'Dreamer' Michelle von Horrowitz.

[SupineSnake]

Promo history - volume 10.
"(up)Stream" (02/12/2016).
Jon Snowmantashi def. Michelle von Horrowitz [CWA World Heavyweight Championship] (CWA: Five-Star Attraction).​

She sat, her knees together and feet apart. Her back was craned into a crooked arch. A camera sat idly in front of her. Her head was in her hands, and she ran her fingers through her short blonde hair, pinching the green ends with her finger nails. She stared down at the murky grey concrete beneath her black boots. Around her, the sounds of some mid-card match permeated the walls of Madison Square Garden, the time counting down towards the main event. Jon Snowmantashi. Michelle von Horrowitz. Five-Star Attraction.

So much of her life in the past month had been little more than a gradual build to this encounter. Now, thirty minutes sat stubbornly between her and the match, and the aches that roared through her body – aches from the sport and aches from the lack of sleep – were beginning a crescendo. Her sister, Bella, had put it well, as the two of them sat in some Manhattan winery after her performance and she described her emotions before it. ”When your stomach’s a storm and all of your weight has sailed across it into your limbs.”

She picked up her rucksack, rummaging through it for the bottle of Jameson’s. Empty. She made a mental to-do list for the remainder of the evening; win world championship, get a new bottle. Setting the thing aside, she stared at the lens of the camera, which sat unused and accusatory. Sighing, the young woman tried to imagine her sister – younger still – going through the same thing in whatever the backstage areas of a place like the Lincoln Centre were like.

Michelle had sat in the auditorium the weekend before, feeling the warmth, luxury, and comfort that surrounded her and regarding it with suspicion. She’d leafed through the program notes, stopping at a random page where the composer – some middle-aged German man named Bram – wrote about his creation. ’My ‘orchestral sonata’ is a piece in which several movements of the same music fight and struggle against one another, but through this forge a collaboration both sweet and sombre’. She slammed the book shut when the musicians began to take the stage, her sister the foremost of a group of three cellists, themselves only a small portion of the string section.

The music had begun with them, the violins rising softly over the deep cellos, whose notes were long and drawn. Violas stirred and a fiddle leaped behind it all, the baritone violins joining the cellos in framing the piece. Each instrument sang a variation on a similar theme, almost waltzing through the opening throws of the song. Michelle stared around at the suited New Yorkers, stroking their chins or holding tiny binoculars up to their faces. Their mood, one of anticipation and longing, matched the direction of the music.

She watched the rest of the musicians, thirty or forty of them, who in turn had their gaze turned on the strings. They were inactive and docile, holding their instruments limply. The whole scene – the slow build of the music which promised more to come, the anticipation etched onto the faces of the punters, the impatient surveying of the rest of the orchestra – dragged her back. She found herself, quite suddenly and unexpectedly, sat high in the bleachers of the Tokyo Dome. It was early 2015 and around her thousands of wrestling fans sat in expectation, eyes directed to the ring positioned centrally.

Within it, two men were standing in opposite corners. One, huge and focussed, rocked from his left foot to his right. The other, taller but much lighter and considerably older, was in good shape for his age. He wore a flamboyant ring robe with the Japanese flag as its focal point and sat coolly on the top turnbuckle. Michelle was perhaps a hundred yards away from them, in-between people she didn’t know, her handful of possessions stuffed into the rucksack between her feet. She’d been in the capital for two months now, and out of the ring herself for twenty four.

This was it; the main event, what they were all here to see. The larger man was introduced as Snowmantashi and the crowd entered their most raucous state of the evening (though everything is relative, it must be remembered). Streamers were thrown into the ring. The man only stared at his opponent, methodically rocking from foot to foot. When the taller man was introduced there was only silence. He was older, less imposing, a man bred to lose. The crowd watched on impatiently, the champion waited for his cue, the strings went on singing. No streamers were thrown, and Snowmantashi stared straight through his opponent as the bell sounded.

