Knock Knock Knock.

“Loverboy” Vinnie Lane shuffles over deep shag carpeting in his bare feet while zipping up his tight jeans to answer the door of the posh Los Angeles apartment he’s spent the last several days in.

“Hey, hold on, man, I’m coming,”

He says, just as a second set of knocks echoes across the room. As Loverboy nears the door, he passes in front of the entertainment center and presses the volume control of the stereo, quieting the sounds of Quiet Riot wailing from the speakers.

“I said hold on, dude!”

Loverboy pulls a t-shirt over his head and down his lithe, bare chest; his blond hair popping out of the top neck hole like a suddenly blooming dandelion. He swings the door inward just in time to see the dolorous face of Todd Moschitti staring at the doorstep, and lazily sending a fist toward the place the door had been. Catching the limply fisted hand of Todd in his own left palm, Loverboy looks down at the grouping of overnight bags around Todd’s feet and bucks his head back in surprise.

“Hey, Todd, what’s the deal buddy?” Loverboy asks with a strained voice. “What are you doing here?”

Todd lifts his sad face slowly, meeting the piercing blue gaze of Loverboy with eyes both alive and far away – stained glass eyes. Somehow, the pallid lump of a man keeps his composure and simply replies to Loverboy in a flat, listless voice.

“Gator’s gone, Vinnie… remember? They even took his belt. I can’t get ahold of him. I need a place to stay. You said…”

“Right, right, I remember,” Loverboy interrupts, “I told you I’d let you crash when Gator took his little sabbatical. Bullshit about that belt, by the way. I mean… Knight? He’s cool and all, but how was he ranked higher than me on any list, right?”

“Vinnie, do we have to talk about you all the time?”

“Hey dude, have some respect! You’re in my place, dude!”

Todd takes a moment to look around at the clearly feminine surroundings and decorations. Flowers, fluffy throw pillows on a white leather couch, et cetera; not to mention the variety of glittering, high-heeled shoes strewn across the entranceway compared to the single set of men’s Converse sneakers among them. Loverboy catches the expression on his face and interjects.

“Okay, right, yeah, it’s Roxy’s place, I know, but still. Same deal. What’s mine is hers and what’s hers is mine, you know? Come on, man, come on in.”

Loverboy picks up three of Todd’s bags and slings them into the living room while Todd struggles under the weight of the remaining one.

“Where’s my bedroom, Vinnie?”

Loverboy laughs and shakes his head, then sees the raised eyebrows darting up Todd’s forehead and cuts himself off mid-chuckle.

“Oh, shit, you’re serious. Dude, you’re sleeping on the couch. You think we got a bigger apartment just for you? Get real, man.”

With a deflating sigh, Todd lugs his bag over to the couch and thuds it to the carpet with a rushing exhale. Todd starts to sit on the perfectly white cushion, but Loverboy rushes toward him.

“Dude, are you ? Take your shoes off, man! Roxy will have my ass in a sling if there’s a smudge on this fucking carpet, dude, no lie. Then you and me both will be sleeping in the park, you know?”

“Yeah, I understand…”

Todd somehow manages to balance his girth and keep from falling as he leans down and pulls the New Balance sneakers from his feet, leaving only the stained crew socks underneath. Loverboy’s reaction is swift, as his head knocks back is if it took a punch to the jaw.

“Sweet Jesus, Todd, your feet reek like a Maverick match. Speaking of, did you see what I did to him? Cool, right?”

Loverboy dances around the room with an aerosol can of Glade, mercifully ending the brutal regime of Todd’s foot funk.

“I saw it, of course I saw it, I’m a cameraman! You know he’s fine though, right?”

“What? Again? Every time that bastard says he’s hurt he shows up a week later begging for a title shot. Well, is he booked?”

“Yep. Here, I have the card written down for you, actually.”

“Oh sweet, thanks, man!”

Todd digs into a pocket, spilling candy wrappers into the crevices of the couch cushions. Eventually, he digs out a crumpled napkin and hands it to Loverboy, who smooths it out in his hand before looking down and reading.

“What is this shit? I’m not getting the title shot against Heartsford? MAVERICK got it? Are you seriously fucking kidding me right now, dude? Maverick? The guy I just beat up? Who lost to Samuels last week? Who got SHIT ON BY GATOR AND FRODO?

“Yeah. It’s weird.”

“I’m not even in the contender’s match! Scully and fucking GHOST TANK are next on the list? This is a joke, right Todd? Good one dude, where’s the real card? Am I fighting Theo?”

“That’s the real card!”

“Well, Fairfield is partially , I guess he just had another episode. Who the hell am I going up against then… oh, wait, Justin Sane? Who’s Justin Sane?”

“You remember Justin, Vinnie! You sponsored him for the TV Title shot a couple of weeks ago! And I think it was the new GM who booked you.”

“Oh! Him? Well, I guess they figured I deserved an easy match after the last few weeks of busting my balls against other megastars, huh? Makes sense. There’s a new GM huh? Think he’ll get a belt like Madison then?”

“Jesus you whine a lot…”

“Shut up TODD. I hear that enough, dude.”

“Sorry.”

“No problem, chubbo, just plop yourself down, make yourself kinda sorta at home, but not really, and give me a few minutes to go practice this promo I guess I’ll have to cut against… what’s his name again?”

“Justin Sane.”

“Justin Sane. Right. Got it. Feel free to flip on the TV and the Xbox if you want, dude. Just don’t save over my game. I’m, like, pretty close to saving everyone in Skyrim’s ass.”

