An autumn sun lights up a rolling pumpkin patch in the hills of Pennsylvania. A winter chill is setting in as the first frost of the year has set in. The pumpkins were picked long ago. The corn has been harvested. The fields plowed. A blonde-haired boy, six years of age, plays along the fence line, using a stick to dig at dirt piles. He’s energetic and curious, which has gotten him into trouble more than once. These are all traits he’s picked up from his father. The boy also has a temper hotter than the meanest bull in the meadow. Another family trait.  The farm is a new place for him. Filled with adventure and beauty rarely found in the urban sprawls of his earlier days. But when his alcoholic daddy went to jail and his drug addict mama dropped him off here to live and learn with his grandpa, it was a change he welcomed.

The early days on the farm were tough. He missed his parents, especially his mother. He missed watching cartoons. He missed the kids in the neighborhood. But it wasn’t long before he forgot about them too. The farm was more than just a dirt pile with crops and livestock, it was something real. Something tangible that showed the rewards for a job well done. That amount of truth is something that the young boy would come to appreciate later in life. But in those early days, he was gullible and weak. He had to be. Because life in the city was so full of lies and broken promises that blind optimism was the only way to hold off the tears.

The boy’s grandfather was a tough man. Strong, but weathered. He had lost a finger at some point, due to some kind of accident, but nobody ever got the real story about how it happened. He had served in the Korean War before coming home and taking over the family farm. He married young, and stayed married for fifty years, bearing several children, and dozens of grandkids. The boy’s father was the runt of that litter. The baby. The problem child. So, when that man had a child of his own and then landed a spot in jail, the grandfather wasn’t so surprised. He took in the boy. Welcomed him home on the farm. Because he was family, and nothing is more important than family. And as troublesome as the boy was, the grandfather appreciated having someone around that he could talk to. Someone that he could bestow wisdom upon. There’s nothing that hard working men like more than teaching someone else how to avoid the mistakes that they made earlier in life.

The boy ‘assisted’ in many of the daily chores around the farm. Carrying buckets, firewood, feed. Occasionally helping mend the fences or pull weeds. So, when his grandpa called him to the barn, he followed orders.

“Do you trust me, Buster?”

” I trust you, Pop Pop!“, he responded.

Then the old man said, “Climb up that ladder.” And the boy did, without any fear or hesitation. He climbed the old rickety wooden ladder, which led to some kind of spider infested loft, presumably to retrieve some sort of farm tool. About halfway up, the old man calls out. “Stop right there. Now, I want you to let go and fall off. I’ll catch you in my arms.”

The boy, who didn’t enjoy heights, was brave, and he trusted his grandfather, but hesitated. “Why?”

“Just do it.”

“I’m afraid.”

“Don’t be afraid. I’ll catch you.”

Emboldened by promises of safety, the boy leaned backward and let go. His body dropped about eight feet and fell to the ground without his fall being broken. The old man hadn’t caught him. He hadn’t even reached for him. He had intentionally let him fall the dusty wooden beams of the barn floor. The boy hit the ground with a meaty thump. He gasped for air and began crying once it returned to him. His Grandfather only stood beside him, waiting for the boy to explore his emotions.

Feeling betrayed and confused, the six-year-old wallowed on the ground. in agony. The red-faced boy yelled to his grandfather, “Why didn’t you catch me?! You promised!”

“You can’t trust anybody but yourself, Buster. Trust no one else. Now get up off the floor and let’s carry on. We’ve got a lot of work to do.” The life lesson was temporarily painful, but one that would stick with William Glover for the entirety of his life. His Grandfather would teach him many important life lessons on that farm until the inevitable day his mother returned, clean and sober, ready to go back to the city of Richmond, Virginia. The farm would just be a memory after that. A fond memory of the value of hard work. A reminder of how family is supposed to be. And a foundation for his entire moral compass.

To this day, that young boy still has the same curiosity and temper.  He now has an unease about climbing ladders and a healthy fear of heights. Despite having a seemingly unending supply of cautious optimism towards the word and a propensity for forgiveness, he’s never… ever…. trusted anybody with his personal safety again.




