An eye.

The white lined in red, pulsing veins around the iris...

The pupil, wide. Dilated.

Zooming out, we see a dark circle underneath. Sleepless rage. Restless fury.

"Opening Salvo?"

A familiar voice whispers as the wrinkled face that owns it, contorts, struggling to find a proper response...

"Opening salvo."

"Just so you know, Massy, an opening salvo is seen as the first real strike in a battle. First blood drawn. An aggressive act to signify the beginning of tooth-and-nails warfare."

Flynn's eye twitches again, just thinking about the phrase. He’s sitting in a steel folding chair, very similar to Mastermind’s chair in his latest promo, chronicling the rise and fall of the current X-Treme Champion.

"And as someone who has had to deal with morons like you who declare their opening statement a 'salvo.' As someone who has ENDED THE FUCKING CAREER OF CASSIUS STONNE because young Cassie decided to declare his piece talking about how surprised he was that anyone in this company could hear him bitching about title shots he didn’t deserve, an 'opening salvo.' I can tell you, coming from that perspective? I'm not a fan of the phrase."

“’Great minds think alike’. And I guess terrible, deficient minds do as well.”

Flynn taps the side of his head with his index finger three times… Then lets the pointer hang there on his temple…

"Let me give you a tip. A little advice from the actual mastermind around the XWF."

"If you're going to call your promo an ‘opening salvo.’ Then part of your promo should actually STRIKE at its target. Do you catch my drift?"

"You should take a fucking swing at me with some intention behind it, get it? You should actually make it clear you have some barbs in your arsenal to draw some blood with. Or perhaps any kind of sharp implement to inflict pain. Hell, maybe a bludgeoning tool. Or a heavy object. Worst case, perhaps a metaphorical wet pool noodle that might swat me in the arm and sting for a few seconds..."

"But in your 'salvo', you listed my accomplishments in the XWF. You described how impressed you were by my current title reign, and you insisted that I bring out my best this week like the true champion that I am."

Flynn’s finger flies from his temple, he shakes his hand quickly in the air, blowing on it to cool down, like he had left it on a stove..

"AGHH, I should have brought an ice pack. I can't believe I didn't see that SICK BURN coming."

Flynn's hand stops...He cracks each finger with his thumb, going index to middle to ring to pinky… His eyes narrow. His nostrils flare. A grin slowly spreads across his face.

"While I'm defining terms for you, let me go ahead and play to that salesman urge in me, and give you a bonus one to take home, free of charge."

Flynn holds two fingers in the air, beside his face.

"Mastermind. Two definitions.”

Flynn’s hand drops to his side…

“One. Noun. A person with outstanding intellect."

"Seeing that you can't put together a pair of fucking words together to make an insult, it can't be that one."

"So, we'll go with door number two. Verb. To plan and direct an ingenious scheme or enterprise."

"You sure seem dead-set on this plan to take the X-Treme title belt from around my waist. And how can I stop you? Look at the brilliant series of calculated steps in your master plan to achieve your goal."

"Step 1. Try to pin me seven or eight times."

"Step 2. Challenge me to a fight on Warfare, three weeks from the moment of your challenge. So you can take the time to prepare silently and let me slip off my game..."

"Step 3. Try to pin me again, perhaps because you thought challenging me would make your sneak attack surprising, keeping me sharp and directly counteracting the previous phase in your plan..."

"Step 4. Try four more times after you've spoiled any element of surprise, guaranteeing it would be surprising. Once again working against the last part of your plan. Because WHAT IDIOT WOULD KEEP TRYING AFTER FUCKING UP AN AMBUSH AS MANY TIMES AS YOU HAVE!?!!?"

Flynn spits. His hands weaves through his hair... And he lets out a deep sigh. His hand falls down to his side, dangling as he leans forward in the chair.

"Step 5."

"Lose embarrassingly to Zoey Ryback in her debut match the week before your big X-Treme Title shot, re-establishing that element of surprise... In that after losing that match, now literally no one thinks you're going to win this match."

"Step 6. Call your weak-ass first promo an opening FUCKING SALVO. I feel like we don’t need to explore the motives behind this one."

"Step 7... I don't even know. Where does your plan go from here? Exactly how long is this plan set out into the future? Are you playing the long game, Mastermind? Maybe getting a finger on this belt in 2016? Getting a full hand on it just before the end of this decade?"

Flynn shakes his head slowly back and forth…

"Here's your problem, Mastermind. You throw around a lot of words. And can't seem to wrap your head around what they mean."

"Example."

"Respect. You claim to respect me. And yet, through your words, I detect just how little respect you have for my abilities. For my accomplishments. That list of title reigns you pulled up off the internet I assume… Doesn’t seem to mean a damn thing to you."

"You don't understand how I held onto this belt for 36 days. You think it’s remarkable that a goddamned former XWF World Heavyweight Champion, a Grand Slam XWF Champion, can hang on to a belt, taking on the likes of you, Bobby Zi and Jessica Fucking Diaz, for five weeks? Fuck you. I could take on chumps of your calibur for five YEARS and not lose a wink of sleep over the looming threat of Mastermind’s best ringwork.”

“That’s how I sleep, Massy. You couldn’t beat me in my worst nightmares. Helps me sleep like a baby.”