In 2016, in her locker room at the Garden, Michelle von Horrowitz hit record on the camera.

“Tulips, the hour of reckoning has arrived.”

A long, deliberate pause. Michelle was still seated on a bench positioned in the corner of her locker room, which was larger than usual. The benefits of being in the main event, she supposed. It seemed bigger still with Michelle’s rucksack, a tall locker, and the bench on which she sat as its only contents.

“But not my hour of reckoning. Nor that of Jon Snowmantashi, though he will feel like it has been when the final bell tolls. Rather, the hour of reckoning for the CWA has finally come. And not a second too soon, either, for we find ourselves in the darkest of days. Our champion will not wave the banner, except for contract signings and knowing glances from the stage, and we rely on has-been’s and never-be’s to sell pay-per-views. But all is not lost. Tonight is the night on which things begin to change.”

Change. The music seemed to transition abruptly, horns colliding with strings like waves crashing themselves against the rocks. But, by some strange device, after a few moments it seemed as if it had been this way since the music had begun. Bella still bowed away at her cello, drawing out her longing notes as the horns marched and rallied against the calm shores. Michelle sat and watched in her borrowed comfort in the Gods at the Lincoln Centre.

The first battle cries of the horns were echoes of the first bell in the Tokyo Dome, with Snowmantashi charging down his opponent as soon as he’d had half a chance to remove his robe. A flourish of clubbing forearms and stiff kicks followed, the sickening thuds resonating around the arena and accompanied by the audience recoiling in unison. After ten seconds, the serenity and anxiety that had accompanied the introductions was a distant memory. After ten minutes, Michelle refused to believe there had ever been any calm about this man. He was huge, savage, unrelenting. Fists, elbows, shins, and headbutts. The old hand could do nothing in response. He could barely stand.

“Some of you may wonder what I know of waiting,” Michelle continued, in her locker room at the Garden. “Six editions of Adrenaline Rush and the Wrestle Royale are all you’ve seen of me, and already I sit here, waiting to walk out in the main event of the biggest show of the year. But my journey did not begin on the night I defeated Anna Malikova. In 2007, I stepped into the ring for the first time, in front of a dozen people in some decrepit little Marseille gym. For five years, I scraped out a living in France and Germany, in Britain and Russia, and of course, in Japan. Whether there were ten people watching on or a thousand, when the final match ended and they made their way down dark streets towards lonely homes, they’d each agree on one thing; that night, they’d seen the Michelle von Horrowitz show.

“And then nothing. On the cusp of the fame and success and respect that I’d slowly earned, I walked away from it all. Through injury, fatigue, and general dissatisfaction, I left the squared circle, and retreated into the shadows. For two and a half years, I watched as undeserving fools held up little gold belts, calling themselves the best in the world and squabbling over nonsense whilst the sport bled out around them. The fans began to value a stiff kick and flashy ring gear above strategy and success. The titans of the game became covetous, and they sought out the gold for their own glory rather than the good of the sport. And I watched on, I said nothing.

“I sat in my corner whilst the music died. There was nothing I could do, I told myself. The fate of my beloved sport was out of my hands. Even if I relented, and came to the States and fought in the big leagues, there was nobody who shared my ideals; my vision for this art. I could not wrestle myself every week. And so I kept on waiting as the silence took hold, and no sound stirred but the screams of my discontent.”

She paused, straightening her back, gaze still intent on nothing besides the lens. Her mind should’ve been fixed on the immediate future and the kaiju that waited that night, but it was intent on swimming back into the distant past. The sounds of Madison Square Garden – the jeers and fawns of the fickle audience, the occasional signals of the bell, the muffled entrance themes played by way of introduction or celebration – seemed distant and insignificant, replaced instead by her sister’s sonata. She was dragged into the Lincoln Centre once more, as the plucked strings entered the fray to accompany their bow-borne sisters.

