Quote:I just said, “eye for an eye”! You haven't pieced it together yet? It's one for one, Luxy. ONE FOR ONE! Soldier reaches for the sack and pulls it off the body's head in one smooth motion.

It's Joachim Bright. The Engineer's son has just been killed by the Universal Champion.

The crowd howls and gasps. Steve Sayors looks shocked and appalled. Lux's eyes go wide as her entire world is destroyed. Visibly shaken, she turns ashen and has to hold on to the ropes for support. Soldier dips a finger in Joachim's blood and grabs for the XWF contract he was holding before. Flipping to the last page, he signs his name in the young man's blood and shows it to the camera. We're on, Lux. See ya real soon. Soldier then drops the contract to the floor, and the feed cuts to static.

UGHHHH! Betsy! Countering kindness with MORE kindness?! You sly devil. Err, deviless? Is that a lady devil?

Seriously though, you couldn’t have at least called me a “dick” or something? I can be a dick. I can be a HUGE dick! One time I was feeling really lazy and didn’t put the cart back in the cart corral at Costco. At least not at first. But then the cart guy looked at me and I felt real guilty, so I went back and did it. But I almost didn’t! What a dick move!

*SIIIIGHHHHHH*

Alright, fine. Fine! Make me do the dirty work then! Make me be the heat bringer! Whatever! Betsy, you….you….YOU….

….are an absolute doll.

*SSSSSSIIIIIIIIIGGGGHHHHHH!*

Those are some of the nicest things anyone has ever said about me. And I appreciate that. Truly. I mean, I’ll give you a pass on the gatekeeper thing even though I explicitly said I wasn't one. Though, the Gatekeeper/Keymaster reference was pretty solid.

…..

Didn’t they have sex….? Ooops. Don’t worry James, I’m gay as the day is long as of late. Although your lady IS quite the looker.

So where do we go from here, huh Bets? Man, I bet Vinnie is watching this shit and he’s just apoplectic. Big money match like this and we’re tripping over our own feet in a mad dash to be nice to each other like a couple of awkward adolescent sweethearts. Although, as I watched your promo, there was a little something that nagged at me. It seemed somehow familiar. And I’m not talking about you reminding me of Lux. It took me a bit to draw a bead on it. But then it hit me. Your last bit on me was, in many ways, like your commentary on Doc at March Madness.

By the by, you want a REAL asshole? Look no further than our illustrious lord and master. Now THAT was a guy you should have gone ham on.

But you didn’t.

Yeah….that’s when I got it. Betsy, you got a habit of going all starry eyed in the face of serious competition. Insert Shooting Star pun here. You handled Doc with kid gloves, talking up his greatness and what a treat it was to face him. Bets, trust me on this, Doc knows he’s good. The last thing you want to do is talk up Hell’s Resident Reigning Douche Supreme. But yeah, you don’t do that with Doc. He’s never going to admit to being afraid, so why not go guns a blazing telling him what a crusty old bitch he is. Telling him that for as little fear he has for you, you’re not exactly sweating him either. But maybe you are. Deep down inside. And maybe he knows that. But why give him the satisfaction of polishing his knob?

And then you come to me. Same song and dance. Hell, at the first suggestion of you being “in it to win it” you apologized and walked it back for sounding “redundant.” And then, you went on stressing your injuries, working against doctor's orders, EEE TEE CEE, like….like….like you were already getting ahead of a loss.

Bets.

BETS.

At the risk of sounding like a jerk off, you are in the XWF. The meanest promotion on the planet. And sometimes you just come across as too nice. When you told me you wanted to win this match, I just didn’t HEAR it. It wasn’t there. The passion, the drive, the focus, the grit, the determination **deep breath**....none of that came through. But see, I KNOW it’s there. You had no problem trying to bleed out Lycana. But it’s almost like you sell yourself short once you reach a certain rung on the ladder. Upon exposure to the pecking order you just kinda fall in line and resign yourself to getting pecked.

So I’m here to tell you to say “fuck it.” You can be a badass without compromising your morals. It’s okay to look at some legacy figures here (hi James), plant your feet, and tell them to prep for sucking down an L. It’s totally cool! Hell man, I remind Chris Page every time I see him in the locker room that he is in a persistent state of being 3 seconds away from losing his title to me any time I want. And maybe that’s not a great example because unlike your match with me, or Doc, Page losing to me is as foregone a conclusion as Kanye West’s next pants on head emotional breakdown. But still! Punching up is just part of the game, Betsy. And you need to do it to stay credible.

