Bobby Bourbon seemed delighted to be standing within a boardroom. Business, after all, was good, as it had been since he could remember. BourbCo, his fantastic company which marketed the finest second-rate quality goods for consumers for years now, was on the precipice of branching out into a new venture. A group of suits, blazers, and otherwise business clothes wearing humans are seated at a table looking on, along with Bobby’s corporate lawyer, Christopher K. Clinton, and his tag team partner and best friend, Thunder Knuckles.

“Ladies and gentlemen, I am glad you were able to make it here today! As you know, BourbCo, a well documented, trusted and profitable brand has decided to branch out into real estate, and today I am here to pitch the establishment of BourbBoro! Our plan is to embrace the notions of business ethics, and expand them further than they’d ever gone before!”

Some random investor seated at the table raises a finger, but speaks without being called on before Bobby can speak. “What do you mean you’re ‘expanding business ethics’?” Others in the boardroom look just as perplexed and desiring an explanation as well. In unison, Bobby, TK, and CKC all respond.

“RECORD PROFITS!” The people in the boardroom all look pleased at the answer, since the only ethos within business, after all, is record profits.

“Yes, I understand you have questions, but please, allow me to give you the ol’ razzle dazzle by showcasing my plan for success in the realm of real estate! You see, my lawyer, Christopher Knuckles…”

“That is NOT what the ‘K’ stands for, I have told you this countless times.” CKC interjects, cutting Bobby off, his false mustache nearly flying off.

“Whatever, not the point, second K. Anyhow, my lawyer has enabled the short sale of several buildings in the inner city that are beyond safety code at this point and whose previous ownership was unwilling to update their buildings to standards.” Bobby grins. “That is where we, in BourbBoro stepped in and purchased the properties, and began updating the buildings to a better, higher standard.”

“Fuckin’ barely!” TK takes a sip out of a flask. “I told you not to go too expensive, cheap materials are still up to code!”

“That’s correct, primary K, I spared no expense, accounting for each one and making sure they were as low as possible so my new tenements were just better than they were. Afterward, I raised the rent by three-hundred percent, ensuring new tenants who could uphold the standards of our renewed property!” Bobby looks almost giddy. “I put the gent in gentrification!”

Another member of the meeting has a question. “This seems like fairly standard urban renewal, Mr. Bourbon.”

“Please, it’s Professor Bourbon, I didn’t get an honorary PhD from Strayer University for nothing.” Bobby cocks an eyebrow, demanding respect for his ill-earned title.

“Professor Bourbon, I get the concept that you bought a property and spruced it up, but is there more?” The other random people in the meeting all look as quizzical as the next. TK walks over to the person who just spoke and slaps them across the face.

“Shut up and fuckin’ listen!” The poor sap who got slapped looks shocked as the rest of the room looks mortified. Bobby smiles.

“Thank you, best K.”

“Hey!” CKC looks a little hurt by Bobby’s statement. “I drew up all the contracts that made this possible, he’s best for slapping people around?”

“Yup.” CKC nods, mulling over Bobby’s response.

“Fair.”

“So, phase one, of course, was purchasing a piece of property and exploiting the hell out of it so we can offer housing to newer clientele! By that, of course, I mean evicting all of the people and removing them from their entire lives and relocating them somewhere else, but, alas, where are they to go?” Bobby looks pleased as TK pulls down a screen, but then glances at CKC. “Hey, you gonna get the projector?”

“I’m the hatchetman attorney, not the temp.” CKC seems indignant that Bobby would ask him to do anything else besides litigate. Bobby rolls his eyes as he points at the board member TK slapped moments ago.

“You, get the projector.”

“Huh? But, I’m…”

TK cocks his hand back as Bobby snarls at the emasculated man in a suit.

“Now, monkey boy, don’t make my man use his strong hand!”

The board member stands and rushes to get a projector into place, pointing it at the screen. Bobby produces a remote control and simultaneously dims the lights and illuminates the screen with a picture of a modern, state of the art building that reaches some twenty stories.

“This, ladies and gentlemen, is the new building we are putting in place of the row houses we demolished two days ago. Within are brand new fitness centers, an entire floor dedicated to delivery lockers for all your postage and Amazon deliveries, commercial space for restaurants, shopping, and more. All the conveniences and perks associated with urban living and elevator ride away for our new residents, because living isn’t living without amenities! With an average living space of 400 square feet, as opposed to the needlessly expansive 1400 square foot models, we will be able to accommodate nearly quintuple the amount of people while accepting $5000 a month! That, of course, means one thing.”

TK and CKC stand up beside Bobby, and in unison they shout.

“RECORD PROFITS!”

Bobby presses a button on the remote control, and the slide changes to show a destitute family from the 1930’s.

