The camera sweeps through the halls of the yellow-tinged office… Swinging through Flynn’s Office Door!

And coming to rest on a featureless creature in a suit.

Looking at an ancient boxy Gateway computer.

There’s even a fuzzy bit on the screen like this is a goddamned 90s PSA called ‘The Internet and You’!

The creature glances down the barrel of the camera.

“Hey Kiki! Koala Bear! Come on in, take a seat…”

The camera adjusts to the creature’s eyeline.

“The internet, huh?” The creature says, slapping the side of the bulky monitor. “You can fit so many GARBAGE TAKES from UNACCOMPLISHED BUFFOONS in here!”

The creature points down the camera!

“And here you are, among them, Kier! Fitting in among the lowly serfs! Diving into the deep end of the new age of wrestling! I ADMIRE IT, KIKI! I really do!”

“Sure, you and I, Koala? We wrestled in separate, non-overlapping eras. But, what do we have in common? When we started out, #WrestlingTwitter wasn’t a fucking thing! You put all your programming on the television. APPOINTMENT VIEWING. We used to only ask of our audience’s time four hours a week, two hours over two nights.”

“But, nowadays. It’s gotta be every fucking second of every fucking minute of every fucking hour of every fucking day. Our consumers don’t want a MOMENT of silence. They want to have our content at their finger tips 24/7/365. When they’re on the shitter, they want wrestling tweets. When their kids are trying to tell them they irrationally love them, they want wrestling TikToks. When they’re driving a car at 85 miles an hour down a packed highway at rush hour, they’re all staring straight down at their phones on the steering wheels, greedily consuming the XWF podcast, like the mindless pigs-at-the-waste-trough that is SOCIAL MEDIA.”

…

“And you’re on it, too, Kiki!”

“Which is ironic. All of your matches are lost forever, but I can sure read your 70 IQ musings every morning!”

“See, I really wasn’t sure what to do with you, Kiki. As you and I discovered the last time we traded barbs, your history is lost to the digital age.”

“Like the thousands of hours of home movies recorded on Beta-Max cassette… We have no idea how to watch them today. And, if we could, why the fuck would we?”

“Still, thank God I FINALLY have enough content to go off of for our big match next Monday.”

“That’s right, Kiki. I’m talking about your #ReasonsIWillBeatMarkFlynn tweets!”

The creature clasps its hands before its chest in mock prayer!

“Give us this daily our daily content!”

The creature grabs one side of the monitor and turns the screen towards the camera.

“Oh my dear sweet Cuck-a-monga. First off, let me thank for spending 100% of your time exercising your thumbs instead of running the fucking ropes in the leadup to our match.”

“You had so many options to spend your valuable time and you chose to use it EXCLUSIVELY promote our match. That brings so much value to the company. Our idiot, mouth-breathing fans LOVE when our talent is active on social media. It creates a false approachability. It FEELS like the Average Joe XWF fan can send a tweet and directly talk to our superstars.”

“I mean, they *could* send a tweet. I wouldn’t TOUCH our fucking audience with a 12-foot pole, let alone SPEAK to one. But, the important thing is the illusion is maintained.”

“This is why I like you, Kiki. It takes so little to motivate you to MOVE THE PRODUCT. I plugged on Twitter that in 24 hours, my Madness promo calling-out Darren Dangerous was the most watched Madness promo in company history. And it took you… what… Thirty minutes to pay a Ghanian to ogle Lexi Gold on multiple TV screens until you’d taken that from me.”

“Even spent $50 of your own dollars to do it. Now, THAT’S making your employees work for you!”

Despite the creature not having a visible mouth, its cheek shift into a smile… And its fleshy bottom-area gleams with a star-wipe.

“Still, let’s comb through your dogshit 4AM thoughts and see if we can mold your idle gibberings into GRADE-A CONTENT™!”

Quote:

“…Jesus, how the fuck was this your opener, Kik? You just started this daily game and it already feels like you’re out of material.”

“I mean, fuck, Mac Bane is a few corners short of a square, but even he hit me on some fair knocks. How the fuck is this your opening salvo, Kier?!?”

