Aaron Reign: The XWF's Best Pure Wrestler
The camera flicks on. Madison Square Garden…the scene of Wednesday Night Warfare. The arena is empty and the only part of the venue visible is the section from the stage to the ring. For a few seconds, a brooding silence is the only noticeable feature of the broadcast but suddenly, and without warning, "End of Heartache" starts playing over the speakers, reverberating throughout the empty arena, and Aaron Reign’s first entrance video appears on the X-Tron. As the lyrics kick in, Reign enters through the curtain, scowling as usual…but with a look in his eyes that hasn’t been seen before, even in his indie days. A look of not just intensity, but true purpose. He makes his way down the ramp and, when reaching the apron, closes his eyes and tilts his head back, taking a deep breath before springing up onto the apron and slipping through the ropes with a quickness surprising for his size. The music stops and the X-Tron goes dark yet again. Awaiting him in the ring, a mic. Reign wastes no time in wrapping his fingers around the handle and bringing it to his lips, though as soon he opens his mouth to speak, he hesitates. He has that feeling again…that feeling that he’s had off and on since his heartbreak happened. It’s just a pang of a feeling, one that always appears for just a fleeting moment. Not long enough to matter. Just long enough to be real. This time though, it stays. He remembers what he’s accomplished already as a professional wrestler and what he can do with the rest of his life. It doesn’t make his heart hurt any less than it always did, but it brings a new feeling into the fray. Instead of the constant swing between burning, unquenchable anger and crippling sorrow, he feels….pride. For the first time in a long time, Aaron Reign smiles. He grins behind the mic and erupts in a fit on laughter. The sound of its echo is almost eerie in the empty building, a building created from memories and nights hailed as the stuff of legend. This continues for what seems like an eternity before he regains his composure. Finally, he speaks. Finally, he breaks away from the chains of his all-consuming sorrow.
“Man, I feel good! Oh my God…I feel like I’m alive for the first time since that day. I came out here to make a statement, to let the XWF fans and the guys in the back know something that I feel like is gonna change things. Not just for me, but for this entire company, and if I have my say, this entire business. My name is Aaron Gregory. You know me as Aaron Reign…you know me as this brooding guy who sits at home all day and relentlessly trains. You know that I model myself after some ambiguous ‘heartbreak’ that happened to me when I was younger, and you know that that’s transformed me into a bitter man. A man who’s honestly too afraid to face the truth…to face life. You’ve seen what that did to me. I lost someone special to me. She was everything to me. My entire world, and what I lived for. I told myself if I couldn’t have her I wouldn’t go on anymore, and in a lot of ways, I didn’t when something did happen. Wrestling, a sport that I’ve loved since I was a little kid, was transformed into an outlet to escape the pain. It was no longer about the feeling I got from powerbombing guys to the mat, and it was no longer about the rush I got at the thought of executing a chain of submissions, showing what I had worked so damn hard to perfect. Wrestling was what I forced myself to base my existence around, something to drown out my sadness in an attempt to live the rest of my life in a half-reality.”
Reign lets out a sigh and paces the ring a couple times. He looks out into the crowd section, losing himself in the fans that aren’t there. Looking at him tells the whole story: he sees himself in the Garden in front of thousands of fans. Just as his eyes start to get that misty, far-off look in them though, he snaps back to reality.
“That’s over. The past few days, I’ve been thinking about what I’ve really done these last 7 years. Sure, I’ve learned how to wrestle with the best of ‘em. That much I don’t regret. But…there’s been nights where I can’t sleep…where I walk downstairs and sit in the center of my ring. In the darkness. In the shadows of what my life could be, and I just think…with absolutely no emotion at all. That sorrow had me in its stranglehold, and my life felt like it didn’t mean…[Reign squints his eyes shut, fighting back the emotions that he’s managed to keep bottled deep inside him for all these years.]…like it didn’t mean SHIT! [Reign begins to shake, holding the mic in his hands so tightly at his side his knuckles begin to turn a ghostly white. He calms down rather quickly though, though not by much more than just enough to continue his promo.] What’s funny, is I’ve taken to calling my Boston Crab, Sorrow’s Grip. Imagine that, I use something that represents a feeling that has made me tap out so many damn times in this wrestling match we call life, and I use it to take my opponents out. Either way though, that feeling has turned my life into a simple existence, a day-to-day struggle to find sleep again, so I can escape into a world where my problems are so much worse. But at least they’re not real. At least I know when I wake up that the real issues I face aren’t as horrible. Hell, that’s the only thing that’s kept me going for as long as I have.”
