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**Vincent Lane** · (07-16-2016)

Things fade in. The XWF owner and Universal Champion, “Loverboy” Vinnie Lane, is sitting facing the perspective of the lens. He’s in a room full of evidences of his successes. Framed magazine covers, posters, and shadowboxed title belts adorn the vibrantly painted room within the new domicile of Loverboy and his rock n’ roll princess Roxy Cotton – the Pink Palisades.

The rocker sits, decked out in his full regalia. Dangling earring from his left ear, leather biker hat atop his blonde coif, with a hot pink bandanna peeking out from under it on his forehead. The denim arms of his jacket are drumming fingerless-gloved hands onto black vinyl knees while Loverboy’s head bobs to unheard music over a Saigon Kick tee shirt.

When the scene fades in fully, Loverboy smiles and pulls the earbuds from his ears, then pushes the aviator shades up away from his sky blue eyes before greeting his opponent with a wave and a wink.

“Hey Scully… Vin here. We need to talk about this “winning” you seem to think you’re gonna be doing next week at Leap of Faith. Dude. I hate to let down the handicapped, but shit’s just not gonna go the way you expect, man. I feel like you’re taking this whole thing for granted and already starting your little victory lap… what the fuck are you doing, Roxy?”

The bombshell wanders right in front of the camera, blocking the view of Loverboy with her curvaceous and skintight minidress-clad figure. She seems completely oblivious to the promo being filmed, instead totally absorbed in the cell phone in her hand.

“There’s a Pikachu in here!”

“What? Dude I’m filming for the match with Scully! Can’t you wait, like… hold on, a Pikachu? For real? Right now?”

“Yes!”

Loverboy pops out of his seat, adjusting the massive Universal Championship so he can reach into his pocket and pull out his iPhone. He swipes the screen and presses a few buttons before leaning back down to the camera and grinning into the lens.

“I need to make a time out, Scull. You know how it is, dude. Gotta catch ‘em all.”

Loverboy’s palm covers the scene and it quickly goes to black, but not before we hear Roxy’s high-pitched squeal of success.

“I got him! I got him, Vinnie!”

“Good job, babe…”

Three Hours Later

“Okay, well, I didn’t expect it to take so long, okay?”

Loverboy and Roxy re-enter their palatial estate with their phones in hand, as well as a pair of venti Starbucks lattes.

“Vinnie, you’re too competitive. Just because I nabbed a Pikachu in your trophy room didn’t mean we had to walk all over half of L.A…”

She presses her body against his, kissing him quickly on the lips and erasing the tiny vestiges of a scowl that had begun to form in the corners of his mouth.

“Well it worked out, didn’t it? We both got one now, plus I went up like three levels. Now we can have celebratory sex in the new hot tub. Deal?”

“Deal… but, your promo for Scully?”

Loverboy seems genuinely surprised, the memory of his upcoming match hitting him like a french truck at a parade.

“Oh. Right. Ha, just like the rest of the world I pretty much forgot all about Scully until you mentioned him in the same sentence as me.”

A wink and a slap to Roxy’s bottom later and Loverboy heads back to his trophy room, grabbing the Universal Title back from the mantel he’d set it on as he left the compound.

"I'll knock this out real quick, and then I'll come knock the bottom out of you. Two shakes, babe."

He blows her a kiss and she reciprocates, walking off screen, presumably to change into something more comfortable and await her champion's presence inside of her. Loverboy walks into his favorite room and settles into the same chair he had previously left.

Soon, the scene is the same as before, only with somehow even more sparkle in the eye of the reigning champ.

"Scully.

God damn it, man, have you let this main event thing get to your head that quickly? You went out and hired Peter Gilmour’s audio guy to spend the first ten minutes of your promo telling everyone what the fuckin’ dew point was and the elevation of Nobody Gives A Shit, England? Is that really what you thought was going to get the job done here today? Emulating he poster boy for “almost but not quite?” I was hoping to start this little encounter of ours by giving you some propers, but you went and flushed that down the toilet before the camera even faded in on your first installment. Shame.

At least you covered all the bases. You gave us a history lesson on the man, the myth, the legend himself… me. Thanks for putting me over. Everything you said is true. I’m awesome, I win all the time, I get all the girls. I’d give you credit for paying attention, dude, but if I were you I’d be yearning to be me, too. I mean… why wouldn’t you? Look at you. Look at your career. Well, actually, let’s not go through it all again, you already bored half the audience into suicide by recounting everything of note you’ve been a part of since the 90s. We can sum it up, though.

Scully… the highest accolade you’ve attained in your XWF tenure has been gaining an extra chromosome. Are you proud of it? I’m not even sure if I’m impressed or if I’m horrified, honestly, dude. You started as nothing, your biggest moment coming when you kicked a fat man off of a scaffold with the help of a pedophile. Then you became <img src="https://i.imgur.com/pUgtAVa.gif"> . That was the secret of your success, Scull. Being a <img src="https://i.imgur.com/pUgtAVa.gif"> . All of a sudden people knew who you were, they were talking about you, they were mentioning you on the websites and in the magazines. For the duration of your <img src="https://i.imgur.com/pUgtAVa.gif"> … what was it, six months? Eight? Were you even able to count? Regardless, for however long it was, you got a brief taste of what being famous is all about. For fourteen minutes and fifty-nine seconds out of an hour, you were a star. Then, the clock got to fifteen and it was all over. How did that feel, Scully? How does it feel when you fall from the sky and burn up in the atmosphere? Please, tell me, because I’ve never had to worry about it.