There are fine people working at the Velvet Rabbit Casino, but professional wrestler, Buster Gloves, doesn’t trust them any farther than he can throw them. Inside the lobby of the Velvet Rabbit casino, the formerly-blonde-haired, now-completely-bald, Bull of the North, waits patiently, pretending to be busy on his phone just to avoid making conversation with anybody else. The white marble walls of the reception area are veined with gold trim, high ceilings, and monuments of excess. It’s like waiting for a hand job in heaven’s waiting room. The very promise of plunder and pleasure emanates from every surface, like a static charge. Vega is a place where you either F or get F’ed. Usually Vegas, and especially the Velvet Rabbit Las Vegas, is not a place where you start a nesting phase. But here we are, and Buster is hunkering down for a long winter.

He’s just waiting for a companion.

Buster sits in one of the contemporary art chairs in the lobby. A horrible design of modern art favoring form over function. It doesn’t suit him. He’d kick his own ass for just sitting in it if he weren’t already numb to the pomp and circumstance of this town. His first time in this shining city in the desert, he caught a show, walked the strip, paid five bucks to take a photo with some guy dressed up like Batman. He was a tourist then. Now he’s a local. He knows where the best taco stand is in town. He knows the seedy parts of town where you don’t want to get lost. He can show you on a map where to find the best bathrooms. All important things to know. Post workout, Buster rests, with a leg bent 90 degrees and crossed over the other knee. An oversized cell phone vibrates in his meaty hand as he people-watches, disgusted by the deviants pouring into the building. Imagine working a shitty job for months or years, just to save up time and money just to patronize this palace of debauchery. He finds it sad. So naturally, this is the building he’s chosen to live in as a constant reminder of just how lost the rest of the world has become.

Oh look, a text message from Miss Emily Simms!

Buster moved to Las Vegas for one reason only. Two, actually, if you count the all-you-can-eat wings at the Ring Rust Café on Tuesdays. The original reason for coming here was his love for professional wrestling. There is no single city in America that is more alive with wrestling action than Las Vegas at this point. No lockdowns. No restrictions. Anything goes. Like the wild west with a ring bell. To be more specific, it was the WGWF and their recurring live events that brought him to this specific casino. So, if the small chance of earning a world championship is what keeps him here, in the belly of the beast, at the altar of the wrestling gods, then so be it. Buster Gloves doesn’t mind if pro-wrestling immortality also smells like peach body spray.

“About to turn on the strip. Should be there in a few. C ya!” says the message.

Any minute now, The California Kitten, a bubbly young wrestler, almost 10 years the minor to the middle-aged Buster gloves, will arrive fresh off a four hour drive out of Los Angeles. If his intuition is correct, she’ll walk through the doors, squeak like a chew toy, and charge Buster with a berserker barrage of lip gloss and squishy parts. She’s a lot to handle, usually tweaked out of her mind on Pepsi Cola and uncut youth, but she’s been a calming influence on his life for the past 6 months. In an industry so full of egomaniacs and literal criminals, he could not have found a more loyal companion, a more generous lover, or a more non-judgmental friend. Whether or not he’s actually in love is a question that Buster has been evading for a while now. It’s not important at the moment. What is important is determining how much he can trust her with his life.

“Can’t wait to see you!” she types with some sort of unintelligible strings of gen-z emojis.

The truth about the last 6 months is that on a personal level, things have been good. It’s like he’s opened his own Only Fans account, but there’s only one fan, and she’s smoking hot, and loves pro-wrestling, and pays her own bills. He doesn’t even have to pretend like she’s funny or interesting. He actually likes being around her.  Who wouldn’t be happy with that? But the results in the ring haven’t reflected the positive life choices he’s made. The work life balance is leaning heavy on the life side right now and the losses, draws, and forgettable appearances are mounting up. Buster even lost a championship belt, the only one he’s ever had. The downward trajectory of Buster’s career coincides with two things. The new girlfriend, which Buster is looking forward to exploring much deeper, and the new ally, Peter Vaughn, which he will deconstruct just a little bit later in this piece. *wink *nudge.