He runs a hand through his hair, making its already unkempt appearance even more tousled.
“Now you know who I really am. Or rather, who I was. These thoughts I’ve had…they’re because of you Gator. They’re because of you Proxy. Even though your attempts at chastising me have been pathetic, you’ve made me realize that in a lot of ways, I’ve got to fix myself. I’ve been throwing verbal punches just like you, but it’s been half-hearted. I’m doing all this because I want to succeed in this sport, but I finally asked myself ‘why?’ I really, truly answered that question today. I did it because it was my drug. It was my alcohol and while CM Punk might say the same thing, it’s literal for me. I didn’t do this because I love wrestling. I do love wrestling, but that was just the excuse I used. I did this because, for me at least, it got me through the day. Standing here in this ring right now though, the ring that I’m gonna be in tomorrow…it’s just confirming what I already believed before I came out here. I’m ready to focus on my life. A real life, not a fake one. Not a façade I put up so that people think I’m just an intense guy. [Aaron stops for a second and looks towards the arena floor. He takes yet another deep breath.] I’m ready to focus on doing a whole hell of a lot more than playing word games with my opponents and even my own partner.“
“I’m ready to get down to fucking business! I’m ready to show a little personality. You want me to stop laying around my house and cutting promos in my spare time? Maybe I will, who the hell knows. I can promise you though, there’s a whole lot more to Aaron Reign than intense looks and training. Everyone in this match knows that. You two stooges on the other team might not admit it, but you see me as a threat. You probably see me as the biggest threat in this match, and you’d be right to do that. Maybe…just maybe, you’re smarter than I gave you credit for.”
“Gator and Socrates. Even Kyle Star. You’re right, Proxy and I aren’t on the same page right now and I commend you for doing everything you possibly can to make that not be the case for yourselves. You’re insulting my intelligence though, if you think that I believe you guys are really friends. As soon as this match is over with, that’ll be it for you guys. Especially if you’re put in a one-on-one with each other sometime in the future. It doesn’t matter if Proxy and I don’t like each other. I know for a fact that even if I think him and my other partner are idiots, I’m going to work with him in the ring. Winning matches is my priority, not personal feelings I have about other ‘wrestlers’. I don’t care if I have to carry both their asses in that ring or if they keep up with me, I’m going to fucking win. Two clowns and a glorified punching bag aren’t going to hand me my first loss. The biggest mistake you’ve made is to treat Proxy and I like we’re nothing. I know something’s going on with Proxy because he’s had to help carry dead weight in both of his previous matches; he’s gonna have to help me carry Zoey in this match too. In case you haven’t figured it out, the bastard’s 2-0 in this company. I hate his gimmick, I hate how corny and utterly stupid it is, but I can appreciate what he’s done in the squared circle, and for that, I know I’m not gonna have to carry him. I know he can handle himself just fine. He may try to fuck me over after the match is done, and if he tries, he’ll fail. But while that match is going on, I know he’s going to be just as pissed off as I am at how arrogant both of you are. He’s going to take care of business; if that’s not what he was all about, he wouldn’t be a ‘hitman’ in the first place.”
Aaron Reign stops. He shrugs his shoulders and slides under the bottom rope, dropping to the floor. He makes his way up the ramp, and when reaching the stage, raises the microphone to his lips once again. With a smirk, he moves the mic back at his side before stretching his arms wide, taking the Garden all in, the building that he’s wanted to wrestle in since he was a small child. Slowly, but reluctantly, he brings his arms back in.