“Respect, Massy? You don't have the god damned respect to look up the rules of this fucking match either. It's an escape only cage match, Massy. The one thing I'm good at as X-Treme Champion. Getting the fuck out of dodge. Getting trapped into a corner and finding an escape route. The only way to win this coming Wednesday is climbing out of the cage. And your big plan is that you’re going to pin me? You’re going to make me tap out? Are you also going to climb to the top of a ladder and pull down a belt hanging over the center of the ring? Are you going to touch all four corners before I can, while our arms are connected by a strap? Are you going to throw me over the top rope, and be the last to survive of the twenty other imaginary men you might think are in this match? Just to tell you, don't do that last one, my feet won't touch the floor because the ring will be surrounded by a STEEL CAGE. You fucking dolt."

"And you don't have the fucking decency to respect my ability on the mic. Motherfucker, do you think I am a child? Do you think I am mentally deficient? Do you think there’s a week that goes by where I don’t bring my A-game? Where I don’t know my fucking facts?"

"I'm Mark.”

“Fucking.”

“Flynn.”

“Mark ‘King of the God-Damn Mid-Carders’ Flynn.”

“Do you think I got famous for my trash talk by writing shit puns and then yelling them over the course of a week? Masterbait? MasterCard? Mastercate? Sorry, are you so confident that that’s the kind of material I work with, that you thought calling that off-limits at the start would take away a decent chunk of my weaponry? Do you think scraping the bottom of the barrel is how I built my reputation of being the best there is?"

"I'm not going to beat you with puns, Massy. I’m not going to outdo you with wordplay…I'm going to EVISCERATE YOU... With the best weapon I have. The truth.”

“I’m going to massacre you with what I know to be true."

"And the truth, Massy? The thing I want to bring to your attention? Isn’t how close your name is to certain sexual acts one can perform by one’s self."

“It’s how fucking in-over-your-head you are going into this match. How clueless you seem, sputtering off your ‘bringing you’re A game’ and how ‘you’ll make sure I tap out.’”

"Let me let you in on a detail you seem unaware of, Massy."

"You're sub-Gilmour talent. Your 'A game' still doesn’t stack up against me on my worst week. I could be sporting a broken spine and you still couldn’t make me tap out."

“This isn't exaggeration, how disappointing you are on a consistent basis. This isn't hyperbole. It’s an observable phenomenon, Massy. It’s a scientific fact.”

"If you get put across the ring from some no-name shithead like Joey Hawkins or Avery Kain or Outsider Joel, you excel. You perform adequately."

"On the other side of the spectrum, when you're put in a match with someone who has any measure of talent? Frodo Smackins or Mr XWF or Zoey Ryback?"

"You fall short. You underwhelm."

"You miss your mark. You realistically don’t even come close to getting the win."

"It doesn't matter how bad you want it, Massy. It doesn’t matter that you’ll do anything to get it. It doesn’t matter how hard you’ll work, how deep you’ll dig, to get IT."

"Because when it comes down to it? To the nitty gritty? When the chips are down? You won’t. You don't have the talent."

"You don't have the skill."

"You're not second-rate."

"You're not even third-rate."

"You're the god damned lowest step on the ladder. Just above surface level. You can beat all the pathetic no ones who are too blinded by how terrible they are to even locate the ladder. But anyone who can start climbing the ladder…Sails right by you.”

“We’re on different levels, Massy. We exist on different parts of the card.”

“You’re at the bottom, touting holding the Ark of the Covenant belt twice. During a god-damned Championship scramble.”

“I’m at the top, NOT bragging about the fact that I am X-Treme champion, a belt with a history that XWF officials actually bother keeping track of. I’m telling people to watch the fuck out. I’m holding onto this fucking belt until I get two 24/7 briefcases. And you’re the last line of defense between me and my first one.”

“The last time I got one of those briefcases, I became XWF World Heavyweight Champion. And not Barney Green’s World Title either. The one he won by getting thrown off of a boat. I'm talking about the top title. The #1 spot in this business.”

"And I'm holding the belt that keeps title shots and briefcases coming in like clockwork."

“In my hands, the X-Treme Title is a god-damned nuclear weapon. And I’m going to use to fucking lay waste to the entire XWF."

“You want to hold this title just so you can have an accomplishment actually worth putting on one of your insipid t-shirts. I want this title because it’s the torch I’m going to use to set the world we live in on fire and laugh as you fucking cockroaches are consumed in the inferno that I leave behind...”

Flynn cackles.

“And, Massy? When you’re lying unconscious in the center of the ring, after an extended session of me vigorously, flawlessly assaulting you... As you desperately flit and flail, trying your gosh-darned hardest to pull out every move in your limited-by-skill arsenal and watching it not do a damn thing.”

“As you try to pull your head off the ground, only managing a few inches... Bleeding, fading, unable to stop me as I calmly walk through that door. As I sucessfully defend my title for the third time since winning the damn thing?”

“That’s what I want you to think of.”

“That you were the last line of defense. You were the last thing in the XWF that could have stopped me from submerging this place in a bath of chaos and anarchy.”

“And from the start, there wasn’t a damn thing you could have done.”

"Truly. Fucking. Helpless."

Flynn tips his head, in a salute.

“And that, dear Massy…”

“Is how you execute an opening salvo.”