It’s Saturday. 3:45 AM. Savage is less than 18 hours away.

The sun is long gone. The promise of today clocked out like six hours ago. This is the dead of night. This is where the gestating, scabbing wound that is this city re-opens itself, bleeding a little deeper.

The smog and pestilence seeping from the writhing human mass that calls this trash pile home smothers the suffocated stars. The yellow moon peeks over the horizon, bleeding the faintest reflection of the sun’s light into a dim, haunting, otherworldly glow.

In plain view, there sits a once proud institution, a temple to consumption and greed and avarice. A monument to filling ones’ gullet until its fit to burst, rupturing ones’ stomach and bleeding out on the floor. Another victim of a system that gave it what it wanted and nothing less.

Now, it sits shuttered, its doors boarded shut, its windows shattered, its walls weakening, its structure starting to collapse at the corners, dying under its own weight…

If you haven't guessed already, we’re sitting outside of a bankrupt Golden Corral buffet franchise.

It would be replaced if there were a business in America strong enough to confidently take up its mortgage. But this is the midwest and this block of commercial real estate has become a financial death sentence. The shareholders can’t profit so the town withers and dies.

This is the state of American Industry. Much like the statue of the great Pharaoh Ozymandias. Found with broken into pieces and scattered to the winds, its head submerged in mud, with the epitaph, "Look upon my Works, ye Mighty, and Despair!”

But, in this parking lot of an abandoned, boarded-up Golden Corral buffet, there is a limo. Parked diagonally across six spots for maximum inconvenience. Not like anyone comes here anymore.

And who sits atop the trunk of the limo? What nefarious ne'er-do-well dares ne’er to do-well and ne’er well does to the well to do?

Who else but that repugnant, repulsive, rancorous, revoltingly reprehensible reprobate, the North Korean War Criminal?

He’s dressed to the nines in white military regalia, faintly illuminated by the moonlight. In stark contrast to the decaying lot behind him, his uniform is clean and pressed. His buttons look polished.

Behind him is the past. He is the future.

Almost as well-lit as his outfit is NKWC’s gleaming smile. He is not just glowing in the moonlight, he is beaming with positive energy in his face.

He sighs happily.

“I love watching capitalism die. Like a rat who ate and ate and ate and ate until he couldn’t move… And Then died devoured alive by the hungry creatures he tried to starve out...”

The Golden Corral’s neon sign flickers, still clinging to life, the last working component of the dead shopping center housing this buffet restaurant. He inhales the scene, like the aroma of a five-star meal.

“Ah… The haunted eerie vibe of a failing American business. It’s my favorite kind of place to come and think.”

“I know, I know… I need my rest.”

“But I can’t sleep.”

“I’m too excited. This is it. It’s finally here.”

His hands are shaking with pure, unbridled energy. His grin is manic. His eyes are wild. He squeezes his fists so tight in his pearl white gloves that his knuckles loudly crack.

“A chance to finally validate my claims. A chance to glimmer and shine as the crown jewel of this business. To demonstrate to this pack of losers, misfits and freaks that calls itself the XWF roster that I truly belong at the top.”

“At the top of the ladder. At the top of the Top 50. At the fucking top of the Hall of Legends. On the god-damned Mount Rushmore of all wrestling talent, past, present, and future.”

“After a moderate bump in the road where I STILL picked up the win over a former Shooting Star champion… Some might say I only won by disqualification...”

NKWC briefly puts his hands up like he’s shooting an invisible basketball and pushes it off with his wrist like Dennis Rodman taking a foul shot.

He smiles.

“Hey, if it ends up in the basket, it counts for two points. And if I get my hand raised at the end, it counts as a win.”

He dismisses his flippant act and goes back to oozing with anticipation.

“But, now, I get to silence these critics. The ignorant masses who claim I don’t belong. Those desperate to kill me with their silence as they pretend I’m not the credible threat to their flimsy principles of ‘marketability’.”

“I get to take the rebellion that is my very existence in this organization and I get to shove it down their throats by shining bright as the most obvious talent on the grandest stage of them all.”

He takes a deep breath, taking all of this in. This feels like his moment, he beams as if every tired muscle fiber feeds him further and further. As if the exhaustion of the climb to this point is now what propels him higher and higher.

The runner’s high. The euphoria.

The excitement alone has left him breathing heavily, as if imagining the opportunity ahead to fight at this level is enough of a workout for his insidious mind.

“...I’m, of course, talking about War Games.”

He winks into the camera.