“William!” says a feminine voice from a distance. It’s like Pavlov’s dog, in his pants.

She calls him William, because that’s his birth name. William Bernard Glover. Buster is the name his grandfather gave him when he lived on the farm. Not an uncommon nickname for Bernard, and something that always added a bit of character to his personality. Many of his adversaries over the years had poked fun at the name, putting immature spins on it, calling him Bust-a-nut, Buster Bunny, Buster Brown, and some that even called him Bussy, which he was told is prison slang for boy-p*ssy. None of those names ever bothered him much though, because the man that gave him the nickname is one that he holds in high esteem. And even though his grandfather is no longer with us, Buster is able to pay tribute to the best male role model in his life by representing the name with honor. When Emily learned Buster’s real name was William, she couldn’t resist calling him by that name from that point forward. And to this day, only two people call Buster by his birth name, Buster’s father, and Buster’s girlfriend.

Confused onlookers can only watch as she kisses him long and hard in a public setting. It’s the second most tongue of any kiss in the lobby. I told you this place is a sloppy masterpiece.

“I missed you so much!” she says like a woman welcoming her soldier husband home from war.

Embarrassed, Buster peels his off of him and spots her baggage, which is now scattered in a trail behind her. “Emmy, relax. You wanna head upstairs?”

“Yasss! I have a present for you and you need to unwrap it right away.” She notices the elevator in the distance. “Take me home or lose me forever!”

Buster appreciates the Top Gun reference, one of his favorite movies of all time, not because of the gay undertones, mostly because it’s about American excellence, and that’s his first language. “Ok, ok. Let’s go, then.”

Emily collects up her Pepsi sponsored purse, her Pepsi sponsored tote, and her Pepsi sponsored suitcase. She’s always been a massive fan of Pepsi Cola and all things sugar-infused but getting an official endorsement from the Pepsi Company earlier this year has allowed her obsession to spiral out of control. She says that she’s just advertising the brand and that it’ll help her campaign of recent television commercials as 'That Pepsi Girl', but the truth is that she’s just living the gimmick a little too hard right now. “Which one of these elevators goes to your apartment again? I can’t remember.”

Buster offers to carry the cobalt blue suitcase. “That’s the one right there. Did you wanna grab something to eat before we head up?”

“Nah. That’s ok. We can order something or go out later. You look like you need to relax. You should let me help me you with that.” Emily suggests.

Buster assumes she’s talking about sex. That’s what she does. She threads euphemisms, innuendo, and double entendres into conversations to flirt with her man but is much more modest when it comes down to tinder time. The truth is that Emily isn’t very experienced with men, has major trust issues with them, and was only with one other guy before Buster. A fact that he is reminder of every time she feels vulnerable in his company.

Perfectly resolved in resorting to a quiet night at home, Buster recognizes this as an opportune time to let the genie out of the bottle. We’re talking about a secret, not about farting in an elevator. “Perfect. There are some things I need to talk to you about.”

“Yes Sirrr.” she says with a coy wink and smile.

A couple of mustached peacocks get in the first elevator car. Buster hits the brake on the operation. “We will grab the next one.”

Pacing from side to side, Emily intervenes. “Don’t all the elevators go up?”

Buster scratches his nose in an attempt to avoid the truth without lying. “Only certain ones go to the residences. The rest go to the opium dens.” Doors open. “That one is ours. Get in real quick.”

Emily doesn’t budge. “Ask me nicely.”

“Please, moon of my life, I beseech you to enter the elevator carriage before you catch something that’ll require antibiotics to treat.”

“Ewww. Ok.”

Ding. Ding. Ding. Elevator goes up the hole.

Emily admires the details of the elevator. The craftsmanship of the control panel. The velvet texture of the pod. The violet neon numbers representing the current floor. “I love this place!”

A pause…

“Why don’t you just move in with me then?”

Emily’s eyes dart to her right, then up his torso to meet her boyfriend’s eyes which remain forward. "Shut up. You shouldn't tease me about stuff like that!"