See Scully, for you, this is the biggest moment of your entire life. The goal you set for yourself the very first time you ever laced up a pair of wrestling boots, or maybe strapped Velcro across them when you had Down’s. You somehow find yourself at the top of the mountain, where the air is so thin that only one man at a time can breathe it… you can see the others down below, looking like ants, scrambling to get up to where YOU got. It feels good, doesn’t it? It feels good to be so high, man. It feels good to be up above it all. But dude… this is all you get.

Scully, this is more than my spot, up here at the top. This is more than my seat on the throne, my place on the mountaintop. This is MY mountain. All of it. From the bottom dwellers to those brave enough to climb and fall, the chosen few who drag themselves to the summit, like you improbably have… all of it belongs to me, and there’s no way in hell I’m giving it to you.

Ask yourself if you really deserve to even be given this chance, Scully. Look in the mirror and remember that the face that got you here wasn’t the smirking, cocky face you put on for everyone these days while trying not to make an untimely #Brexit and praying that the handful of pounds in your knickers will still be worth something when I send you home. No, remember that it was the slope eyes and the drooling mouth and the tiny, tiny brain that got you even involved in a conversation to begin with. That every bit of success you’ve had started with demeaning yourself and allowing yourself to be a science experiment for the rest of us to laugh at while going about our normal, successful, anointed lives. Remember that face and wonder if you deserve any of it. If you shouldn’t be thanking me on your hands and knees every day for even placing you in contention for a shot at my title to begin with. I’ll give you a little behind the scenes info just to reward you for holding your breath long enough to get through an entire Aston Villa game without puking from the stench – seriously, dude, get yourself to Old Trafford and see real soccer being played – but anyway, here’s your top secret intel: Scully… you… weren’t… supposed… to… win.

I hate to put it so bluntly, dude, but it’s true. We wanted a pay per view caliber main event, and we got Scully instead. Bravo, I guess, for overcoming the odds, but the simple truth of it is that you were an afterthought. We figured you’d put up a fight, probably beat Ghost Tank at least, and then get laid out by Davids or Eli or Soldier… the stars aligned perfectly for you, dude, and you dropped the stock price of the XWF by about twenty bucks a share just by simply getting your hand raised. Congrats? I guess?

But what’s it all going to lead to, dude? What’ the payoff for you? Where’s the money shot? You really think you’re going to win? You think you’re even capable of hanging with me long enough to get lucky like you did with Steve Davids? Please. You’ve got more in common with your precious little footie club than you realize. First, you’re operating under the specter of a massive <img src="https://i.imgur.com/pUgtAVa.gif"> … just like Villa and their owner, the same owner as the Cleveland fucking Browns, the shittiest team in the NFL. I mean, even the Buccaneers’ owners managed to overcome the disadvantage of owning such a terrible team to go ahead and buy Man U. Don’t you wish the Villa was Man U? Second of all, you’re not in my league. You aren’t Premier, Scully. You’re relegated. Take a tip from Randy Lerner and sell out to the Chinese, it’s your best bet after I expose you at Leap of Faith. Do it now before they figure out your true worth… less than the shit I took before this promo. I’m not even joking, Scully, I sucked at least five ounces of gold glitter off of some stripper titties last night, and this morning I took a 14 karat deuce. My dump is literally worth more than your XWF contract.

Scully, this is your peak. This is your moment. Bask in it. Soak it all in, dude. Drink the droplets of fame I shake out of my perfect hair and off of my perfect body, because it’s the only sip you’re ever going to get. This life is meant for the megastars, not for the bootlickers and the wannabes. You’re just that, Scull. A wannabe. You want to be me so bad that you used it as fuel to get past other legends who overlooked you, and here you are… but you need more than luck and envy to overcome the greatest champion this business has ever seen, dude. You need skill, ability, training, physical perfection… and in every one of those categories I’ve got you beat. If you want to fight, I’ll out-fight you. If you want to wrestle, I’ll out-wrestle you. We can have a fuckin’ dance-off and I’ll win that motherfucker, too. You’re outclassed, Scull. I’m the longest reigning champion in history, dude. In just over two weeks it will have been a full year since I took this title off of the waist of Doctor D’Ville, a man you couldn’t beat on the best day of your life. Don’t you get it? I AM the XWF. I AM wrestling. I AM simply everything you can never be. You just took a quick peek behind the curtain and got to see the wizard. You took your eyes off your own paper and now you’re in the wrong lane. Don’t worry though, Scully… we’re almost through it, together. The crack of my foot against your chin is gonna snap you right back to where you belong.

The dream is over.

Time to wake up.

XOXO."

Fade... to PINK.

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