“Now, that does leave the question, what are we to do with those who no longer fit the mold for our enterprise! Well, a second enterprise, of course! As you can see, John and Martha Welfare won’t be able to afford living within our prefabricated community, and allowing them to rub elbows with the rich and entitled certainly wouldn’t benefit our bottom line!” Bobby presses the clicker again, and we see an average run of the mill garden apartment. The kind you can see going up just about anywhere in the suburbs. “For that, I present to you, SubBourbon living!” Bobby presses the clicker again, and the presentation software plays the sound of stock applause much to his own delight and nobody else’s. “My attorney Mr. Clinton has worked with the surrounding counties to subsidize our new buildings as Section 8 housing. The base rental price for each unit, of course, is only slightly higher than what they were paying in the city, however with schools that are rated far higher and the cleaner air of the suburbs. However, with the added benefit of having taxpayers contribute to the housing needs of those we are actively displacing, we can actually charge more per unit for those specific units! This, of course, expands our ethos even further!” Bobby looks overjoyed at the absolutely unethical plan he has cooked up, or rather, adapted from several developers from around the world, because this kind of thing is way more common than you’d think and it’s kind of shitty I can exploit a common practice to showcase how much of a villain Bourbon and his cohorts are. Fuck it, though, it isn’t like we can stop it anyhow, might as well have fun with it. Bobby, TK, and CKC sure are as they stand and shout in unison again.

“RECORD PROFITS!” Air horns fire off like the phrase is a club anthem from 2005. A member of the meeting clears their throat.

“Mr. Bourbon, again, this all seems very standard for developers, can you show what makes your plan stand out to us?” The lady, who is quite pretty albeit wearing way too much make-up for the boardroom, smiles. She winks at Bobby, and Bobby winks back, his plant in the meeting having done her job.

“Well, Candi, and I’m proud of you for being here today and being a feature dancer at our strip club, and I’m glad you asked!”

“You’re welcome, Bobby!” The obvious plant becomes more obvious as some of the members of the meeting look bemused and insulted. TK gestures towards Candi, waving his finger towards himself and beckoning to her.

“Good job, Candi, now let’s go talk about that massage you’re supposed to give me.” TK leads Candi out of the boardroom, firmly gripping her buttocks as they leave. CKC furrows his brow as he leans towards Bobby and whispers.

“That seems highly unprofessional!”

Bobby cocks an eyebrow. “Oh, I promise you, it’s strictly professional between them, she’s not doing anything for free.” CKC snorts at Bobby's crude humor, the whiskers of his false mustache quivering from the force of it. He then cocks an eyebrow.

“Am I the primary K now?”

“For now, yes, don’t let it get to your head.” CKC beams, his goofy grin showing that he has let it get to his head. Bobby again clears his throat and addresses the rest of the room. “So, the difference here, is instead of propping up the suburbs with more servant class labor and allowing lower income households to capitalize on the influx of money into the city, we are proud to introduce Bastard Transit!”

Bobby clicks the remote yet again, and the image displayed is of a double decker bus on monster truck wheels.

“Included, for a nominal fee, for our lessees in every development, is a subscription to Bastard Transit, a useful and privately owned substitute for complicated and outdated public transit systems. Who has the time to use a bus chart and plot a trip in today’s day and age? With Bastard Transit, we will ship the servant class back to the cities to work for our target market of the affluent and stupid, while the hopelessly poor can watch those they ply for tips play golf in their backyards, hence the need for two floors of bus! The bottom floor is for our labor force!” Bobby clicks the button, revealing the interior of the bottom portion of the bus. It has absolutely no seating, whatsoever, just handrails and straps to hold onto. A pregnant lady is gripping a pole in her maternity wear Chick-Fil-A uniform. "Upstairs we have seating for our platinum tier members who can't stand the smell of poors!" Bobby clicks the button again, and we see the top floor of the bus, which has four recliners, a Jimmy Buffet cover band, and an open bar along with a large sign that reads ‘Elite Class’.

“Now, you may be wondering why I asked you all here today.” Bobby looks around the boardroom. TK reenters the room looking pleased with himself, followed by Candi, who is still rubbing TK’s shoulders.

“Oh yeah, you have the magic touch!” TK’s eyes are rolling through his head multiple times as he says this. Clinton looks up at Bobby curiously.

“THAT is not at all what I expected when he said massage. And why did you assemble all these people here today, it seems like you already have everything in place, are they your employees, or potential investors?” Bobby shrugs.

“Well, I mean, I wanted to do a business meeting so I hired a bunch of extras to sit around while I explained it for a promo.”