The horns had dominated the piece for a handful of minutes, trumpets charging in elaborate flourishes whilst half a dozen trombones bombarded the violins from across the stage. A pair of tubas underscored their smaller, brass companions, whilst a lone saxophonist tied them all together, beckoning them onwards in the assault. But, slowly at first, as if with trepidation, a duo of harpists stirred into life. One re-enforced the drawn notes of the bowed string section, whilst the other danced amongst the domineering trickery of the trumpets, as if in mockery. They were flanked by a rumbling double bass and a sad mandolin, providing respite and beating back the horns.

“And then, after two and a half years, I realised it was time,” she continued, fingers playing with the bottom of the baggy green t-shirt she’d wear to the ring that night in New York. “It was time for me to come here, to the mecca of professional wrestling, to rip out the festering tumours from the heart of the sport. This is their hive; they gravitate towards these shores. Seven weeks and seven wins later, all that stands between me and The Cleansing is Jon Snowmantashi. A road bump of a champion.”
She would be the respite that the sport needed, just as the harps had been for the violins. She only hoped it would not be too little, nor too late. She had seen this before, been this before. In 2002, she’d sat on the front step of their suburban, Rotterdam home, watching her mother drinking from the bottle through the open kitchen door and waiting for the ambulance to arrive for Maude. They should’ve called the morgue directly but nobody had the number. That had felt helpless. In the Tokyo Dome in early 2015, when she’d watched the veteran choose an eye rake over a clean break, she had known it to be futile. He only managed a couple of European uppercuts before Snowmantashi threw him into a corner and reeled off ten headbutts, before hoisting the old man into the air and slamming him back down with a sit-out powerbomb.

Michelle had sat in the rafters, almost able to feel the ring-rust sinking into her ill-conditioned body. She’d travelled around Europe for the best part of eighteen months, before returning to Japan as a tourist rather than a worker for the first time in her life. She’d seen a few events during the hiatus, but nothing like this, and never a man like Snowmantashi. He was strong, and had a focus and motivation that was hard to fathom. She had come to recognise nobody as unbeatable, but he thundered around the ring in a storm of vicious unpredictability. When the old hand had slid out of the ring, trying to catch a breather, the big man had instantly crushed him against the steel barricades with a suicide dive.

Some things were futile. Certain. Pre-determined. Snowmantashi beating an aging star in a show-match so some promoter could double the price of the tickets. Aunt Maude being pronounced deceased and wheeled out of the bed in the spare room, where she’d waited patiently breathlessly for two weeks. Ms von Horrowitz, Michelle’s mother, spending the majority of the years between 2002 and 2007 staring through the neck of a bottle and pinning all of her hopes on Bella. These things were certain. Some things were still to be decided. The future of the world heavyweight championship. The future of the CWA. The future of Jon Snowmantashi and Michelle von Horrowitz.

She had, of course, been running away. In retrospect, she had realised this as she sat there in the Tokyo Dome, watching Snowmantashi endlessly stomp the veteran’s head on the outside as the referee began his count towards twenty. Her decision to fly to America and accept some bookings on the east coast shortly afterwards was no coincidence. She had a tendency to run from things, but those days were as dead as Aunt Maude. When she’d found her, lying limply and lifelessly in a mound upon her bed, she’d closed the door to the spare room tight and pushed the discovery from her consciousness. She had run away from it despite never leaving the house.

She had thought all of these things in her comfortable seat at the Lincoln Centre, as she’d stared down at her sister’s pale face. Bella had the von Horrowitz eyes, deep green wells that told stories with no words. Only the loud, sudden entrance of the drummers had broken the spell, and dragged her into the present. They pounded heavily and furiously, hammering the strings into submission. The violins faded and the cellists died. The harps remained, stout and proud, but their spell was diminished, their music was twisted. The drums were the bringers of doom, and they were unstoppable.