“This is what I’m all about Gator! This is what I’m all about Socrates! This is what I’m all about! …Kyle. Star. You can run your pathetic mouths all you damn please, all of you. It doesn’t change the fact that gators aren’t the most dangerous animal on this planet, regardless of what you’d have me believe. Stars burn out, and Kyle, you didn’t light up in the first place. [Reign chuckles into the mic.] And even Greek gods can die Socrates. Gator, you wanna talk to me about how my first match means everything, how if I lose this, I’m a joke. First and fucking foremost, I’m not GONNA lose this match. I’m not getting my shoulders pinned to that mat and my hand isn’t slapping it either. Let’s pretend that I would though, it wouldn’t be as career-impacting as a loss for you would be. You have EVERYTHING to prove right now. You’re 1-1 right now, and your only win comes against 3 jokes Gator. Three. Jokes. Want me to say again? Three. Jokes. You lost your only match against a halfway credible opponent, and if you lose this one to me, well then what’s everyone gonna say about wittle Gator baby? They’re gonna say he’s all talk. They’re gonna say what I already have, that you’re nothing. You are so desperate not to be exposed for what you are, but there’s just nothing you can do about it. You got put in a match with the wrong fucker Gator.”
“You may think people care about you because you’re interesting. Because just like Taylor Swift fans, they actually enjoy listening to the same shit every time you open your mouth. That’s not it though, they’re interested in you because you’re an upstart. They know you run your mouth and they wanna see if you can back it up. You’re in a position right now that if you don’t back it up, you’re gonna stay right down here in the low card. If you do, you might make it to the midcard, and who knows, you could get a title shot sooner or later. They want to know if you’re a threat Gator, and this match is going to tell them. I’m not on the radar yet, but I can guaran-damn-tee I will be after this. You made this personal a while back, and I don’t just want to win this match, I want to destroy you. I want to fucking destroy you Gator. Do you scoff at that? Do you wanna make a joke about that? How about find some random painting and try to make an analogy about it? Shit…maybe you could find a picture on google images and show me, do you think that’ll make your chances of winning this match any better?”
He has that intensity back in his eyes, but he also has an aura that he hasn’t had before. His groove has kicked in, and it’s plain to see.
“And my good friend Socrates. You can try to change yourself around and become more intense like me, but you just can’t pull that off. That’s not who you are, you’re the mentally challenged freak who shit his pants the first time he cut a promo. You are the epitome of what NOT to do when you want to intimidate someone. What NOT to do to win matches. Fuck my respect for you, you’ve already lost it. Buddying around with a nobody like Gator just shows me what kind of guy you are, and until you prove me wrong in that ring, I’m not gonna take you seriously anymore. Maybe Proxy was right about that, maybe I do have my respect policy backwards. You, just like Gator, just make me want to lay you out now. I would like nothing better than to destroy both of you, and I might just do the same to Kyle Star because I feel like it.”
The camera zooms in on Reign’s face, and he raises both his eyebrows and gives a toothy grin at the repetitiveness of this in his promos.
“How’s this for a change of scenery? It’s not a bench in a zoo this time. In fact, it’s the very place I’m going to absolutely kill all of you, in a wrestling way of course. I don’t know how many times I have to tell you I’m not here to play kid games, I’m here to wrestle. Gimmicks and stale promos don’t interest me, so you guys don’t interest me. The only reason I’m concerning myself with any of you is because I have to to win this match, and that is my number one priority. I could’ve beaten you when all I could think about was getting away from the pain, and now that I’ve realized that one day…one day I’ll see her again, you’re gonna have to deal with Aaron Reign on his A-game. That’s never been seen in a wrestling ring before, and oooh man…that’s a scary thought. If I could beat you before, I can absolutely OBLITERATE you now. Get ready for it boys, it’s coming. [He gives a mocking stare into the camera.] Reign. Out.”
"End of Heartache" plays and Reign steps backward, one step at a time, until he disappears behind the curtain. The camera turns and faces the ring again. One by one, the lights go out, until there’s one spotlight shining in the center of where the action is going to take place on Warfare. For just a moment, it provides the one light in the darkness…the one beacon that keeps the broadcast visible. Soon though, it too goes out, and with it, the broadcast ends.
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