Buster finally looks down to make eye contact with the much smaller woman. "I'm serious. Bring Scooter with you. I'll give you my closet. He can sleep on the bed if you want." Scooter is HER embarrassing short-nosed Chinese Pug with sleep apnea. The closet is HIS embarrassingly small locker located next to the shitter. “Your toothbrush is already here. You can chip in towards rent and help do the grocery shopping. I like to keep a lot of fresh fruit around the house.”

"You’re a butthole! Do you know that?! You’re not asking me to move in in an elevator!"

“No. I’m asking you to move into an apartment. The elevator is way too small for you.” The dad joke was unavoidable.

“Dick.”

“So, that’s a ‘no’ then?”

Emily can’t only look down at the floor. “I don’t know, William. Let me think about it. This is kind of all of a sudden and it’s a big decision.”

“So, you haven’t been thinking about it?”

“I didn’t say that either!” she says as the doorbell chimes and Buster exits in a hurry.

He’s quick to change the subject to avoid any more uncomfortable follow up questions. “Hey, do you mind if we get indian food for lunch? I’d fight Gandhi in a steel cage for some samosas right now. And I’d win. Because I’m starvingr’ f*cking Marvin right now. Ya feel me?”

Emily struggles to keep up down the long hallway with the remains of her bags. “Whatever. I can’t eat right now. My head is spinning right now.”

Buster pulls the key card to his room out of his wallet. “We’re getting Indian. You’re gonna love it. Trust me on that.”

Green light. Welcome to Casa De Gloves.




Emily Simms prepares a post-coital sandwich on the kitchen island of her boyfriend’s… correction on the kitchen island of HER new Vegas apartment. She’s already agreed to move in, she just hasn’t told the current resident just yet. Either way, he really earned this sammich today. Then a loud noise and a shout from the far side of the modest suite.

“EMILY!!! GET IN HERE!!!” shrieks a high-pitched manly voice from the direction of an apartment bathroom.

“What’s wrong?!” answers a concerned voice from the hallway.

The sound of a razor and a body wash bottle crashing to the floor of the shower is heard from the outside of the door. “JUST GET IN HERE!”

A jiggle on the door handle. “The door’s locked! What’s the problem?”

“There’s a snake in here!”

Emily has to question for a moment if she really just heard what she thinks she just heard. “What?”

“There’s a snake in the fucking bathroom.”

Emily smiles at how ridiculous the situation sounds. Surely, there’s no snake, this high up, in a new building. “Why is there a snake in the bathroom?”

“How the fuck do I know?! Just get it.”

She jiggles the handle again, not sure what she expected to happen. “The door is still locked! Why did you lock the door?!”

“I was taking a shit! Give me a break!”

Emily removes her hand from the handle, not sure she wants to enter the room even if she could. “Ewww, gross.”

“Oh, stop. Don’t act like you’ve never pooped at my apartment.”

Now she’s kind of offended. “First of all, it’s OUR apartment now. Second of all, no, I’ve never. I poop in the bathroom in the lobby. Like a lady does!”

“Are you coming in here or not?”

She starts looking around the hallway for alternate entrances that don’t exist. “What do you want me to do? Bust the door down?”

“I think there’s a way you can unlock it from the outside. There’s a pin hole in the handle or a slot or something.”

Emily drops on both knees, examining the door in the dimly lit hallway. “I’ll look. Eureka! I see a hole!  Let me see if I can find something to jam in there.” She takes off running before giving Buster a chance to respond.

Once in the kitchen. She digs through the junk drawer, finds a paper clip and is just about to run back to the bathroom before she finds a handwritten note, pinned to the side of the fridge. How did she miss this before? She snatches it up, reads it quickly, goes on higher alert, looks around the room in a panicked state, and sprints back to the bathroom running on her tiptoes for some reason.

She checks the bottom of the door for monsters then presses her ear to the door. “Buster, are you ok?”

“Oh, if I were doing any better, I’d be twins.”

Still unfolds her improvised tool forming it into the right shape and prepares herself to crack the code and enter the hot zone. “Where’s the snake now?”

“It’s in front of the toilet.”

She asks a follow up question. “What kind of snake is it?”

“I don’t know! It’s a fucking ‘nope’ snake. I didn’t stop to check it out. I would have tried to kill it, but I’m not fighting it naked.”

