A slow fade in from break shows two men staring into the camera. On the left, Ijitu Quartz stands nearly perfectly still, holding the OCW World Heavyweight Championship over his shoulder. On the right, “Spider” Ryu Matsumoto is standing with his arms crossed. Spider takes one step forward.
RYU: Charles Shulz once said “there is no heavier burden than an unfulfilled potential.”
RYU: He didn’t say that to line your inspirational Instagram posts. No. He said it because it’s reality.
RYU: Tonight, we saw what that kind of burden can put on your shoulders. The kind of weight that causes you to fail time and time again. The kind of weight that makes you lose focus.
RYU: The kind of weight that makes you a liability.
RYU: Charles Shulz was right. That weight of unfulfilled potential is so heavy that it can bring down those around you. Unfortunately, TY Sparks is just that. Unfulfilled potential.
Spider looks up at the World Champion, who stretches his neck both directions and takes a deep breath.
RYU: Sparky, I told you that you needed to fight tonight like your career depended on it. You didn’t do that. You made a liar out of me.
RYU: 3 months ago, I crowned you as the future of this company and how did you repay that incredible honor? By coming up short over and over.
RYU:Title opportunities handed to you thanks to me. The spotlight. A place next to the most dominant professional wrestler in OCW history, the FUTURE Longest Reigning World Heavyweight Champion.
Spider shakes his head like a disappointed father as Quartz steps forward.
Quartz: Do not mistake what happened tonight for a “teaching moment”, Sparks. I am not B17. This is not “tough love”. Tonight was the result of me allowing you to get too close to me.
Quartz: Tonight was a corrective measure to remind myself just who the hell I am.
Quartz: It seems that while I was handling the Rust Cohle problem, I let my guard down and let a spineless, naive, waste of potential hold rank next to me.
Quartz: No more. Spider’s judgement of you is not wrong. You are a great talent. You are an incredible athlete… It’s just too bad that all that was given to someone without a fraction of the drive and killer instinct that I have.
Quartz looks up and takes a deep breath.
Quartz: This “Revolution Incorporated” experiment is over. I am the revolution. I am the World Champion. I am Ijitu Quartz, gah’ dammit.
Spider slaps the championship’s plate and without so much as a smirk…
RYU: Tell ‘em.
The two start to walk away before Quartz stops, almost as if he’s remembering something. He slowly turns back to the camera and removes his PRISTINE SUNGLASSES.
Quartz: ...and AC Cobra? I don’t know what game you’re playing at sticking your nose in my business tonight.
Quartz: Men like you and I? We’re cut from a different cloth. You may have been in this company far longer than me, but let me tell you something right now before you get things twisted.
Quartz: I’m the one rebuilding the broken infrastructure people like you and Nate Ortiz built over the last 15 years. The roads you’ve paved have been swallowed by cracks and potholes that you’re not qualified to fill.
Quartz: The bridges you’ve built in this business are no longer capable of carrying the weight I have on my back.
Quartz: I’m going to tell you this one time and one time only... Stay out of my way… Or I will make an example out of you, too.
Quartz places his PRISTINE SUNGLASSES back on his face and the two walk out of frame as we fade to black.
We return from commercial break to the sound system blaring out “True Survivor” as B17 makes his way to the ring, CCW Title strapped around his waist.
Upon entering the ring he grabs a live mic.
B17: I am who I am. Unabashedly so. Through the years of scratching to catch a break and being the pin for legends, to the days I failed to stand on my own, and to the moment I broke through against Malu, to now. I stand here as me.
B17 looks around to appreciate the polite applause.
B17: So to hear The Last Blacksmith talk shit does not phase me. To hear him say nonsense about how he killed The Doom Machine only gets a roll of the eyes from me and a shrug. When Thomas Archer rambles on about what he deserves I chuckle and ignore him. Do you know why?
Bingo looks around with a questioning face.
B17: It’s because I don’t have the luxury of time anymore. For 12 years I have been in a dream. An OCW Superstar! I have the greatest job in the world...but those days are coming to an end.
The crowd erupts in surprise.
WOAH. NO. NO. NO.
B17: Yes, yes, yes. Not today. No tomorrow. Hell it might be a year or five years from now. But the day is coming closer. I’m not a spring chicken and these young guns seem to be getting faster, stronger, and hungrier than I have ever seen them. I’m pro---
As the CCW Champion, B17 is talking he’s rudely interrupted by the man who last week questioned his very existence, Thomas Archer. Thomas smirks, offering Bingo a cheap and fake wave.
Archer: Hello there friend, I see you accepted my invitation to appear on RIOT. That’s great, that’s great. You might notice I’m wearing a scarf, you see, where I am it’s pretty cold all year round. That’s sort of the running joke with the locals, you know how that is right?
Archer smirks, toying with his expensive scarf as the camera pans out a little.
Archer: You know, it’s funny… All those interesting and mean things you had to say about me, all that waxing lyrical about how long you’ve been here and how hard life worked… Yet you’ve done nothing to address the accusations I levied at you, you’ve done nothing to handle the mess that I left at your door. Which could very well be a foreshadowing of sorts, if you get my drift.
Archer continues to talk, but begins walking, not aimlessly, he knows exactly where he’s going. The home of B17 begins to come into camera. Archer gasps sarcastically, putting a hand over his heart.
Archer: Oh no! I’m not actually in the same town as you tonight, I’m so, so sorry…
B17 is visibly becoming nervous.
Archer: Don’t worry, don’t worry, I’ve not harmed any of the people inside, I’ve not tied up your family and strapped them to a ticking time bomb that can only be disarmed by solving cryptic clues created using intricate details from your earlier career, almost like a callback to your little speech earlier...
B17 becomes very, very nervous.
Archer: Relax, I have something far, far more evil in mind, because Bingo, it dawned on me that you might, for some worryingly dangerous reason decide not to give me what I want, that you’d want to show how much of a spoiled brat I am, make an example of how I cannot take being told no.
Archer motions to someone off camera.
Archer: So I decided to get myself a little insurance policy, it’s something of a reminder as to exactly why people don’t say no to me. It’s not the money, it’s not the power, it’s the fear of what I do to people when they say no.
A whine comes from somewhere off camera and Archer reaches out, revealing a pet carrier.
Archer: That’s why I decided little ol’ Sparky here needed a vacation, some time away from his awful, awful father.
With a huge smirk Archer holds the carrier up, showing the terrified dog within.
Archer: And if… If by some small miracle I am unable to… What was it you wanted me to do again? Earn it? If I am unable to earn my keep, or whatever working class bullshit hoops you want me to jump through as some thinly veiled attempt to do everything in your power not to become another 361 day chump… Let’s just say it would be in your best interest, and of course your little dog's interests too, that such a problem doesn’t crop up.
Archer gives B17 a mock wave and the titantron goes black, leaving the CCW champion stunned.
We are in the corridors backstage before tonight’s Main Event, where Lucha Country defend their Undisputed Tag Team titles against the team of Doc and H2O.
Several superstars can be spotted chatting all around the arena, but one of them stands in the hallway, watching in the direction of the Gorilla position.
Wrex: It’s time.
As Doc and H2O making their way to the entrance ramp.
Another man enters the frame behind Wrex.
Aisu: It’s time indeed.
As El Parca and Mark Reese make their way to the same backstage area from afar.
The Japanese wrestler and the Scottish brawler keep looking in the same direction, with a focused look.
Aisu: This is the night. Come on. We have some scouting to do.
As both him and Wrex take a few steps back and turn around.
