‘Twas the week before Christmas, and out in the ring

Vinnie beat Frodo like it wasn’t no thing.

He took every move the poor hobbit could try,

Then kicked out and tossed tiny Frodo sky high.

The fans were nestled all snug in their seats,

To watch as their heroes performed awesome feats.

The undercard bored them, they started to go,

Then “Loverboy” Vinnie Lane came and stole the damn show.

The pace was so quick! The moves scintillating!

All were shocked to see Frodo not masturbating!

But, as is often the case, Shayoukens abounded,

Poor Frodo’s offense is not very well-rounded.

So the Prince of Peroxide nipped up to his feet

Causing each fan to jump out of his seat.

Then, with a wink of his eye and a smirk on his face,

Loverboy put tiny Frodo right back down in his place.

A clothesline! A superkick! A swift DDT!

A Heartbreaker! Then, the Bad Medicine Knee!

The charge in the air gave the fans all a shiver

As Loverboy nailed the Black Label Driver.

Loverboy said as the ref counted to three,

“I whipped Santa’s elf, Merry Christmas to me!”

Huntington Station, Long Island, New York – December 24th, 2014 – 5pm.

After a few days filled with rushed travel as well as the Christmas Shove It, first flying into New York from LAX, riding the buses from LaGuardia Airport in Queens to Madison Square Garden in Manhattan – then the show, crashing at a hotel, finally getting to Penn Station and boarding the Long Island Railroad train in the busiest city on Earth, in the busiest season, at the busiest time of day - the weary pair of “Loverboy” Vinnie Lane and his beautiful fiancée, Roxy Cotton, exit the train car and walk down the wooden ramp towards to road.

Here, away from the glitz and the glamor of Los Angeles, away from millions of fans who would easily recognize the two of them regardless of the large sunglasses and ball caps disguising them, the duo are merely two people riding a train in suburbia.

“So, this is the place, huh babe?”

"Yeah, this is it. Really seems a lot… smaller. I remember thinking the trains were forever away, you know?”

“Well, you were a little younger…”

Roxy nudges her elbow into Loverboy’s ribs as the both laugh. Loverboy winces at the elbow to his battered torso, though.

“Ah… careful, sugar.”

“Oh! Oh, I’m so sorry, baby!”

Roxy’s face pouts wit concern as she pulls her arm quickly away from her ailing lothario. Loverboy grabs her hands and pulls her back to him, kissing her on her puffed out lower lip and smiling widely at her.

“Nothing to be sorry about, baby! It’s worth a little pain to have you touching me, you know?”

“Oh, Vinnie… is it bad, though?”

Loverboy looks down at his side, lifting his Def Leppard tee shirt up to mid chest and revealing a large, splotchy, black bruise spread across his side and back.

“I mean, it hurts… but I’m fine, man. That’s what happens when you wrestle in the middle of the street, you know? It’s not as bad as my head though. That still feels pretty rough.”

“Oh, my poor wounded warrior!”

Roxy giggles and moves in closer to Loverboy, rubbing her nose against his as the smile and cuddle closer together. Just as they close in for a romantic kiss, a car drives into the lot and the horn honks, bringing them back to reality.

“Oh boy. Here we go.”

The car honks again, and Roxy looks back and forth from the little old lady behind the wheel to Loverboy. As Loverboy shrugs and takes a deep breath, Roxy smiles.

“Is that her?”

“Yep… that’s…”

“Billy! Yoo hoo! I’m here!”

The old woman waves frantically with her head hanging out of the window and smiles big as Loverboy’s mouth presses into a flat line.

“My mom.”






Isn’t it amazing what such a short amount of time can do for someone’s self-esteem?

Take me for example, since I’m pretty much my favorite example. A few weeks ago, I was feeling like crap. I’d lost my Trios Titles thanks to poor partner choices and shenanigans from the Asylum, as well as self-serving booking from back-stabbing general managers.

I was down in the dumps, I watched while Pest jumped my girl and bloodied her face, then took my eye off the ball long enough for an arrogant rookie like Justin Sane to capitalize with a pinfall victory over me.

I gotta say, it doesn’t get a lot worse than that feeling.

Then, I turn things around. I run in on Pest during the biggest victory of his career and I stab him in the neck. I sliced off his nose. I sent him to the hospital for a week and ensured that he’d never be able to defend the titles he’d just won.

Next, I went up against Frodo Swagkins, probably the biggest thorn in my side other than Pest since I’ve been in the XWF. For months I had to listen to the little bastard run his mouth at me; for months I had to deal with him attacking me. Finally, we went head to head, and I did exactly what I said I was going to do.

I took every shot from Frodo’s bag of tricks and I kept kicking out from every single one. I took his brand new Hadouken and shrugged it off. I popped up from his finish like it didn’t even happen. Frodo? All he managed to kick out of was a roll up. Once his skull got Black Label Driven into the canvas, it was all over for him.

And to top it all off, just a few days ago I got to watch as Pest stumbled through losing his tag belts. Yeah, he lost them to those two jerkoff kings, Samuels and Pryce, but he lost them just the same. It was a pretty good week to be “Loverboy” Vinnie Lane, you know? Not that too many of you would know what it’s like to be a megastar like me, who the ladies want to see and the dudes want to be.

You see, once I got hooked up with Kirk MacClay, a dude who could see the forest for the trees and knew that the XWF needed to make a change from its boring old story of keeping the same clique of friends in charge of everything, I got a new lease on things here.

