Santos: Seriously, enough of this garbage. Let's get a drink.

Tony, who'd been in the middle of game number eight of bumper pool in his Brighton, Massachusetts apartment with Jeremy (a/k/a, "The Kid"), promptly dropped his pool stick and headed to his kitchen. The bumper pool table had been the idea of Tony, having received his first full lucrative check from the XWF after having to fork over most of his first check to Laura for child support payments, both those regularly due and those that he had missed out on for a good eight months. Now, Tony was able to act like a reckless 25-year-old, and what better way than to buy a bumper pool table? Well, most people could probably think of better indulgences, but, well, this was the best Tony could do. Impulsive spending for an offbeat man who never really knew how to spend excessive amounts of money, since he's never really had any money to spend in the first place. But, well, a bumper pool table?

Santos: Kid, check this out. A friend from Delaware dropped this off a few days ago.

Tony is talking about Dogfish Head's 120 Minute IPA. Based out of Delaware, Dogfish Head is a brewery known for incredibly overpriced craft beers. Dogfish Head has a 60 Minute IPA, which is a good, but run-of-the-mill IPA found pretty frequently in the Boston area, a 90 Minute, which is quite a bit stronger and much harder to find anywhere outside of the mid-Atlantic United States, and the vaunted 120 Minute, which is the king of Dogfish Head's IPA selection. This beer, which is slowly aged and pounded with hops, is a premier IPA if there ever was one. However, it's almost impossible to find outside of the mid-Atlantic area. Tony, having a good friend from college living in Newark, Delaware, had brought up a case for Tony after his loss to Heironeous on Wednesday Night Warfare. The price tag? $196 for 24 bottles. Not exactly cheap, but that wasn't the Tony Santos way since receiving that lucrative XWF paycheck recently. This man was a 25-year-old willing to spend like one who had no familial obligations or a future in mind, and he did so with gusto.

Jeremy: Dogfish Head? What's this? Beer?

Santos: Yeah, you dope. Give it a shot. Be careful though, this will knock a lightweight like you on your tush in a few sips flat.

Tony, not owning a bottle opener, uses his Volcom belt as a makeshift bottle opener, which he'd done for years, to open Jeremy's beer.

Jeremy: Sir, did you really just say tush?

Santos: My vocabulary is none of your concern! Just drink your beer.

Tony slaps an ice cold bottle of 120 Minute into the frail hand of the kid. Jeremy, letting out a light "ow," receives a strong look of condemnation from Tony. Tony, opening his own bottle, wastes no time in popping off the bottle cap and taking a large swig of his beer. A bit of the beer dribbles down his face and on to his white West Virginia University football t-shirt. How did he get said t-shirt? Well, Tony had a few close friends from the Boston area who went to WVU for college, so, since he felt no connection to the New England college teams, became a pretty rabid WVU football fan. The rise of Pat White as quarterback during the time when Tony should have been thriving in college gave him someone to live vicariously through.

Tony, having taken too big of a swig of a beer with quite a high alcohol content, clenched his jaw and jolted his head to his right. Lifting his head, Tony smiles in true alcoholic joy, loving the slight burn. He'd been through the devil that is Bacardi 151, tasted West Virginia moonshine, and survived Everclear. 120 Minute, a beer, couldn't touch those.

Jeremy, however, hesitantly took a sip of his and immediately cringed. A 4.5% light beer was enough for the kid, so a 15-20% beer was a kick in the face. He put his to the side, only to get a stern look from his alcoholic boss. Reluctantly, Jeremy continued to sip from his bottle, increasingly feeling as if he'd been shot with horse tranquilizer. Putting his bottle down, he decides to distract Tony from the fact that he wasn't keeping pace by hitting him with conversation.

Jeremy: Sir, how are you feeling? We haven't talked in days, and the moment we got in touch today, you immediately diverted us to bumper pool. Now we're just drinking. Is anything on your mind?