“Sorry if you thought I was getting this hot and bothered talking about a match with you, Tommy.”

He smiles, raising his middle finger up to the bridge of his nose to scratch an itch between his eyes. He leaves it there lingeringly, just a moment, until a subliminal message of distaste becomes clear.

“Let’s face it. Unlike last time with Betsy where I was 100% focused and she couldn’t stop whining about how I wasn’t her first choice of opponent and yapping about B.o.B. and taking her eye off the ball… We’re on the same page, Tommy.”

“The disappointment here is mutual.”

“You wanted a match with Ariel Dixon, presumably for a chance to get close to her feet.

“By the way, I want to wish Ariel the best of luck in her future endeavors… I assume, scrubbing down the fat fryer down at the Wendy’s closest to the sewer grate she calls home.”

“And I wanted a match with someone who can wrestle.”

“We both got catfished this week, Tommy.”

NKWC guffaws, laughing at his own joke.

“Of course, anyone stuck in a match with you would be devastated.”

NKWC, in mock despair, presses a hand faintly across his forehead like a stereotypical damsel.

“Woe is me! What could I have done to deserve this? I just keep winning and I’m still stuck at the bottom of the card feeding on chum like Tommy Wish…”

He drops the act, folding his arms in front of his chest.

“Of course, you’re no stranger to being the warmup talent, huh, Tommy? You’ve been doing it for… ALMOST nine years.”

NKWC snickers again, as if sharing an inside joke with an old friend. Then, he recoils in terror, as if realizing he’s excluded the rest of his listeners.

“AH. Pardon me. I forgot, this is for an audience of viewers that might not be fans of yours. They might not get what I mean by… Almost… hahahahaha…”

NKWC hops off the back of the limo and smiles into the camera.

“Hey kids! Here’s a fun history lesson for you. Did you know Mark Flynn and Tommy Wish were scheduled to debut in the same week?”

NKWC’s eyes open wide as if shocked by his own trivia.

“I know, right?!? I could hardly believe how FUN this FUN fact is!”

“That’s something my new wrestling coach let me in on Tommy.”

“XWF’s Saturday Impact was the program. July 7th, 2012. Over nine years ago. Both of you had a spot on the card for the very first time.”

NKWC presses his wrists together and claps quietly, as if for a child on how magnificently he’s glued macaroni to a paper plate.

“Happy XWF Anniversary, Tommy! It’s been nine whole years! You should get a participation trophy… You know, to put on your completely empty mantle.”

“For the record, Mark Flynn won the XWF Championship, the United States Championship, the European championship, the Tag titles twice, the X-Treme Title three times and got his filthy mitts on three different 24/7 briefcases in his career.”

“You’ve been a wrestler in this company for nine years. And you’ve accidentally stumbled your way into holding the X-Treme title twice… And that’s it.”

NKWC shakes his head in disbelief.

“I can only assume you’ve kept your job this long because of a clerical error. Or maybe that having you on the payroll gets XWF tax benefits for employing the mentally feeble. Instead of my homeland where you would have been executed by firing squad the first time they spotted you eating glue in the eighth grade.”

He cackles hideously, but then pauses a moment and strokes his own chin.

“Of course, is it really fair to compare you to Mark Flynn? Just because you started the same week?”

“After all, you’ve had nine years to obtain your meager accomplishments… Flynn hung up his boots six years ago. You’ve had triple the time to do nothing with your career!”

He howls, despicably pleased at his own ribbing.

“Of course, as you, Flynn and I know, Tommy, my boy… This entire comparison is based on a false premise, isn’t it? Because you and Flynn were SCHEDULED to debut on the same night. But, you didn’t end up DEBUTING on the same night.”

“That’s right, Tommy. Let’s not just go by your failure on its surface. Let’s deep-dive into your disappointing display…”

“July 7th, 2012.”

“Mark Flynn had his debut match against Larry “The Dawg” Atkins. Atkins was, at the time, one of the most promising new talents in the XWF. A man who some believed would revolutionize the company.”

“Flynn won so handily and so completely that nine years later, no one has heard a word from Atkins.”

“Earlier that same night, Tommy Wish was supposed to have his own debut match against Mike Mayhem. A sick, sad punchline that had lost all credibility at that point. A non-talent at the end of his rope, who spent most of his air time on XWF programming trying and failing to win the X-Treme title. Not in matches, but in hourly, desperate attempts. A man so desperate to etch his name into history books, only to be recalled as a MEME for low-effort and humiliating emasculation.”

“What do you think happened, kids?”