I got a great group of cool dudes watching my back, like TJ Wallace who goes straight gangster on people when he needs to or Johnny Heartsford, a guy who’s looked up to me since his debut match in the XWF – which he lost, to me. Yeah, true, unfortunately Heartsford just dropped the Television Title that he’d been defending so well recently, but the good news is I’m getting the chance to bring that title back to the Underground next week.

And for once, thanks not only to my new friends in the Underground but also to my upcoming opponent Gator, I think I can expect a fair fight. I know, I know, you don’t see those very often anymore.

Gator though, he’s like me. He wants to overcome the odds and have his hand raised, but he wants to do it himself, you know?

I mean, yeah, it’s a little unsettling that he took time off so suddenly and dropped his pet cameraman off at my house for a couple of weeks with barely a thank you in return, and it’s sort of disturbing how mean he’s been to that cameraman since, but I’m sure it’s nothing. If I knew that taking a break and then triumphantly “regaining” a title I’d never really lost in the first place was all going to culminate in a match against ME? I’d be in a pretty shitty mood too, dude.

Let’s go over the facts, shall we? Gator and I have only gone at it in the ring once before, in a match that I won. Now, he’s going to bring up that I didn’t pin him, that I took the easy way out and pinned LH Harrison, that anyone could beat Harrison, yadda yadda yadda… and he’s right. Well, I mean, he’s technically right. I did pin Harrison, not Gator, and a lot of people do pin Harrison. The fact of the matter is, though, that he had as much of a chance as I did of winning in that match, and he couldn’t do it.

That’s right, ladies and gentlemen, the rock n’ roll megastar defeated everyone’s favorite cartoon character, Gator, in singles competition – but it somehow wasn’t for the Television Title? It seems a little strange when you consider that the next couple of four way matches involving Gator had the belt on the line, doesn’t it? Yet everyone dismisses my claims of biased booking and crooked officiating as if I’m some conspiracy theorist looking for chemtrails in the sky.

The way I see it, dude, is that TV Title is long overdue to be around my waist. That was the point that administrative bodies like Shane and John Madison realized what a threat I was to their status quo, though, and it was the first step in trying to derail my rocketing to stardom in the XWF.

Surprise – it didn’t work. Here I am, knocking out your top stars week in and week out, making your favorite mascot Frodo look like an afterthought and beating your former champions two at a time. Why? Because the pulse of the Underground beats with a passion, man. Because the fans of the XWF want to see new blood like me, Swann, Wallace and Heartsford and not yesterday’s news like Pryce, Samuels and Madison. Because the fans of the XWF want to see megastars, not megafreaks like the Asylum.

Nonetheless… nothing is stopping me from taking that TV Title on Monday Madness. Not Pest, not Frodo, not the Asylum or the Three Kings. Not even my friendship with Gator is going to stop me – business is business, pal. I wouldn’t expect anything less from you.

No, I fully expect Gator to do everything he can to hold onto the only thing he’s ever achieved without his dad’s help. He’s gone out and gotten a tag team partner who just so happens to be the most recent guy to have beaten me – coincidence, or strategy? I think we all know the answer there, dude. It won’t make a difference though, I’ll take his belt, and, if I feel like it, I’ll take his girl. It’s what I do. Roxy’s been itching for a third and a redhead would fit our “Amy Pond and the Doctor” fantasy pretty well, don’t you think?

I’d say I’d take his cameraman, but that little bugger wiped his nut on my couch’s throw pillow. Not cool, dude. Not cool. Besides, I have a cambot now and that thing works hands-free.

I hope you had a merry Christmas, Gator. Your new year is going to suck.






A short time later, the night of Christmas Eve…

“And here’s Billy at his prom in 2001… he had a little bit of a ‘goth’ phase…”




Loverboy and Roxy are sitting next to Loverboy’s mother on her couch as she flips through the pages of a huge photo album. Roxy’s intent stare is broken up by outbursts of laughter, causing her to wipe tears from her eyes from time to time.

"Here's Billy again, a little older... I caught him drinking a beer!"




“Mom, come on, stop calling me that. I go by Vinnie, I tell you that all the time. And put these pictures away! Jesus!”

“What? I’m proud of you, Billy! And maybe you go by your middle name now, but I gave birth to you!”

“Mom.”

“I wiped your butt!”

“MOM.”

“Look at this one… this had to have been, what, 1991? 92? My little skinny malinks!”




“MOM!!! Okay, that’s enough. Seriously. Let’s just wrap it up and get to bed, okay? We have a big family day tomorrow, tons of eating and gift giving to do, and my head is killing me.”

Loverboy’s mom reaches over and moves some of Loverboy’s blond locks out of the way, poking at the bloody bandage on top of his skull.

“You’re gonna get yourself killed! This fake wrestling stuff is stupid, you should have stayed in school!”

With his mother’s whiny Long Island twang digging into his ears, Loverboy pulls his head back from his mother’s hand and winces.

“Mom, stop, it still hurts. And wrestling isn’t fake. Some dude hit me in the head with a manhole cover!”

“Well, I know you guys know how to fall…”

“Fucking Christ…”

Suddenly, Loverboy’s cell phone beings to blare out the opening riff to Van Halen’s “Eruption.” Standing up, Loverboy digs the phone out of his tight jeans’ pocket.

“Thank god for small miracles. Uh… hello? Who’s this? Talk dirty to me!”

Loverboy walks outside of the house as he answers the call, leaving his mom and his fiancée to continue perusing every embarrassing moment from his childhood.

“Vinnie. Is that really you?”

“Yep, you got the megastar in the flesh, baby. But if this is some chick I hooked up with a few weeks back, sorry, but I’m a taken man now!”

“Vinnie… we need to talk.”

“Why? Who are you?”

“It’s me, Vinnie. It’s Nikki.”