Randy Weber scribbles down on the dingy pages of a worn out notebook.

The leather cover is cracked, and flaking on the mostly empty table of a diner booth. The papers no larger than the coffee napkin holding his cup, and bleeding over on each other in different colors of ink.

Randy pauses on the thought, and spills some vodka into his black coffee.

His pen remains stabbing onto the page and leaking ink, while the coffee cup jitters to his lips. Randy closes his eyes and breathes the alcohol in like a person being released from a noose just in the nick of time. The booze steadies his shake and he returns to his screed.

Randy pauses again, and gazes out of the wall sized window to his right. He sees his client, or partner, or whatever you want to consider this venture between he and Schism to be, down on his knees in the muddy shoulder of earth between the diner parking lot and the highway. Randy squeezes his eyes to try and focus his spinning visual, and to make sure that he wasn't hallucinating.



Schism is crafting a snowman out of dirt with great poise rigor. A determined look on his mud smeared face as he takes only a nanosecond of a break to inhale the smoke from the cigarette bitten between his teeth.

Randy returns to writing,

An XWF Advertisement catches Randy's ear from the television hanging in the corner of the diner.

Randy chokes on his vodka and coffee, flinging the liquid from his nostrils. A look of terror gathering over his features.

He slams the journal, and it's pages covered in wet ink shut and struggles to pull his pudgy frame from the tight confines of the diner booth. He drops some loose change and lint from his pocket onto the table to pay for the coffee and waddles out of the door.

"HEY! KID!"

He shouts over to Schism, who moves himself upright next to his mudman swinging his arms out to present the earthy sculpture to Randy.

What do you think, Randy?

"I think the higher ups in XWF just FUCKED you! We need to get back on the road, now!"

No. no. no. My Snowman, Randy. What do you think about my snowman? I made him just like the Frosty song, said.

"Yeah..."

Randy patronizes,

"REAL MAGICAL!"

Do you think he looks like Marf?

There's true innocence in Schism's curiosity that Randy can't brush aside, even in his state of panic. He calms himself enough to truly consider the sculpture for a moment.

"Beady eyes. A goofy looking nose. Made out of dirt. A face that only a mother could love. Stinks to high heaven. Lifeless and without personality. I think you nailed it, kid. Uncanny."

Schism nods as if those were the exact traits he were trying to mimic when designing the type of snowman he's going to be asked to destroy on Savage in Anchorage.

Great. Now watch this.

Schism turns and with a guttural grunt, begins stomping violently on the mudman. A creepily accurate whistle of Frosty The Snowman whistles out from his lips as Randy watches on perplexed, but in a weird way also reassured.






---Sometime Later. Driving In Northern Washington State---






Randy.

Schism doesn't ask, rather commands from the passenger seat of the old rust bucket Ford pickup. The shoddy shocks causing the cab to bounce even on a smoothly paved highway.

"Hum?"

Night has fallen early by way of daylight saving, and still Schism wears his sunglasses. Keeping his face focused ahead on the road, but his mind obviously elsewhere,

Who's Rose?

Randy doesn't answer the question right away, but rather forms some of his own questions that he keeps to himself. Wondering mostly when it was that Schism got ahold of his journal. His knuckles turn white around the grip of the steering wheel as he peaks at Schism from the corner of his eye. Again, while annoyed that Schism has obviously dug into his personal belongings, Randy can't help but sense the sincere innocence in the question. Like listening to child ask about god. Almost everything Schism asked sounded that way, like he was truly starting from a base knowledge that was nil.

"Rose was-"

Was?

Randy drifted into an image. A dark highway. A sudden flash of high beams. A blaring horn. Squealing tires. Thrashing metal.

"Yes."

He chokes,

"Rose was a dear friend."

Schism's silence is deliberate, and Randy sense it,

"She died."

He chokes harder this time, before the silence grows thicker,

"What about you, kid? Do you have any friends?"

I don't know.

"You're quite the mystery aren't you?"

Better a mystery than a secret.

"I don't know what that means."

How did Rose die?

Sudden and violent high-beams. Blaring horn. Squealing tires.

"FUCK!"

Randy nearly runs the two of them over into the opposite lane of the highway as he was looking ahead to their exit. He's rattled, needing drink and ready to get off the road.

"This is it, about a mile from this exit."

What's his name again? The man who's going to teach me to wrestle?






Old Man Johnson:

A long presumed dead, former announcer for XWF.

A former pro wrestler in his younger years, Old Man Johnson suffered a near fatal stroke after the years of sitting back and analyzing the same type of wrestling that Randy was lamenting in his letter to Rose. The type of wrestling that sees scum like Marf, Charlie Nickels and Cage Coleman thrive. Old Man Johnson and Randy had been close friends for years, so close actually, that Randy was one of the few people who knew that Old Man Johnson never died.

Randy first met Johnson when he was young man, working as ring technician in one of the territory indie leagues. In those days, it wasn't uncommon for the wrestlers themselves to chip in and help out with the work before and after the shows. Unlike these days where wrestlers fancy themselves megastars, and are only concerned with the bottom line of their contracts and glory.

"So this is the kid you called me about?"

Johnson asks while leading Randy and Schism into his modest, and dated home. Down a set of basement steps and into airy, damp smelling opening where a full sized wrestling ring is setup in the middle of the room.

"This is him. This is Schism."

"Schism, huh?"

Johnson pokes as they reach the bottom of the steps and glances over his shoulder at Schism who all but ignores any gravity of the situation and moves right past Johnson and Randy, and heads for the ring. Johnson and Randy track Schism with their eyes and watch as the young man makes his way to the nearest turnbuckle of the ring and starts disassembling the pads from the ropes. Just as he learned from Randy weeks ago when he was hired to help out at Wednesday Warfare in Cleveland.