Emily stops, laughs out loud, and asks, “Wait, why are you naked?”

“I take off all my clothes before I poop. It’s a common thing. Now is not the time to judge me.”

She laughs so hard she almost pees herself. “Are you... a four-year-old?”

“Don’t be an asshole right now. I just need you to take care of this.”

She gets back to working on the door. “Listen. I have good news and bad news. Which do you want first?”.

“I don’t give a SHIT.”

Emily tries to illustrate a full picture with a straight face but has trouble keeping it together. “Good news is that I found a paper clip and I’m going to open the door. Bad news is that there’s more than one snake.”

“What?!”

“I found a note in the kitchen. Somebody must have broken into your place and left it.”

“What fucking note? What does it say?”

She does her best attempt to read the note word for word without sounding like she’s enjoying the situation. “It says, Yo Dawg…” She covers her mouth trying to muffle a laugh. “…I heard you like snakes. So, I put a snake in your house. Then I put 6 more snakes in your house. CCPE for life. Also, stay the F away from Emily. You don’t deserve her. And it’s signed by someone named ‘L’.”

“L? Who the fuck is L?”

Emily doesn’t know at first. But then remembers something of importance. “I don’t know… Wait…. I got fan mail rom someone named L a couple weeks ago.”

Buster ignores her revelation. “I know who it was. It was Lux! I had to be Lux!”

She has no idea who that is. “Who?”

“Xavier… Fucking… Lux. That fuckboy from CCPE. He’s one of the names on my list. HE did this! We had a match and he already beat me, but that’s not good enough. On camera, he was saying all kinds of nice things about me, but now this? He’s just trying to torture me. Like Vaughn did. This is bullshit.”

Emily knows about the list. She thinks it’s kind of silly and no-sells the accusation. Then, in a moment of great pride, something inside the door handle releases and it finally opens. She enters the bathroom, broom and bucket in hand, ready to save her naked boyfriend from what turns out to be a relatively small, completely harmless black snake. “You’re afraid of that little guy?”

“Screw you, Emily! I don’t like snakes. You know I don’t like snakes.”

She does know that, but she doesn’t understand why. In fact, she kind of likes snakes. Even had a pet snake when she was younger. But HE doesn’t know that. She gently places the bucket over the snake and Buster finally steps out of the shower. “You know, you’re really cute when you’re vulnerable.”

“Now’s not the time. Where’s the note?”

Emily pulls it out of her hoodie pocket and hands it to him with a smile.

Buster reads it thoroughly. Studies the handwriting and becomes enraged.

Emily closes the toilet lid, sits down, and hands her naked boyfriend his clothing. “So, what do you want to do now?”

Buster places the note on the bathroom counter and puts on his boxer briefs. “I’m getting dressed and going down to the lobby.”

A little disappointed and extremely entertained, Emily follows up. “Then what?”

“Someone else can sweep the house and check for more snakes, cause I’m not doing it.”

Emily watches Buster angrily as he gets dressed. “You don’t want me to look for them myself? I don’t mind.”

“Fuck that. We’re getting a professional. I can’t sleep in this place knowing that another one of those cold-blooded bastards might be hanging around.”

Emily can’t contain her laughter any longer.

“It’s not funny. I’m serious.”

She folds her leg over the other. “Always so serious. You know that snake is way more afraid of you than you are of it. And this little guy wasn’t poisonous or anything. He’s harmless.”

“Well, even if that one isn’t dangerous, the rest might be! There could be rattlesnakes everywhere. I can handle a lot of punishment, but a snake bite can kill you.”

Emily’s amusement wanes. Time to grow up. “Such a drama queen. Get dressed, Princess. Let’s call an exterminator and grab lunch. Everything will be fine.”

“Everything WON’T be fine until I get my hands on Lux and put his ass to sleep.”

Emily welcomes the bonk stick. “You can put MY ass to sleep if you want.”

“Stop playing around, Emily! I’m leaving. Meet me downstairs.”

Emily crouches down and taps on the inverted bucket. “It’ll be ok little guy. He’s just working through some trust issues.”