Tony, clearly not in the mood to show any sort of feelings or bits of discomfort, groans, taking another large swig of his beer. He glances to his right and picks up a book.

Santos: Kid, I've been in a sh**ty state over the last few days. I got my a** handed to me by a guy who shouldn't have even come close to knocking me to the mat, never mind beating me! You think I'm feeling great about that? You really think that I'm happy having lost to a half-rate twit who managed to push his good guy routine on to the Wild Card match at Wild Card Weekend? But no, no, nothing's on my mind, kid. Nothing! I'm free as a god d**n bird right now! I've put up two sh*t performances in a row, but hell, I feel awesome. I've been reading this book, and, well...

Tony, in anger, knocks off a bunch of beer bottles that have accumulated on his kitchen counter over the last few months. Not the greatest of cleaners, Tony has managed to sporadically leave at least 100 or so beer bottles lying around his kitchen. Shannon, being his ever-forgiving girlfriend, has accepted this and stayed with him, despite her endless pleas for him to clean up his ways. During his earlier days in local New England promotions, Shannon used to find herself taking her spare key to covertly enter Tony's apartment and clean up his mess, but with him travelling nationally, as well as his complete and utter desire to only clean at his own whim (which is never), she had given up around the time that he started with the XWF, which, considering that his place had already been filthy due to his lack of employment previously, was now only worse.

Bottles hit the ground violently, and Jeremy, not used to an increasingly angry Tony over the last week or two, steps back in fear, hands guarding his face. Tony, realizing this, slumps a bit and apologizes to the kid.

Santos: Hey, hey, sorry Jeremy. That outburst was completely unnecessary. I'm angry at myself, is all. I've been throwing everything I g*d damn have into my matches, and I've fallen apart in each one. Hell, I barely took it to Heironeous and got embarrassed in front of tens of thousands of people. It's tough coming home to that, you know?

Then I buy this godforsaken bumper pool table at a flea market, push bottles, and still owe child support. Things ain't looking so rosy, kid.

Jeremy a bit uneasy, takes this scene in stride. Well, as much so as a kid who just finished his freshman year of college can.

Jeremy: You were telling me about that book in your hand...

Santos: Oh, right! So, I finished this book, The Litigators, by John Grisham. It's about a bunch of greedy lawyers who gave after this low cholesterol drug called Krayoxx, hoping to hit the jackpot based on some terribly unfortunate victims, many of which who died. Chasing dollar signs, they file a class action lawsuit against the pharmaceutical company that manufactured the drug. Everything seems perfectly in line: dozens of victims, plenty of "experts," a bunch of lawyers foaming at the mouth to back each other and collect a sizable paycheck, it's all there. However, as you read further, their greed gets the best of them. They find out that the drug turns out to in fact be fairly safe and definitely not the cause of the deaths that they originally thought. Turns out that they went in, fully headstrong and foolishly confident, but without the facts, and got blindsided by reality. Guess what happened, kid?

Jeremy, already knowing what the answer is despite not reading the book, answers anyway...

Jeremy: What, sir?

Santos: They lose. They don't just lose, kid. They lose miserably. They're embarrassed by a much better prepared defense, and they realize just how under-prepared they truly were. They become a laughing stock, kid, a laughing stock, and why? Because they were chasing something prematurely. They were chasing it and not thinking about the brick wall that they were about to face. And what happened? They ran into that wall, broke their noses, and fell on their a**es.

Funny that I finished that tonight...

Jeremy: Wait, you read, sir?

Santos: Yeah, kid. I figured it all out when I hit 22 or so. You'll get there eventually, kid. Books are pretty cool.

Jeremy: Sir, I've been reading since elementary school...

Santos: I'm talking real books.

Jeremy: I ready Nineteen Eighty-four back in elementary school. I've been doing that as long as I can remember, sir.

Santos: Nineteen Eighty-four? Is that like, a yearbook or something? I wasn't even alive then, so I don't know.

Jeremy, baffled by the lack of literary knowledge that Santos has, just looks away.