They drove her back into the Tokyo Dome, where Snowmantashi heaved his lifeless opponent beneath the bottom rope. His Hailstorm followed, a devastating fireman’s carry into a cutter, and the Moonsault that came next was nothing but redundant. As she watched the lateral press, Michelle considered this champion as inevitable as the resulting three count.

When she’d stood in the ring with him, just over one year later, he would proclaim himself a force of nature. She had come to realise that there was truth to this. She’d hit him with the chair half a dozen times, and cut him open against the exposed turnbuckle, but still he’d asked for more. He’d stumbled out of the arena on his own two feet, refusing aid from the EMTs in an impressive fit of pride. And then he’d made his wordless statement, standing on the stage after she’d seen off Vegas, reminding her of what he’d said he was; more than just a man.

But she had to believe this wasn’t all futile. She had to believe in what she was doing. That it could be done.

“After Snowmantashi had taken the world championship from around his best friend’s waist, and I had outlasted thirty other competitors to earn the next chance to approach the summit, he stood in that ring and spoke as if he knew me. As if he knew my motivations and my ambitions and my methods,” she began again, in her locker room at the Garden. “Over the last month, I’ve made my opinion of our champion perfectly clear. I have called him simple, one-dimensional, mediocre. I call him ‘Man-Baby’, not only because he looks like an oversized toddler, but because his thought process is straight-forward, limited by his oh-so-finite intellectual capacity. And I stand by this. But I have no specific hatred for the Man-Baby. He is one of the few that I respect.”

She paused, allowing this last declaration to linger in the air. The sound of a huge pop from the crowd crept in through the walls as the McGinnis-Vegas bout drew to a close.

“The saviour of this company must hold its prize, and there is only one wrestler fit to drag its fading body away from the precipice. I had once thought, in fact, as I picked up my first wins against Sweet Annie and the Wolf-Man and the Green Adams boy, that perhaps I was not alone. You roared and blustered your way to the top, and McGinnis was blown away by your focus. But since, you’ve stalled and stagnated. Your reign has been propped up by protective bookers, your record blemished by a string of tag losses. You’d rather sign contracts than defend your belt.”

The picture that she’d painted of Snowmantashi evoked Bella, sitting on her corner of the stage, the music that she’d coaxed out of her cello silenced for the time-being. She looked impotent, a neutered appendage to the orchestra, the rest of the battle still raging around her.

“The Man-Baby’s response to this has been written for him,” she went on, massaging each wrist in turn, loosening up in preparation. “But he can’t hide behind blame for the bookers. Our champion should demand to compete, not be dragged kicking and screaming into each match he graces us with. And, when I prove that this kaiju is in fact just a man, when I hold his prize up before your eyes and your television screens fade to black, you will see that I am a woman of my word.

“Over the Bringer of Light and the Embodiment of Shade… the F’s Bell of the Ball and all of Humanity… whoever is deserving of stepping through my ropes and dancing my dance will get their opportunity. Whether they’re Indy darlings or Puro titans, all will come to pay their tribute and play their part in the rebuilding. But all will fall, and all will fade.”

In January of 2016, in the grand hall of the Lincoln Centre, Bella’s cello spurs into action once more. It drives those around it, the violins steadily falling into its rhythm, fiddle and viola bounding ahead. With it, a pianist awakens for the first time, answering the horns’ march. The trumpets flourish once more, but the harps and the mandolin are quick to subdue them. The drawn out notes of longing have gone from Bella’s music, as if it had been corrupted by the silence. It has made concessions, drawn to the power and the force of the horns and the drums and the mighty roar of their rhythms. The resulting finale is harmonic, truly, for the first time in the piece, building through themes introduced earlier by both sides of the battle. The conductor spirals and struggles to keep to its frightening pace. Its final note, shared by Bella’s cello and her opposite number amongst the ranks of the trumpeters, rings out for an unnatural length of time and the crowd is on its feet. But the two musicians are stifled by their submission. Neither are truly happy. Neither are truly themselves.