Buster Gloves steps onto Vegas Strip at sunrise. He’s dressed in a black hoodie with the words “WRESTLING IS FOR EVER” printed on the chest. A black beanie with the powder blue XWF logo embroidered above his left temple. He runs in the shadows of Sin City’s towers, mentally preparing himself for the most important match of his career. A match that could put him on the map as a real contender or could bury him back in the undercard. A win over a world champion would mean a lot to his career. A chance to correct the wrongs of Buster’s first XWF Pay-Per-View by getting another Pay-Per-View match versus the very same Finn Kuhn. But the question remains. Who is he supposed to trust in this match? How badly does he want this win? What is he willing to do for this victory? Would he betray a friend? Is he willing to cheat? Will he sink to the same level that so many degenerate pro-wrestlers have done so many times before? There’s so much to consider and the only time the noise stops is when he’s on a path, running away from his troubles.

For the past two months, Buster has been stuck between two oceans, questioning his own conscience. Does he trust his gut or his eyes? Who should he trust? Peter Vaughn or Finn Kuhn. Who would you trust? The truth is that nobody understands the full context of your situation more than you. Trust is flawed anyway, because it requires you to hand control of your destiny over to somebody else. After the results of Warfare and Savage, Buster has decided to follow the advice his grandfather gave him almost thirty years ago. Trust nobody. Believe in other people if you want to, but NEVER trust them.

To believe in somebody is a religion of sorts. It means that you accept that something is true without any proof. We call that ‘faith’. Trust, on the other hand, requires evidence and confidence and is subject to manipulation. Just like the way Buster has been manipulated by all the shitty liars of his past. Peter Vaughn being the greatest of them all.

‘You have to trust people.” Is what Emily says to him when they talk about his matches. “You’re just being paranoid.” she says, attempting to calm him down. But why SHOULD Buster trust anyone when human beings are so imperfect? Some of them fail in their attempts to protect you even when they try. Some of them intentionally take advantage of you.  Some of them betray your trust without even realizing they are doing it.

Go ahead and confide in people. But just realize that there was only ever one perfect person on earth, and he died on a cross. You ARE NOT him. And you won’t meet anyone else that can be held to that impossible standard. Go ahead and rely on people if you need to but take responsibility when they fail you. If you want something done right, you need to do it yourself. Go ahead and let people get close to you. But don’t get emotional when they disappear. Life is full of uncertainties. The false world you think you live in isn’t nearly as good or as bad as you think it is.

So, what happens after someone betrays you? They apologize? You should be very careful when a naked person offers you a shirt. An apology won’t fix the hole in the fence. An apology won’t heal a broken bone. An apology isn’t worth anything at all. Never accept an apology and never apologize to someone else. Just see that things are made right.

The wise man says that he won’t even trust himself. Every lie you tell yourself to protect your carefully constructed identity betrays you in the end. So, stop trying to look into a bottle with both eyes and just believe.

Buster stops running to distribute a dose of Bad Medicine. He looks that the buildings surrounding him. He inhales the rich smells of treasure and vomit. And closest his eyes to repeat his own mantra of self-belief. “Trust… no one.”





A shirtless, sweaty, and striated Buster Gloves drops down from the improvised pull up bars in the basement of the Velvet Rabbit Casino. This underground dungeon gym for which he and only a select few have adopted for their pro-wrestling training has served as a training ground for the last two months. Today, XWF cameras have been brought into film Buster in anticipation of his triple threat match at Bad Medicine in Kansas City, MO.

Exhausted from his daily workout, BG backs into a concrete block wall and slides down to a seated position. The camera cuts to a close up shot of his face as he drinks from a water flask and addresses the camera.

Trust is conditional. The same people you trust with your heart aren’t the same ones you’d trust to keep you alive. In this business especially, you can’t trust anybody. Let me say that again. YOU… can’t trust ANYBODY. Every wrestler you’ve ever known, everyone you’ve ever loved, is standing in your way. On a long enough timeline, you either betray them or they betray you. So, which is it gonna be?