Randy and Johnson stand shoulder to shoulder. Johnson's arms are crossed, and Randy moves forward to stop Schism from tearing the ring down completely.

"Kid!"

But Johnson sticks an arm out and stops him,

"Now, now."

"But he's about to tear down your ring."

"Let him do what's natural for him, Randy. If it ain't broke, don't fix it."

"Okay. But your ring isn't broken."

"A ring is a ring is a ring. But an instinct. That's something you don't question."

Randy considers the thought, and knows it to be wise to defer to Johnson's line of thinking.

"So what do you think then? Think you can show him some stuff? Get him ready for this match?"

Without hesitation Johnson answers:

"No."

"What do you mean? Having to wrestle Marf is one thing, and moving forward in that tournament? The field is weak, and maybe we can handle it, but then we've got to turn right around and go face a Duke for crying out loud!"

"Yeeeeah-up. Sounds like that cock-puffer Smoking Bob is up to his old tricks again. I knew the moment Jefferson Jackson left Warfare, I needed to get out. Seeing the business get flooded with guys like that Marf you're talking about. Snowman matches. PFT! That's NOT wrestling. But I'm sorry, Randy. There's nothing I can do to help."

Randy folds down to his knees, holding his head in his hands, feeling ashamed for selling Schism a bill of goods that would lead him into being a human punching bag.

Johnson watches on as Schism, bit by bit, piece by piece, continues to tear down the wrestling ring.

"Randy, isn't this the kid that you hired just a few weeks ago?"

"Yes."

"And how many rings has he taken put together and taken down?"

"Just a few."

"I see... and didn't you tell me that fixed that old beat up truck of your, with only second hand instructions from a mechanic?"

"Yes..."

Randy brings his face back from his hands and stands back to his feet,

"Interesting."

"And he also made a snowman out of mud today, only the kid has never seen snow, and only listened to the Frosty the Snowman song once."

"So just like I said. There's nothing I can do to help. The wrestling you and I love? That's something that comes natural to people. It's not forced by learning a bunch of generic slams and bombs like that Marf. It's not hung out on a fishing line like a dangling dildo for shock and awe.

It's something that you feel.

Something that either happens, or doesn't.

The way I see it, Schism is either a REAL wrestler, like the type you hope he is, the type who will turn things back right, or... he's another Marf, another Charlie Nickels, another idiot like Cage Coleman. And if he's anything like those three, there's REALLY nothing I can do for him."

Randy's eyes go wide as Schism finds a metal shaft and begins loosening the ropes from the posts, realizing fully what Johnson is saying.

But there IS something I can do...

Randy recognizes the voice and smiles wide before even turning around.

It's Nipsey Russel.

The official XWF Time Keeper. Another old soul of the wrestling world from a bygone era who is close friends with both Randy and old Man Johnson.

Tell that ol' peckerwood to get down here now, because I'mma have to teach him about the promo.

Nipsey stands face to face with Schism as Randy and Johnson watch from the corner of the basement. Nispey nods, and pushes his lips around with some swag before going into the lesson.

Now see here boy, the promo is all about one thing, and that's putting yourself over for the audience. It's one thing to say you going to do this, that, and the other to your opponent. Any ol' muscle head can stand in front of a camera and blather all day, but it's about being believable, because at the end of the day you are trying to get the audience in the seats to cheer for you. The more they cheer for you, win or lose, the more likely it is that the booker is gonna' put you in a big match. The bigger the match? The bigger the pay day.

So the question is, how do come off as believable? One simple answer: confidence.

Now, I listened to your opponents promos, Marf? The kid ain't got a confident bone in his body. For starters her obviously googled your name, trying to figure out what Schism meant because he's dumb as hell. So he found that the WORD Schism has religious connotations, but like I said, DUMB. AS. HELL. The name Schism is YOUR name. And that's what you tell the people. Then he obviously went digging into your application, or roster bio, or whatever you wanna' calls it. That's the most unconfident shit ever, because if Marf wasn't truly worried, he would be telling the audience about Marf, not about Schism. That's what we calls a reach. When you ain't got nothing good to say about yourself, you reach and try and find something about your opponent. Sometimes this MIGHT work as like a mental tactic or something, but not from Marf. That boy ain't got no sense. Who in the world would be phased by juvenile insults.

But the worst part about Marf's promo, is that he spent half the time talking about Betsy Granger. Assuming that he's gonna be able to exact revenge on her, not even focused on Schism. If I'm an audience member, and I listen to that mumbo jumbo on the television, I might buy a ticket just to go throw a rotten egg at Marf's ass, because not only do he stink for real, in real life, the man just stinks period. I mean, the man just lost his Freestyle Championship to a goddamn mailroom tech! See, all you really got to do, Schism is look at Marf and do every thing he did the exact opposite. Don't be whining and crying about a girl beating you up, and don't sound like a little kid. Be confident. Sell yourself. Sell the match, and tell them people at home what exactly it is that Schism is all about.

Now look in this here camera and on the count of three, I want you to cut a promo: one, two ...

Schism, having remained emotionless and still this entire time keeps the trend alive as he looks into the camera and speaks for the first time ever to the XWF Universe

My name is Schism.

At Saturday Savage in Anchorage, Alaska I'm going to WRECK Marfy the Mudman

I'm going PLUNGE Charlie Nickels into the freezing cold waters

And then I'm going JACK UP Cage Coleman.

I'm going to be the number one contender to the Television Championship at Bad Medicine

...and I'm going to win.