There is one more quibble I had with what you had to say, and it was your comment about "the forces around me holding me back". I wasn't sure what to make of that. You mean Doc? Nothing about Doc holds me back. We don't like each other, but our...mutual entanglements, so to speak, keep us in each other's rotation. Plus, to be honest, I kind of like having him in my sights. I'm not egotistical enough to think I have a whole scale understanding of what goes on in that wide awake horror show he calls a mind. But it's that whole "keep your enemies closer" thing, you know what I mean?

OR! Do you mean The Engineer, who is dead? Do you mean Madison Dyson, who is also dead? Do you mean Shane , who is off somewhere rage shitting himself into oblivion?

Aside from any of them...then what? I love my friends. Dolly, Thad. I'll even count folks like Alias and R.L amongst my friends (though what he sees in Demos eludes me). And none of them hold me back. If anything, they inspire me day in and day out. Dolly has been my partner in running this community of mine. The growth and change I've seen in her takes my breath away every day. Thad is a beautiful, imperfect, generous, complicated human being who was instrumental in saving my life. He loves ferociously. He makes mistakes sometimes. But he will always be there for me and vice versa.

The last thing my friends do is hold me back. So, maybe I misread you. I hope I did. But if not, you were off base on that one. And the interesting thing about your comment is that I think kinda, maybe, it was one of those "thou doth protest too much" moments that says more about the speaker than anything else.

Let's talk about who you surround yourself with. James? Don't like him. Now I'm sure you think the sun rises and sets on those washboard abs and hey, that's your thing. I can't tell you who to love. But me? I'll never forget how he and Centurion treated Dolly in her last match. Rushing in to scold and berate a young woman for failing to live up to THEIR standards. Man, fuck off! Even in a Fed that sets pretty high standards for being an absolute shit unit, coming back to a promotion you want nothing more to do with just to berate a young woman for not fulfilling your lofty notions of what greatness is is pretty low. Oh, and please remind James I pinned him. In fact, have it be your parting shot during your next argument. I'm sure he'll LOVE IT LOTS!

Next item on the docket, I don't envy you being smack dab in the middle of whatever drama bombs Shawn and Atara are dropping. Now look, I like Atara. I really do. And, though it wasn't his intent, Shawn saved me from The Engineer. But these two, man, THESE TWO. Are you on Twitter, Bets? I know you are. So I'm sure you've seen the XWFs own Kim and Kanye air out their dirties on the regular for the last 300 years or so. Like an unmedicated Bipolar lurching back and forth between mania and the sads, these two had a love hate relationship like TWELVE TIMES A DAY! And seeing their interaction styles, I get it! Atara is a queen, man. And she acts like one. And Shawn? Hooo boy, Shawn. Sometimes I have to force myself to remember he did me a solid last year. Because like 90 percent of the time I find him insufferable. From his "teenage girl esque" mood swings, to his incessant desire to, for some ungodly reason, broadcast the notion that he's an asshole like it's a brand he's shilling (because it is, in fact, A BRAND HE'S SHILLING), to the fact that he is the most terminally online man in XWF history (watch your ass Dean)....just, WOW.

Shawn, you are aware that acting like a bitter, irritated turd lord all the time does not make you seem like a badass, right? That insecure Twitter meltdowns and online drama instill fear in the hearts of no one, you see that right?

Holy shit, I just realized I have a problem with Fuzz! LOL.

Whew, long story short Betsy, I don't know how you tolerate that lot. But if I had to pick who I wanted to hang with, my peeps or yours, there’s just no doubt I’m goin’ with my crew. Shit, I might even throw Doc in there and STILL pick my crew. I figure he’s gotta be on par with at least 100 of Shawn’s cringy Tweets.

So let me flip this around on you, Betsy. If YOU are ever in the market for new friends or allies, try Continuum brand compadres! Thad has his own army! I have my own commune! Doc has...has...well, a recent bout of megalomania. We’re working on it. BUT STILL BETTER! And it’s not like we’re going to make you break up with Raven. That wouldn’t be fair. He would, however, be sitting at the kiddy table.

But yeah, don’t be afraid to sock it to me. I’m a big boy. I can take it. And hey, I’ll even give you a head start. Here’s a list of a few of my weak points to get the ball rollin’.