A 35-year-old in a sophomore slump isn’t the ideal candidate for a world championship. Yet here I am, putting myself out there, taking chances, calling my shots. Inside me lives two voices. One that tells me to win at all costs. The other tells me to be patient and just let the world wash over me. I’m smart enough to focus on progress over glory. The journey I’m taking is just as important as my destiny.

I’ve learned many lessons in my 20 years of fight experience, but none are more important than the one taught to me on my first day at the gym. ‘Know when you’re safe and know when to panic’. So, when this business brings another silver tongued grifter to my door and offers me all the answers, I check for my wallet, I protect my organs, and proceed with cautious optimism. Just to be crystal clear, I’m talking about Peter Vaughn.

The man has a thousand names, a hundred problems, and dozens of allegiances. He’s not a blue-collar hero. He’s not Jason Fucking Bourne. He’s not Keyser Fucking Söze. Peter Vaughn is a traitor, plain and simple. He plunges daggers in your back while dripping honey into your ears. To him, your existence is an insult, and his revenge is paramount.  So, while you’re struggling under the weight of unrealized potential, watch his belly swell as he feasts on the misfortune of others. Researchers call it Schadenfreude. It’s a very real phenomenon and it’s a very real problem in pro-wrestling in 2022. Nobody ever pays attention to the janitor, but in the end, he’s the one that gets to decide just how dirty the room is.

It's obvious to anyone that’s been paying attention that Peter Vaughn can’t be trusted. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t trust Finn Kuhn either, but the lies and deception from Vaughn go back months and months. He’s been playing an elaborate game for an audience of one the whole time. At this point he’s wrapped in so many layers of deceit and gaslighting that he doesn’t know where the lies end and the truth begins anymore. This drama with Finn Kuhn and the outcome of the Relentless match is just a side effect of the real problem, Vaughn’s ego. He IS the disease, and the only cure is an overdose of his own medicine.

Let me take you back to a time before I met Vaughn. My rookie career was nearly perfect. Unbeaten in singles action. Defender of a coveted championship. My trajectory was pointing right at a world title match. Then CCPE emerges like black mold in the basement. With great hubris, I challenged one of their members to a lumberjack match, thinking that I could handle it. I was right and I was wrong. That challenger was CCPE’s newest member, Donny Mason. I won that match, defended that title, and made enemies with some dangerous people in the process without ever realizing it.

If we’re being honest with each other, there was a time when I admired Peter Vaughn and his merry band of chronic Chris Page entrepreneurs. So, I applied to join their gang. Submitted a resume with a cover letter and everything. I thought they would be impressed with my win over Donnie Mason, but I was mistaken. Peter Vaughn took me on as a tag team partner for one night, just to test my mettle. I put in maximum effort for ‘The Club’ in that match. I even wore the same stupid uniform that Vaughn does. The pinfall was mine, but for reasons still not clear to me, CCPE still turned me down. I couldn’t figure it out. Am I not talented enough? Am I not ‘club material’. No. The truth has been staring me in the face the entire time. CCPE rejected me because Peter Vaughn told them to. He’s been conspiring to ruin my career ever since then.

The condensed version of the next couple months sounds like this: My girlfriend was kidnapped. I lost my belt. I lost the rematch. It was one humiliation after another. I was pinned, submitted, and knocked out for the first times in my career. But every step of the way, Pete was backstage, pretending to be my friend, giving me false hope, and filling my head with bad advice.

Vaughn has been the architect of my destruction. And it’s all because his ego couldn’t handle someone else stealing his spotlight for a second, in some meaningless mid-summer match. I should have connected the dots when I came to the XWF and the run of strange events continued. But I was cautiously optimistic and played the part of the fool one more time. It took weeks before Finn Kuhn revealed to me the truth about Vaughn. Thank you for that, Finn.

