marf drag you and your boyfriend, while the only person in that ring with any talent, Betsy Granger, got made to look like a fool. That was probably one of the most embarrassing things I've ever witnessed, and Shawn? It was all one-hundred percent your fault for acting like a scared little bitch, bro.

Frankly, it all feels a little suspect, almost like Shawn and the rest of RMI, Betsy excluded, are playing up the Left Hand's "power" too much. But what do I know? Does it really matter? I'm sure Wylde will be too busy getting spooked out by nightmares of Andrew Logan to give this match any of the real attention it deserves.

But what about Felix Jones? Surely this opportunity matters to guy who's entire persona is built on "not caring", right? Ah, shucks. Self fulfilling prophecy with this one. You already lost to Ned Kaye once, and lost to the guy who lost to Ned Kaye before that. You're a lost cause, dude.

At the end of the day, all I've ever been is doubted...

A doubt though served by anyone paying attention with a certain caveat...

That caveat being that the day R.L. Edgar actually gets his shit together might spell b-a-d bad fucking news for anyone standing across from him in that ring.

And now that I've got y'alls attention let me make it clear...

I'm actually here now, and that actually means that y'all are fucked.

Peace.

Former:
1x Hart Champion
1x Federweight Champion
April 2021 RP Of The Month Still Waters Run Deep