Santos: Either way, kid, this book was perfect for me to finish at this time. I've got two opponents this week: Eric Rex and Sean Falcon. These two are just like the partners at the law firm in this book. They're chasing things that they want without truly realizing why they want it and who's standing in their way.

Eric Rex is chasing power and control. He doesn't know it, because he thinks that he already holds it, but he's chasing it, because, well, he doesn't hold either. He wants it so he can control his own demented dreams, which apparently get interrupted by Jean-Claude Van Damme movies. He wants it so he can believe that he's in control of not just the XWF and all involved, but his own mind. He's stuck in this mental abyss, and he can't dig himself out of his own brain to make it to consciousness, let alone the ring.

Sean Falcon, well, he apparently is chasing "excitement." This man, this entitled idiot who sees himself as a stud who embodies everything good about America (a/k/a, those that are Old Money, the Rockefellers and Kennedys of the world), has it all, and is just chasing accomplishments. Why is he chasing accomplishments? Because he has none. This is a man who inherited riches and has never had to do a thing in his life. Hey, kudos to him if he's happy having a silver spoon in his mouth alongside his mom's teet, which he's been sucking on since day one. But all the nice cars, and women that are interested in you, not for your d**k...

Jeremy: Whoa, sir, you can't say that on TV.

Santos: Kid, they edit this stuff. Don't worry, they're not going to lose their endorsement by Tony the Tiger because of me. They'll just throw a picture of Toucan Sam over my mouth and blast a horn over the word, wait, what was it, oh yeah, d**k, and the kids will laugh. Hell, these kids have school on Thursdays, so the kids with responsible parents will be put to bed anyway. So here we go: D**k, d**k, d**k, d**k, d**k, d**k, d**k, d**k, d**k, d**k, d**k D**K!!!

Jeremy: Real mature, sir.

Santos: Anyways the women that are interested in you, not for your d**k, but for your money, along with the nice cars that daddy and grandpapa bought you don't buy you dignity. They buy you a nice theater with a good copy of Independence Day, sure, but they don't buy you titles. And they sure as hell don't buy you a Get Out of Jail Free Card from the Final Destination.

Tony, having finished two 120 Minutes within the timeframe of this diatribe, grabs another bottle, brushes his hair back, and looks out the window.

Santos: Anyways, kid. Money doesn't buy you s**t in life. Sure, it makes things easier and more comfortable, but trust me, it doesn't do s**t for you. Falcon's a wannabe, and I'm gonna beat that fact into his pompous skull.

Santos takes another swig as he hears a knock at his door. Tony, not too concerned with answering at this hour on a Sunday night, simply sits and glances out the window, watching his Greek neighbor heckle the TV over some Coloradan's mistake on Wheel of Fortune.

However, the knocking doesn't persist, but rather, it gets more intense. Fits of anxiety seem to be pounding that door. Is it a woman in trouble? A man on a bender who's just causing trouble? Tony doesn't know, but he wants to put this to an end.

Tony, scratching his head and walking through the kitchen and the living room, yells to the front door.

Santos: I don't know what you're sellin', but I don't want it!

The knocking persists.

Santos: Alright, alright, I'm coming.

Tony slowly opens the door. The hinges creak, showing their age. On the other side is Shannon, in a panic and breathing heavily.

Shannon: Tony! Babe! I've been trying to call you all day!

Shannon pulls Tony in, her breasts pressing hard against Tony's chest. Tony pulls his phone out of his left pocket and sees twenty missed calls. Fifteen from Shannon and five from his mother. His mother?

Santos: Sorry, babe, I was hanging out with the kid. What's up? Nice to see you again too, by the way.

Shannon pulls away from Tony, tears streaming down her face, utterly helpless. She hadn't even given Tony a welcome back kiss since he arrived back in town.

Shannon: Tony, your dad. He had a heart attack. He passed away this morning.

Tony, stunned, drops his beer bottle, beer now covering the floor. Tony's jaw drops.

The scene fades to black.