NKWC closes his eyes, basking in the glow of the knowledge he’s about to share.

He peeks out of the corner of one eye.

“Do you want to tell them or should I, Tommy?”

NKWC shakes his head, his face turning red as if he’s about to burst holding in this secret.

“Ooooooh, I can’t hold it in. I just have to share.”

He exhales deeply, to steady himself before revealing this delicious truth...

“Before you guess the obvious… No. Tommy didn’t lose.”

“Tommy didn’t even bother to show up.”

“Tommy, in his first week, opted to skip his debut match.”

“Then, in front of a crowd booing him, hating him, chanting for him to die, he begged management for a ‘SELF X-TREME RULES’ match, where he’d attack and mutilate himself with an assortment of ringside weaponry in a match with himself.”

“Which, let’s face it, fighting himself is pretty much the only way Tommy Wish could win a match. Of course, he’d also be a loser. Him and every fool who paid money to watch it.”

“Were we supposed to be excited about the idea of someone committing self-harm? What is this, an emo concert?”

NKWC pinches his nose, disgusted at the idea.

“You’re right, Tommy. You could absolutely pull a ‘Kevin Nash Starrcade ‘97’ this match, because you’ve been doing it from day one. You’ve, apparently had better things to do than your fucking job for the last nine years!”

“You’ve been coasting for nine years with nothing to show for it, taking valuable time from more talented people who could benefit from your slot.”

NKWC spits his words venomously, seething furiously into the camera… before laughing again.

“...Of course, I’m joking, Tommy. I’m getting under your skin. I’m trying to play these head games that Coach Flynn is so fond of.”

“I don’t know why I should, though. Do I really need the psychological edge to beat TOMMY FUCKING WISH?”

“Let’s honestly assess what you can do, Tommy.”

“You couldn’t fight your way out of a parking ticket.”

“You’d tap out if you got stuck in a Chinese Finger Trap.”

“You probably got a foot fetish from being under so many dominant one-footed pins and finding it was your only choice was ‘Suddenly being into it sexually’.”

NKWC sneers viciously.

“You’re a failure, Tommy. A nine year long joke that stopped being funny on week number 2.”

“In other words, you’re the perfect American representative for this match between North Korea and the US.”

NKWC rubs his hands together fiendishly.

“Oh man… while we’re talking about debuts, I’m getting all nostalgic for my own first match, six long years ago.”

“I beat down Peter Gilmour, a former XWF Universal Champion… Then, I torched the American flag.”

“Til it was glowing ash… Like the rocket’s red glare.”

He mock-salutes an imaginary American flag, before giving it a middle-finger salute…

“Then, they hung me with a rope until I stopped breathing…”

NKWC’s eye briefly twitches, recalling that memory… His hand, almost seemingly independent of his will, begins to grasp at his throat…

But he slowly shakes his head, escaping that thought, returning to now.

“The point is: I’m undefeated in Flag matches, Tommy boy…”

“I’m undefeated in my ENTIRE CAREER, Tom-Tom.”

“And I don’t plan on dropping my undefeated record to some foot-sniffing, panty-stealing freak who should have been fired after no-showing his first day on the job.”

“Who should have been “future endeavor-ed” with Ariel off to flip burgers and be an Essential Frontline Worker…”

NKWC leans in with a hand cupping his mouth, as if he’s telling a secret.

“I mean, let’s be honest, the restaurant worker shortage is pretty much the only reason Tommy Wish should even have a job.”

“But…”

“Despite your past and how often you’ve failed to show up... I hope you’re going to make it to our match, Tommy.”

“I hope for the first time in 9 years, you show up in that fucking ring.”

“I hope you find whatever nugget of red, white and blue Americana is left in the cold, dead, festering cesspool you call a heart and you drag some patriotism out into that ring.”

“Because I want to send a message going into War Games.”

“I want each and every one of my opponents to watch me humiliate you in that ring.”

“I want them to feel a chill down their spine and they realize their reign of complacency and comfort is over.”

“There’s a new future coming.”

“And stacked up against me? The rest of the roster might as well be a pack of Tommy Fucking Wishes.”

“Who’d be better off no-showing.”

NKWC grins as the neon sign blinks, fluttering, clinging to its last moments of life.

NKWC turns his face upwards, bellowing to the heavens.

The moon disappears over the horizon… The glowing, white regalia becomes dim...

“Glory to True Korea!”

“Glory to the end of American dominance in the XWF.”

“And glory to the North Korean War Criminal.”

The neon sign dies and the parking lot fades to black…