Quote:

“Okay, Kiki, let’s get one thing straight. You’re not fucking Superman. Superman has weekly adventures. As far as I can tell, you mostly

 

1. Sit on the couch,
   
2. Tweet at Elon Musk,
   
3. Subtweet me,
   
4. Tweet at me so you can talk to Elon Musk.
   

If they came out with a Kieran King comic book, it would be 80% Elon Musk jock-riding and 20% trying to figure out how baseball works.”

"Point #2. I've put down more than my fair share of rookies. Zero data. Learning on the fly."

"Trust me, Kiki. You're not special."

Quote:

“Kiki, I threw my best friend wrestling partner through a fucking electrical box. I shattered my hand at Relentless and still managed to force Raion Kido to tap out with a submission hold… USING MY BROKEN FUCKING HAND…”

“I spent YEARS swimming upstream through SHIT XWF GMs, most of whom decided that I was public enemy number one. And I STILL MADE IT.”

“What the fuck do you think I WOULDN’T DO if it meant HUMILIATING a loudmouth like you?”

Quote:

“Holy shit! An actual fucking talking point!”

“Psst. Kiki. This is when I stopped replying directly to your bullshit. Because I actually wanted to gnaw on this question in a forum where people might watch it. Instead of on your still-a-work-in-progress Twitter feed.”

“See, ol’ Kiki thinks because it took him three months to win the Uni back in 2009… And it took me ten years. That makes him Superman.”

“After all, sports don’t evolve overtime right? Wilt Chamberlain would definitely score 100 points in today’s NBA, correct? George Mikan, a 6’8” overweight nerd from Minnesota… He’d definitely still be an NBA Hall of Fame caliber center in today’s league, right?”

“OF.”

“FUCKING.”

“COURSE NOT.”

“Kiki. 2009? You were wrestling with plumbers and part-timers, walk-on assholes… whatever the fuck a DEFAULT is… Basically whoever dogshit management could trick into stepping into the ring for seven minutes. There’s a reason no one’s campaigning for Kiki to get his ‘rightful’ spot in the Hall of Legends. Because the game has evolved beyond him.”

“I’m sure, way back in your heyday, Kiki. You were probably a real sight to behold. You probably innovated maneuvers beyond the capacity for human imagination in 2009. Moves like…”

“Snapmare!”

“Armbar!”

“Armdrag!”

“But today, Kiki? You coming in with your 2009 concept of wrestling would be like showing up to a state-of-the-art tech conference with a goddamn Gateway Computer.”

The creature wraps his knuckles against the side of his incredibly outdated hardware.

“You were real special, Kiki. ONCE.”

“But the industry has OUTGROWN YOU.”

“One of us has updated their game in the last THIRTEEN YEARS. One of us is the champion of TODAY. And it’s MARK FUCKING FLYNN.”

Quote:

“...Shit.”

…

“He might have me there.”

…

“Eh, I’ll come back to this one.”

Quote:

“First off, my lay-up reply:”



“Of course, let’s be honest, who gives a shit about baseball? Besides bowling and golf, it’s the only sport where you can be 300 pounds and have a 25-year career. Baseball is for children whose parents hate them, but not enough to risk CTE in a real sport like football.”

“But, why don’t we go ahead and compare our records this year? Get an idea of who is outworking who…”

The creature’s long, lanky fingers jab against the keyboard… Reams of computer paper shoot out the printer beside the old machine…

The creature lifts the paper up to his featureless face…

“Your 2022 singles record, as previously discussed, is 1-0.”

“My 2022 singles record is… 11-1.”

“…Well shucks! 1-0 IS a better percentage than 11-1. Kiki might have me on this point…”

…

“Just for fun, though, let me run a follow-up query.”

Rapidly, the creature’s fingers dance along the top of the keyboard… Images of previous matches and data points stream across the screen.

“Let’s check a look at the combined records of all your opponents this year… Versus the combined records of all mine…”

“Let’s get a taste for the degree of difficulty huh, Kik?”

DING! The creature lifts the fresh-of-the-press new data to his face….

“Kiki’s singles opponent, Joey Oddjobs… had a 2022 record of… 0-3. 0-2 minus his loss against Kiki.”

“And my singles opponents had a combined 2022 record of… 65-39-1. Subtract the matches against ol’ Mark Flynn and the record becomes… 64-28-1! Holy hell, that’s a winning squad!”