In July of 2002, on the front steps of a suburban Rotterdam home, she is joined by her sister. The body-bag left the scene an hour ago, and their mother hadn’t moved away from the table or her bottle. The moon hides behind the clouds as if in shame.

In February of 2015, at exit J5 of the Tokyo Dome, she stares back into the ring at the kaiju. He lifts his belt into the air and the crowd lap it up, though no championship was on the line in the one-sided bout. She rolls a cigarette hastily, her pale, usually-dexterous fingers a bundle of knots as the adrenaline rushes through her extremities. She knows it is time. Time it all began for real.

In February of 2016, in Michelle von Horrowitz’s locker room, a camera stands on its tripod, abandoned and switched off. The room is empty, the roar of the crowd rushing in through thick walls. The handle of the door creaks and then turns, the frame pushed open, a young man in a black CWA staff t-shirt entering. He’s under strict instructions to collect the camera from the locker room of the number one contender and post the footage after the final bell has been rung. Through the open door, Roy Orbison can be heard singing about a candy-coloured clown they call the sandman.

 

[SupineSnake]

Promo history - volume 11.
"Mountain" (February 26th, 2016).
Michelle von Horrowitz def. Enigma (CWA: Adrenaline Rush).​

It wasn’t until she had boarded the train, taking a seat as removed from the rest of the travellers as she could find, that she had chance to properly think about it. Three nights earlier, she had stood in her locker room at Madison Square Garden and told the world to expect change. She had stared at the world heavyweight champion from across the ring and thrown everything she could muster into his path. He’d just kept on getting up, swinging at her in a flurry of limbs and intensity. As she stared up at the lights, the sound of the referee’s hand thudding against the mat drowned out the screams of nineteen thousand people.

The train glided towards Edison NJ, its wheels rolling forwards over the rails, Raritan Bay stretching out towards the Atlantic on her left. Her body was little more than a collection of bumps, bruises, and aches. A constant, dull pain plagued her neck and shoulder, the aftershock of two Hailstorms. A massive top rope superplex had turned her back into a piece of abstract art, purples and blues and blacks swirling against the canvass of her pale skin. Her core throbbed with the memory of the Snowfall. A two hundred and ninety pound Man-Baby landing on you with a moonsault often did that, she’d found. But it was the three-count that hurt the most.

She had sat in her locker room afterwards, unwinding the tape from her wrists and staring idly at the tiles in front of her. Drifting back to the Autumn of 2009, she found herself walking amongst visions of her first championship match. Le Marteau and a fresh-faced Michelle von Horrowitz danced around the ring in Toulouse, the ALF National Championship hanging in the balance. She’d lost that one too, after le Marteau had dropped her on her head with his top rope brainbuster. The referee could’ve counted to a hundred.

That had been her first sniff of gold, and she’d never been able to shake its scent from her nostrils. In truth, this one didn’t hurt any more or any less than Toulouse. The stakes were higher now, and Snowmantashi was already more of a rival than le Marteau ever was, but the feelings of eternal insufficiency that came with defeat were identical. The reaction to failure, though, would be different. In the Autumn of 2009, she had cut her ties and run, looking for another challenge in Germany. She’d never wrestled another match for l’Alliance de Lutte d’France or competed for its National Championship again. Another dance with Snowmantashi lay somewhere in her future, she knew, and this golden belt wouldn’t elude her forever.

From Madison Square Garden she had found a bar, and in that bar she’d found a bottle. The amber liquid had roared down her throat, its music bounding within her chest. She sought comfort from the three-count within its green glass confines. The place was dingy, unstylish, almost empty. It was perfect. She would’ve happily stayed there until closing time (it never closed) if it wasn’t for the entrance of three young men, emboldened by the drink and the adrenaline built by a night at the Garden.