“God dammit, you mean all of this was just for a promo for a match?” Clinton looks furious. “What if I…” Clinton stops himself. “What if another client I have had a match?” Clinton’s mustache nearly falls off, revealing himself to be Mark Flynn with a false mustache for just a moment.

“Look, Christopher Knuckles…” Bobby began before being stopped immediately by Clinton.

“STOP CALLING ME CHRISTOPHER KNUCKLES!” Clinton stands, outraged. TK chuckles.

“Okay, Chris Knuckles.”

“UNACCEPTABLE!” Clinton screams as the extras in suits shift uncomfortably. Clinton points at the poor soul TK slapped earlier. “You will PAY for my colleagues' insolence!” The guy runs out of the room.

“CK, chillax, my dude. You and TK are the K’s I need to get this venture off the ground, and you know what that means!”

Bobby, TK, and Clinton all stand in unison and shout once again.

“RECORD PROFITS!”

Candi continues to rub TK’s shoulders as Bobby boops the remote control, returning light to the room. Clinton rolls out a white board and arbitrarily begins crossing T’s and dotting I’s. Bobby then looks around the room at the extras he hired to hear his spiel.

“Uh, so, what are you all doing here still? Get out.”




So, what do we call it when two facets meet one another? History repeating?

Well, shit, Cent, do you really want that to be what goes down here?

I’m not so arrogant as to believe I have you dead to rights, or that you’re over the hill. Hell, you’ve beaten me before, with the previous ownership’s hand picked champion giving you the benefit of an assist. I wonder, what happened to those guys?

Before that, you had me and got me to tap out, again with the benefit of an assist from some asshole who had a vendetta.

For shits and giggles, we can pretend this is for the Hart Championship if you want, but otherwise, look at me now, Cent, quite a bit has changed in four years.

Four looong years that I’ve been waiting for this. You were a legend, to be feared and revered, and I was a brash prick with a chip on his shoulder who seemed to attract the negative attention of every sociopath under the sun for the sole reason I had conviction.

I’m the asshole now, though, Cent, or so I’ve been told.

Meh, everyone’s a critic though, am I right?

See, I lived long enough and smashed hard enough the actual monsters that I became the last one surviving.

That, Cent, is when I began to thrive. Fuck, I went on to bigger, better, and brighter, I’ve stared down and overcome shit you only dream that you could, and I’m a household brand. You, well, you just aged. I went on to win, and win big, to become one half of the greatest tag team in the history of this business, to win the Universal Championship a second time, to be an MVP, a Hart Champion, a TV Champion, to surpass every setback, every goddamned obstacle put in front of me. I have grown, I have repurposed.

You’ve accrued dust.

I mean, I would say take a look at some of the shit you said leading up to our last match, but damn, getting canceled is my schtick, find your own!

I had the world against me, you rode the momentum, and it served you well enough while you were busy being a homophobic groomer.

A lot has changed in four years, huh?

See, that learning process, that ability to adapt is something you don’t have. No teaching old dogs new tricks, now is there?

So yeah, you’ve beaten me in the past, but that was a whole completely different world, wasn’t it?

I was innocent then, you could’ve known better. You rode an opportunity, and I’ll give you credit for that, but I’ve done it in ways you could never fathom.

At Revelry, you fought for your entire career. Keep it. I prefer mine anyway. I’ve become a curse, a warning clause, and morality play all in one in this here landmark we call the XWF; you’re a pebble on the ground. You might have been here longer, might have once been a part of something greater, but step right over you and nobody would notice. While I have been a terror to hopes of the doe eyed, the lurking nightmare one gets when they think their dreams are coming true, you’ve been content to become an antique. I collect championships, names I have crushed, and infamy, you’re happy to collect a paycheck and pretend it's a pension. I’ll sell you for what you’re worth like this was an episode of Antiques Roadshow in time for you to get the early bird special and reminisce.

The times when you were noble by proxy, same as me.

You’re an old man and a child like the cast of Diff’rent Strokes
You get as heated as any of the racks of ribs that I smokes
Get the word around you saved your career go ahead and tell your folks
We gotta give the fire some stokes, crack the shell, break a yolk, handle you like pig in a polk, feeling froggy and you went and you croaked, give your head a soak, sick of hearing about a penis joke?

You’re still a dick, and you’re still a joke.

It got tired over a decade ago.

Centurion invites underage girls to listen to mP3s with him because he’s an Amish survival story.

Same as Duke.

I mean, by their measure they are indeed legends.

Same as the Pantheon dorks.

Nobody hates you, Cent. Nobody makes it their mission, when they wake up in the morning, to find you, and to hurt you, and to focus on the pain they felt because of you like I have. I learned from you, I took your lessons and became better first the MVP of Warfare and then the absolute greatest Hart Champion in XWF history, because you never defended it against me clean, fuck your record.

