The X-Tron Begins To Play A Video!
The scene opens on the backstage area, the attention of the few people in this area backstage locked on monitors, watching the live show. The camera moves through the hallway, taking a few quick turns before stopping in front of a locker room.
All of this feels familiar to the viewer, and they begin to predict what happens next. Voices of a man talking to himself, the last shreds of his sanity being abandoned in favor of furthering his dramatic implosion. Perhaps a brief explosion of violence on an inanimate object.
Yet there is no sound from within the room, with only the roar of the crowd out in the arena being audible. The camera pushes through moving inside the locker room, turning towards a couch pushed against the far way.
The One Man Revolution, the reigning, defending Pride Champion is on the couch, his head resting on his freshly defended Pride Championship using it as a pillow, as he sleeps sound as a baby.
Content for the first time in a long time. After holding on the sleeping man for a moment, the camera begins to back up, tip toeing out of the room, before the scene switches to the next segment.
EMPRESS vs VALKYRIE(c)
The many crews keeping the ppv together continue to do their many tasks around the backstage areas, many runners heading back and forth delivering news, coffee and the like, production staff making sure the action is being picked up at the best angles possible and the interview staff doing their damndest to bring the word from the wrestlers mouths to the viewers ears, but one man seems out of place, hood up, almost shuffling absentmindedly through the halls, knocking into anyone who got too close.
The direction he’s headed is clear, gorilla position. Jim Black seems to be the first to actually notice who the man actually is and quickly heads over to him, microphone in hand.
Black: Where the hell have you been, it's almost time for the match!
The man pushes by him again, continuing his path.
Black: Wrex?
Wrex continues along his path, never wavering.
Black: WREX!
He finally stops, pulling down his hood while turning around to face Jim.
Wrex: Wrex isn’t here tonight Jim.
Black: What are you on about this time? I’m looking right at you.
Wrex smiles to no one in particular, before wrapping his arm around Jim and forcing him along.
Wrex: Walk with me Jim, and I’ll tell you a story.
He starts dragging Jim along, who eventually decides to walk under his own power.
Wrex: You see Jim, about ten or so years before the name of Wrex was even a twinkle in this man old brain, there was a man named Alastair Ross, who was tying up his boots for the first time, his first match in some.. dingy community center, and he went out there and did his best and..
Wrex: It was shit, and shit, and shit. For about a year or so all he did was crap, he was almost ready to hang the boots up. It wasn't for him, but then Alastair was given a tape, he figured why not? Might be fun.
Wrex:
So he watched it, and saw something that changed his life. It was a pretty shit quality tape but this match, it wasn’t anything he saw before. Japan, a deathmatch. Sound familiar? It should.
Wrex: Alastair watched every single one he could get his hands on, he found something he wanted to do more than simply wrestle. He wanted to do that, and there was a face that kept popping up..
Wrex:
He wanted to be him, so he started doing that, he did deathmatches anywhere that would take him. Never really got any notoriety but that didn't matter to him. He finally fell in love with some form of wrestling. But then something happened, that face disappeared. He went off to America.
Wrex: Alastair's little spark started to fade, the man he wanted to be wasn’t there anymore. So he went back to shit.
Wrex: Then OCW came knocking. They were starting up a little hardcore division again on some shitty little B show that kept falling apart, and they were looking for anyone who wouldn’t complain about shit pay and the possiblity of a quick terminaiton, Ross didnt care though.
Wrex:
He was going to get to do something he was good at again for a little more money and some recognition, surely once they threw him away he might be worth something on the indies.
Wrex: And then he watched some of that tape. And saw him again, the man he watched all those years ago. He’d found him again.
Wrex:
The spark came back, he did all he could to stay in OCW. Not much mind you, curtain jerking and such but it didnt matter, he was doing hardcore again in the same company that the man he had idolised had helped put on the map. A dream come true.
Wrex: But it was never enough, Ross floundered. He wanted to be that man so bad, and it was costing him everything. The hardcore division fell apart and he was forced to the sharks and told sink or swim. Treading water for so long gives a man time to think.
Wrex stops, letting go of Black and turning to the camera crew that had been following behind.
Wrex: ..Paul the reason I reminded me of you is because of this. he wanted to be you.. For so goddamn long all Ross wanted was to be the next Kid Ego, and you’re right, it got him nothing..
Wrex: After the second Lution failure he let go of the wheel and walked away, he was done. But Wrex wouldn't let him. Wrex took the wheel and the name became the face, Wrex was complete, name body and soul. And Scum was born.
Wrex: Wrex sought out help, Wrex sought out the Pine Dojo, Wrex became a champion, Wrex took over Turmoil. Wrex became Mr. Turmoil.. and Alastair watched from the side lines. Contempt that Wrex would lead us to the glory Ross never could.
Wrex: But then you had to do it didn’t you? You just had to stick you fucking neck where it didnt belong. You came after us and for the first time in a long time, you peaked Alastair's interest, see Paul from B-17 to Jacob Trance to even Austin Fucking Lee.
Wrex:
They were Wrex’s wars, sure Ross would pop in from time to time but he left the machine to do its own dirty work. But for the first time in a long time, you did something no one else could.
Wrex: You made Alastair get back on the wheel. Cause while Wrex wanted this, Ross craved this. He needed this, cause he finally realised something, something he never could without Wrex’s guiding hand.
Wrex:
You’re not a fucking idol anymore Pugh, you’re an imitation, a fake, an old mutt living off his name. You aren’t that man he watched all those years ago, never mind three. Im not here tonight to beat an old dog to death, but to put it out of its never ending misery. I came here tonight to prove one thing.
Wrex: Ego is nothing more than some human construct, it fleeting. No one will ever be willing to pick up someone's ego and carry it in their name. But Scum? Scum is its own being, long after I'm gone someone will carry it forward, whether they realise it or not.
Wrex: Ego dies with the man, Paul Pugh. But Scum? Scum. Lives. Forever.
Wrex: If this does go the way you predict, if you do somehow bring him back, if neither of us leave under our own free will tonight.
Aleister Ross: We will be fine with that. Cause if this is the end? I can't think of a more beautiful death.
Aleister: Wrex isn’t here tonight, he handed me the keys and took a seat. This is my war to end. It may be his name on the screen, his gear, his trons. Hell it might even be his face to you all now. But it’s my fight and I promise you Pugh, this is going to be a real deathmatch. Time to see if you are what you say you are.
Alastair lets go of Jim and heads up into gorilla, ready for the war to come as the camera shots fade away.