((Moscow. Immediately following the airing of Wednesday Warfare, “Loverboy” Vinnie Lane is walking down a hallway of the Megasport Arena, still attired in his white and black sleeveless referee’s shirt and tiny black bicycle shorts. As he hurries from the locker room area with his duffel bag slung over his shoulder, suddenly “Big Daddy Cool” Diesel runs up behind him, gigantic legs waving dozens of black fringes, and grabs him by the upper arm with his massive hand. Loverboy is spun around violently and is surprised to see the big guy standing there gaping at him with tears in his eyes.))

Diesel: Shawn! Shawn, dude, are you okay?

Loverboy: What? Who’s Sha… oh! Right! Uh, yeah, man everything’s cool… didn’t you see the show? I’ve got Sasha Grey waiting for me back at the hotel, man, I’m in a little bit of a hurry.

Diesel: But Shawn – I saw what happened after your match with Owen and RVD. Did you lose your smile?

Loverboy: Alright, dude. Look, I know this is hard to deal with and is gonna come as a shock, okay? Something is clearly wrong with your brain. You’ve caught or something. This is 2014, man!

((Diesel’s lip starts to tremble and the waterworks flow again.))

Loverboy: Ah, geez… listen, Diesel… I’m not Shawn Michaels, okay? I’m “Loverboy” Vinnie Lane. Shawn’s retired. Two or three times already. This isn’t the WWF, which is the WWE now… a lot has changed in twenty years, dude.

((Diesel completely breaks down, crumbling to his knees and possibly tearing a quad muscle as he does so. He raises his meaty arms over his dyed black hair and wails into the hallway at the top of his lungs.))

Diesel: TELL ME A LIE, SHAWN! TELL ME A LIE!!!!!




((Later that same night. “Loverboy” Vinnie Lane is driving down a dark street in his rented Russian car, trying to find the way back to the Hotel Novotel. As is usual, the car is equipped with a shaky dashboard camera to help avoid tyrannical practices by the police as well as prevent carjacking. There’s an accident in the road, as there always seems to be everywhere you drive in Russia.))





Loverboy: These god damn Russkies. You gotta love ‘em, you know? Either there’s a cop axe kicking a drug dealer or a meteor crashing or a damn ninja popping out of a nesting doll to rob someone. This whole country is filled with lunatics.

((Ironically, Loverboy seems to be having the conversation with the three – yes, three – shiny gold Trios Championship belts sitting in the passenger seat side him. And then, as if to solidify the point, a van ahead of him empties several costumed mascots into the middle of street to administer an ass kicking onto a would-be road rager.))




Loverboy: Jesus Christ. This place is insane. And I think I’m completely lost to boot. Why can’t they put these stupid Cyrillic road signs in American? I mean, didn’t America win all the world wars? Didn’t America make Vladimir Putin tear down the wall? Didn’t America feed all those hungry Yakov Smirnoffs in the bread lines when we won the cold war? The least they could do is make it easier for a rock n’ roll megastar and international sex symbol to find his way back to his hotel after a hard day racking up the rubles. Fuck it.

((Loverboy begins to poke at the GPS system on the dashboard, typing in random gibberish in an attempt to get the Russian machine to give him results in English. He eventually gives up, and digs his cell phone out of the center console. Since he’s a responsible driver, he uses the text to talk function.))

Loverboy: Uh… cell phone? Can you Google directions back to the Hotel Novotel?

((The phone makes a negative sounding buzz, and a red X appears on the screen. Loverboy seems annoyed and as if he’s about to toss the phone into the floorboards, but stops when he notices the voice mail notification.))

Loverboy: Huh, that’s weird, I had no idea I missed any calls. Not too surprising that this shithole country is full of dead zones, though. Ahem… cell phone? Play voice mails.

((This time the voice command works, and the phone starts playing a message left by Liz Hathaway. She sounds mostly annoyed and concerned that Loverboy didn’t arrive at the after party with her and Dave “Shadows” Mosier after Monday Madness, but the thought of the past Monday’s events seems to agitate Loverboy and he quickly demands the phone delete the message. Next, the saccharine voice of Roxy Cotton fills the hollowness of the car.))

Roxy: Babe… I saw what happened. Don’t take it out on yourself, okay? You’re still my hero, and my favorite lay out of the whole XWF roster. You can’t win every match, you know? And hey, at least you get to fuck Sasha Grey for a little while, right? I’d love a shot at that hot slut. Just promise me you’ll be safe, and that you won’t do anything stupid. You know this week is the last Madness before the brands shift between the GMs and the network is demanding a more traditionally rated show. Anything could happen. Just be careful, okay baby? Muah.

((The phone beeps and announces that there are no other messages, and Loverboy drops it back into the center console. As the road ahead of him grows smaller and goes further into less populated, rural areas, Loverboy begins speaking to the belts again.))

Loverboy: I think I’m halfway to fuckin’ Siberia, man… can you believe the XWF wanted to hold a show all the way over here in the world’s crappiest country? I’d rather go pretty much anywhere else, man. I cannot wait to get on the first fuckin’ plane out of here tomorrow and back to the good ol’ USA… Houston. Time to get shit back on track with Doctor D’Ville, back on the championship hunt. The good doctor isn’t gonna know what hit him, man. He hasn’t had to deal with anything like me, he’s just had to go up against a bunch of guys I’ve already beaten. Guys like LH Harrison in that battle royal, or Gator this past Monday. Couldn’t even win in that last one, could ya Doc? My sloppy seconds from the week before, where Gator caught the beating of a lifetime and couldn’t possibly have recovered completely, and you couldn’t even have done me the simple favor of winning a title for a week and delivering it to me? Come on, Louis! It’s like a gift wrapped Gator for you, man! Jesus, dude.

((Ahead of Loverboy’s car, from somewhere above, the sky starts to lighten.))

Loverboy: What the hell? Man, this better not be another one of those meteor crashes, dude. Or are these commies still testing nukes out here? I don’t need to drive into another fuckin’ Chernobyl and get by little swimmers dried up like raisins in the sun.

((The sky continues to brighten, until it is even brighter than midday. The car sputters and stalls out, and the GPS screen blinks and goes black. As the car comes to a halt in the middle of the road, Loverboy throws his hands up in the air and whips the car door open, jumping out of the car and moving toward the hood, looking up at the bright ball in the sky.))

Loverboy: Doesn’t this just fuckin’ figure? Russian engineering at its finest, man. To think these guys made Sputnik. And what the HELL is - - -

((Before he can finish his sentence, the light suddenly seems to extend a ray of light directly onto him. Loverboy is paralyzed, and begins to lift off from the ground, slowly.))

Loverboy: W-what the f-f-f-f-fffuck… why does it smell… like cinnamon…

((The light intensifies until it blanks out the entire scene.))