I, myself, Centurion, will hate you.

I will grant you the absolute and utter disgust and revulsion to your very being. You suck, your everything sucks, fall into a hole and disappear.

Madison Dyson was tryna save you from me, you silly old can of tuna, you, and really, I feel like at your age and who you can trade with in the old folks’ home, a can of tuna could go a long way. It’s assisted living facility jargon for “PENIS JOKE” you fucking penis joke.

Christ almighty, the last time you kept making fun of me for saying, beyond a doubt, you’re just a languish upon fans by being a tired penis joke?

Ruby is gone, brah, she proved that shit right!

Hell, a whole era died since the last time we faced off, not sure if you noticed, and it’s not the people who are gone, nah, you son of a bitch, it’s the fucking people that are here and present now.

I am the one with the support.

He who must not be named, the abrasive assholes who would insult you for losing to you behind the curtain, the guys who used to deserve more but you shined for?

I’m all that’s fucking left. Dyson is gone, you were cute cutting and pasting what you found on Reddit into your scripts for a while, then once AI became a thing and you couldn’t compete with it the world saw you as a fucking sham.

The times have changed, Centurion. The world has become mine. Chaotic. Woeful. Sad. The global culture is anxiety now, and watching it suffer as I have is cathartic to me.

The same things you sought to exploit, only now, well, there’s no Engineer. There’s no sign of Chris Chaos. The bootlickers are done.

You wanted me to follow your example before, to do as you did, to see you as someone to learn from, and you failed, you completely failed.

I have become something, and it’s more than you have ever been, because when the horrid, the wicked, the nasty, the violent, and the worst want to scare one another, they tell each other Bobby Bourbon stories.

Last I fucking checked, nobody has a story about you besides how they saw you at their grandma’s house before she died.

On that note, let me clear the air, you are above Pantheon. You won the UGWC Title that Seb holds from Seb, so, there’s that, and you’re better than Corey Black by nautical miles, and yes, I went international in my measurement for the people around the world to understand, that while I wouldn’t piss on a member of Pantheon on the worst of days, I would absolutely piss on you, Cent.

The fucking penny you are, not even worth the change you’re printed on but never actually delivered.

And take that from a man who was personally decapitated by Corey Black, yet here I am, come back from the dead, more legend that fantasy and more final than you.

You beat a woman then came beating your chest.

I came to judge.

I have found judgment.

I will execute.

Without hesitation.

Because my judgment is mine.

You aught to be grateful, Cent, because TK wishes he could face you again and erase the past.

You should be thankful, Cent, because TK would destroy you and leave you in a diaper for no good goddamn reason besides I dared him to.

He dared me to.

I will put you in a diaper after I defeat you. What size?

Depends.

…I haven’t measured your waist.

You look fucking tiny though. I feel it’s high time you got the ass whooping of a lifetime, because you’ve always acted like a bad guy to bad guys, but, well, I’m that, and you fucking aren’t and never have been while I’ve been here, I just had bigger fish to fry every time.

You limp, lame, underwhelming joke of a dick.

You try to act tough, Cent, but we all know the truth, you’ll never be the monster I am, and you’ll never stop the kind of monster I am, because at the end of the day, you know I’m fighting for all of us.

I’m antagonizing the new guys in the XWF while everybody else shuns them since they came from other companies.

I’m stepping the fuck up and mobilizing the Brotherhood of Bastards along with others while you hope to keep going forward to prove your career?

I’m fighting a fight, a new fight every night, and I’m going out and putting my neck on the line against the unknown to sell tickets, and you’re coming around now, to Warfare, against the absolute Weekend Evening Wrecker, the Sultan of Smacktalk, the Big Bad Big Bad of Big Bads, the two-time XWF Universal Champion, three-time XWF Xtreme Champion, and five-time Tag Team champion, not just in the XWF, while since I have become those things you’ve been, what, champion in a company I could have won the championship in handedly, and without a doubt, for being bolder than the rest instead of the most in compliance?

I DO NOT APOLOGIZE FOR MY ENERGY, I JUST DRANK A POT OF COFFEE AND ATE THREE HOT DOGS, CAFFEINE AND PROTEIN TRAIN!

Impressively, I didn’t delete that because I thought it was funny that this doofus, Bobby Bourbon, had that kind of adrenaline to be so aggressive and incoherent like a wrestler would after explaining how urban development works to many for the first time.

Centurion, in Denver, the Mile High City, you will go into Warfare and come out with a new prize to show off to anybody who is willing to give a shit about you.

A cracked fucking vertibrae.

I mean, I got decapitated by Corey Black, but here I am, still jumping around.

You're absolutely doomed.