The problem with the truth is that it isn’t always absolute. YOUR truth may be different than mine. You never let the truth get in the way of a good story. So, the story that the XWF has been told is that Buster Gloves and Finn Kuhn HAVE TO BE mortal enemies. Well let me tell you what I know about Finn Kuhn. He’s a good man. Smart, honest, studious. He knows more about the XWF roster than anybody in the world. This guy loves wrestling almost as much as I do. But, athletically, he’s in over his head at the XWF. He doesn’t stand a chance of running with the blue-chippers like Mark Flynn, Raion Kido, Charlie Nickles. Not because he isn’t talented though. The reason won’t get to the top is because he honestly believes that all events are predetermined and inevitable. He’s not willing to take a match, or a win, that he doesn’t deserve because of his blind faith that what is SUPPOSED to happen WILL eventually happen. It’s naïve to think that way. I know that now. And as much as Finn wants to fly high and touch the sun with the savagery of angels, it’s only inevitable that his wings will fail him when he needs them the most.

The match at Back to Relentless doesn’t matter anymore. Wins and losses, friends, foes, none of it matters. There is only pro-wrestling. By setting the expectation that everyone will disappoint you in one way or another, you’ve taken away their power over you. Vaughn is a snake in the grass. Deadly and ready to strike. But I know what he is now, and his fangs bare no more venom. He’s just another cold-blooded reptile chasing rodents in the crawl space.

Finn Kuhn, on the other hand, is much more like me. One of the many. The betrayed. The faceless. I called him the ‘Rat King’ once before. Partially because he calls himself a ‘King in Rags’ and I thought it would piss him off to call him a rat. But does anyone actually know what a rat king is? It’s a group of rodents, whose tails are intertwined and permanently tied together. The rats die, one by one, still tied to the rotting corpses of their brothers and sisters. Finn, despite all his positive qualities, runs around backstage, stumbling over himself, looking for answers, and nosing his way into restricted areas in search of truth. For all his efforts, all he’s accomplished is discovering a convoluted mess of details and accusations. He's knotted himself into an unwinnable position, waiting for death to inevitably take him away.

I considered Peter Vaughn a friend. I may, one day, become friends with Finn Kuhn. But this triple threat at Bad Medicine isn’t the time for that. This match belongs to ME. While Vaughn and Kuhn have been distracted saving the world and chasing champions, I’ve been preparing. They’ve been staring into the sun while I’ve only been staring at them. Winning CLEAN at Bad Medicine means more to me than it could ever mean to either one of them. I need this. It means that I’m good enough to contend with the real talents of the professional wrestling world. I have a vision board at home that shows all the ways I get this victory and all the things that happen afterwards. So I’m been eating healthy, I’ve been taking my vitamins, and saying my prayers, and I’m ready to commit great atrocities to take this giant leap for my career and all the people who have supported me along the way. I WIN at Bad Medicine by dumping Finn Kuhn on his stack-of-nickels neck. I WIN by choking Peter Vaughn until his forked tongue hangs from his lying mouth. I raise my arms in victory and celebrate with every XWF fan who’ve ever been lied to, held down, mistreated, picked on, put down, underappreciated. I win… Buster Gloves wins.

My body is ready for this match. My mind is right. And I’m f*cking starving to cross Vaughn’s name off of the hit list stuck on my refrigerator door. Bad Medicine isn’t a cloth coronation for a kaiser king. Bad Medicine isn’t revenge porn for the custodial society of America. There will only be professional wrestling. And I’m a VERY good professional wrestler.

Finn Kuhn… stop wasting your time! I don’t care who cheated. Everyone cheats. Everyone lies. Just keep putting yourself out there and believing that things will turn out the way they are supposed to. You’ll either gain a friend for life or learn a lesson for life.

And Peter Vaughn… shut your lying mouth! Peel off the mask and show us who you really are. I pity you because deep down, you’ve been hurt by someone too. Someone didn’t love you enough or was taken away too soon. It’s destroying you, so you need to project that onto someone else. But step back and look at what you’ve done Zero-Pete. Your obsession for revenge has cost you so much more than it could ever cost me. Was it worth it? Maybe you should be very careful what you wish for.

We’ve studied enough video footage. We’ve heard enough talk. I believe that it’s time to pull back the curtain and reveal who we really are. I trust that each of you will do the same. Contrary to popular belief, Bad Medicine is MY NIGHT, boys. This match is everything to me, and I’m not just willing to die for it, I’m intent on killing for it.