“That’s a starting five that includes Corey Smith, Raion Kido, Charlie Nickles, Jason Cashe and MOTHERFUCKING ALIAS…”

“...But, no, yeah, Kiki. I definitely think you’re ready to take on the man whose battled the greatest class in the history of WRESTLING… After all, you had one whole match… Against Joey Oddjobs.”

“I’ve competed with the best fucking talent, not just in 2022, not JUST in XWF History… But in the history of this FUCKING SPORT.”

“And you? Wrestled JOEY. FUCKING. ODDJOBS.

Quote:

“First off, layup reply: Yes, I fucking did.”

“In fact, if you go back, I actually replied to more reasons than I ignored, Kiki. 4 out of 7.”

“So, Koala is cranky that I saved three of his tweets for my superior content.”

The creature tsk-tsks, sadly…

“Aww, poor Kickles. You sure got miffed that you weren’t getting all my attention, huh?”

“Let me be clear, King. I start saving up retorts after reason fucking 3. I compiled the REFUTATIONS of your fucking idiotic musings into one COMPENDIUM OF TRUTH, making it clear ONCE-AND-FOR-ALL HOW FUCKING INFERIOR YOU ARE.”

“Because you’re slow, Kiki. Your retorts are TOOTHLESS. Your verbal barbs are LACKING. Your idea of a comeback is ‘I know you are but what am I?' Ad fucking nauseum.”

“Why does that matter, Kiki? Because wrestling isn’t chess. You don’t get to take six hours per move. It’s physical calculus, making a thousand decisions per second. In this game, it’s 'think fast' or 'eat ass'.”

“And Kiki, if your idea of a quick wit is ‘munch, munch’? I’m going to run FUCKING CIRCLES AROUND YOU.”

“...But, then, why did I save them up, right, Kiki? If I had a reply, just burn it in the public eye.”

“Kinda like I did against Kido, roasting him for his dogshit taste in anime, right?”

…

“See, what we’re running into here is a DIFFERENCE IN MOTIVATION™.”

“See, Kiki, you’re the challenger. You’re the one looking to climb the ladder. As such, what is your value? Your ability to outwork your field. Free content. A daily reason you’ll pin Flynn every day on your social media.”

“It provides COMPANY VALUE.”

“...But, Kiki. I’m not the fucking challenger.”

“I’m the XWF UNIVERSAL CHAMPION.”

“I can’t afford to give my content away for free.”

“I’m the reason people buy the subscription.”

“I’m the draw that makes people buy a ticket and drive four hours to the arena.”

“I’M.”

“THE BRAND.”

“ON WHICH THE XWF STANDS.”

“This company cannot AFFORD to let me give away my gold for free.”

“So, I saved it up. Put it on the television. And I used your free content as a framework to build off of.”

“I spun your turgid waste into ratings gold like I’m Rumple-fucking-stiltskin.”

“Just like how…”

“For one night.”

“And one night only.”

“Kieran King and Mark Flynn.”

“Are about to put on the greatest fucking Madness Match that any critic could have possibly imagined.”

“And at the end of the day, the shareholders' dividends will increase.”

“The money pile at XWF HQ will get another inch taller.”

“And Mark Flynn.”

“THE SUCCESS-STORY™.”

“THE MOUNTAIN-TOP™.”

“TRADE-MARK™.”

“Will add another tally to his resume. The Success Story adds one more chapter.”

“And when the ink dries… And Kiki gets punted down to the bottom of the Madness IDL division…”

“Another pretender who ran his mouth on the internet, but didn’t have the fucking goods to climb the mountain-top…”

“You’ll stumble back to the locker room, both devastated in mind and body…”

“And as you slowly peel open your locker to open up a tub of ice cream… or a jar of vegemite, or whatever New Zealanders eat for comfort food…”

“You’ll see a note.”

“From Mark Flynn.”

“Reading.”

“Thank you for all your hard work!”

“And best of luck in your future endeavors!”

…

The creature extends his hand…

“Keep up the mediocre work, Kiki! As long as I’m around, you’ll always have a spot in the XWF.”

Resting his index finger on the power button.

“DIRECTLY. BENEATH. ME.”

Click.

beeeeeeeeewoooooooooo