Loverboy walks into the bathroom and clears his throat as he fluffs his hair up in the mirror. Getting his game face on, he starts pointing at his own reflection and barking out that oh so sweet trash talk.




So, it looks like I have myself a match against a dude so boring that he actually makes Ghost Tank’s parkour skills seem like they’re moving at full speed instead of just the fat, sloth-like motions of a Hot Topic manager three weeks away from losing a foot to diabetes.

Well, what exactly do we know about this Justin Sane guy? I know I tried to watch a promo of his and, well, first of all, as soon as I saw I had to go to some “exclusive” website just to watch his videos I updated my firewall so as to make sure I didn’t get flooded with emails from Nigerian princes in need of a safety deposit. Seriously, dude, what makes you so special that you thought you could make everyone beef up your Google hits on your Tumblr? Cut a damn promo like everybody else and stop being a homo about it.

So I get to the promo, right? After a flood of pop-ups, at least. Then I sit through what must have been seventeen hours of this slope-browed, shaven orangutan with a mouth so full of rotten meth teeth that it looked like an ashtray full of cigarette butts screaming about how great he is. My god, man, you had me feeling like River Phoenix in My Own Private Idaho. What I mean is, not only did I feel narcoleptic, but I thought I was looking at a dude about ready to try and suck my cock.

What’s the deal with all your gay shit anyway, dude? Don’t get me wrong, everyone has a right to love who they want and all that good stuff, but you seemed pretty damn eager to get into a “loser sucks off the winner” match against a guy who just got done kicking your ass in the King of the Ring tournament, you know? Looks like in that one you’ll get to do your favorite activity in big matches again – choke.

How did you manage to get booked so far out of your league this week anyway, dude? Is someone pissed at you? I know, I know, you just won a match or two. Hey, you even beat Scully! I guess that means we can go ahead and mark you down as “Not Darren Dangerous,” since he is literally the only guy ever who couldn’t beat that drooling special needs kid Scully. Yeah, you probably had a few other matches or something too, but all I can ever seem to remember about you is losing the TV match, losing at King of the Ring, and latching yourself onto that asshole wizard Evertrust at War Games. I hope that freak taught you a trick or two, dude, because the best strategy you can have for Madness this week is to make yourself disappear.

Justin, dude, don’t think I’ve forgotten the way you screwed me over in that TV Title match I bought for you, dude. You cost me six thousand xbux, and after this week I’m actually gonna be needing every penny I can get. You were supposed to be some big, shiny new thing in the XWF, man, taking the place by storm or whatever, you know? I figured you would at least put up a fight against my good friend Gator in that match, but, instead you shat the bed just like Maverick did until he was 19 years old.

Shocker, right? Justin Sane gags on another “big one.”

So here’s what it boils down to, Justin. This week on Monday Madness, you’re going to live the highlight of your life, the best thing that’s happened to you since the day some drunk pumped your mother full of Carnation Instant . You get to be in a ring graced by yours truly, and be a fucking speed bump on my road to Theo Pryce and the Universal Championship. You’ll get to be in my stats, with a little asterisk next to your name letting everyone know that you signed a waiver beforehand and that no mongoloids were actually harmed in the filming of our match.

You have a better chance of Frodo wearing pants during your match with him than you do of beating me this week, dude. Justin Sane, this week you’re Justin Overyourhead. Period.




“Loverboy” Vinnie Lane emerges from the bathroom with a cocky grin on his face after running through his verbal assault on Justin Sane just in time to see Roxy Cotton screaming and covering her mouth while Todd furiously wipes at the couch with a gym towel. A sexy brunette is sitting next to Todd, but slowly getting to her feet and moving behind Roxy as if she were afraid of catching something.

“I’m sorry! I’m sorry!”

Todd scrubs at the cushion in his lap more vigorously as Roxy’s face turns red with anger.

“You’re disgusting! What the FUCK is this little freak doing in our apartment, babe?”

Loverboy walks over to Roxy, open mouthed, and shrugs as he stammers for an explanation.

“I-i-i-I was just in the other room for, like, five minutes, baby! What the hell happened? And who’s this hot ass chick?”

Loverboy smiles and winks at the sultry brunette, who manages to give him a half smile back before cringing again and getting further away from Todd.

“Vinnie! This is Bonnie, she’s my friend and we had some drinks together… she was feeling frisky and I showed her some pics of you on my cell, and we decided to surprise you with a little threeway action tonight…”

“Sweet!”

“But then we got here and this little turd was sitting on the couch playing Skyrim as one of those gay cat people, and I dared Bonnie to kiss him!”

“What the fuck? You used a Khajiit?”

“I know… I know…”

“Vinnie! Listen! She kissed him, and started tonguing his ear, which was already pretty fucking gross, and he CAME IN HIS PANTS.”

“Oh, dude…”

“I KNOW!”

Apparently feeling a little overwhelmed with the situation, Bonnie walks to Roxy and whispers in her ear, then turns to Loverboy.

“I’m getting out of here tiger… unlucky for you. Rain check?”

“Uh…”

“My throw pillow is ruined! Vinnie! Who is he?”

Loverboy watches sadly as the gorgeous Bonnie sashays out the front door, then looks at the pathetic lump of flesh on the couch, still trying desperately to clean his mess.

“Roxy… this is Todd. I told him he could stay with us for a little while.”

It was the hardest slap Loverboy had ever felt.