Two of them wore the same Johnny Vegas t-shirt whilst the third, a big bastard with a dirty ginger beard and blackening teeth, was hugged by an XXXL ‘KAIJU’ t-shirt that was too small for him. They played pool and drank cheap beer, their half-coherent, entirely-mundane conversation crashing against the quiet that had previously lain thick in the bar. Every three or four minutes one of them would shout ’HAIL THE CLUB!’ and the other two would guffaw wildly. The barmaid, a frumpish woman with thick-rimmed spectacles and a salmon-pink blouse, regarded them suspiciously as she ran a cloth around the rims of glasses.

It was only a matter of time before they noticed Michelle and, when they did, a formality that they’d approach. The big bastard had walked over with his bottle, taken a large, supposedly impressive gulp of its contents, and told her with the utmost sincerity that Bryant Park under the starlight was breath-taking and that he’d like to show her. She’d laughed in his face, been dismissive, hurt his feelings. The three had childishly chanted ‘KAI-JU’ in retort, much to the chagrin of the barmaid and three old men who sat around a circular table by the door, their sanctum butchered.

The big bastard had returned an hour later, the courage of three more pints of piss-water lager roaring within him. He still had his pool cue in his hand and, through drunken carelessness more than attempted intimidation, he’d thrust it into her face as he slurred something about Bryant Park at night looking like a fairy-tale. She’d swatted the stick away and thrown him through the optics that sat behind the bar, leaving before the barmaid could tell her to.

Michelle had waited in a small, grassed plaza across the street, and sure enough the three of them had followed her out, the big bastard cradling his back and flanked by the smaller two. It had taken them almost half an hour to get sick of the taste of their own blood, gingerly stumbling away into the night as aches seared through their bodies. She had nothing against them specifically. She had even tried to imagine Snowmantashi as she took each one down in turn and found it was useless. One cannot easily picture wrestling a bear when throwing kittens into the river. But slamming her fists into their torsos had proved somewhat cathartic. Every now and then, as the four figures danced in the shadows of tall buildings, people would pass by, ignoring them and skipping onwards towards their destinations.

When the three men had crept away, she took up a seat on a bench adjacent to the scene of her latest, pointless victory. As she lit a cigarette, Michelle von Horrowitz stared up at the pale, crescent moon, which seemed to stare back sadly.

***
​

As the sun set in the background of the picture, the last splinters of a deep red light broke over the landscape. A line of tall, thick trunks stretched upwards to conical formations of branches, naked with winter. They obstructed the view of a long, narrow lake, its surface still and black, and on the ground before them a thin layer of snow had been blemished by many boots. Dead leaves were trodden into the moss and roots. Michelle von Horrowitz sat against the thickest trunk, bare feet turning blue in the cold, a baggy t-shirt and drainpipe jeans - both in mourning black - adorning her body.

“As snow pelts the rock and the wind swirls confusedly, a young girl plants her ice axe into the mountain’s side. The face she climbs is almost vertical. The cold and the altitude conspire to make her head swim. Her senses are as frozen over as the rock-face. The blizzard occupies her entirely. Slowly, with apprehension but also resolve, she lifts the other axe and plants it half a foot above the first, dragging herself another few inches towards the summit. It is close, now; a handful of yards from her grasp, and she can almost feel it. This scene I watched last night, as I stole an hour of elusive sleep, perched on the young girl’s shoulder and waiting for the fall.”

She patted the snow around her with numbed palms, eyes focussed downwards on the white powder shifting between her digits. Only a slither of a segment remained of the sun behind her, the cover of darkness preparing to shield her from the camera’s persistent, penetrating gaze. She stifled a sigh, staring up at the camera with green eyes beleaguered by fatigue and defeat.

“The sky rumbles and roars with thunder, lightning molesting the newly laid snow on lesser peaks below her. She wrenches the lower axe free, but as she drives it into the sheet of ice that sits on the mountain’s face it notches and falls from her grasp. She hangs there, fingers on her free hand stretching impotently towards the ledge, mind focussed only on the plateau she has spent her entire, subconscious existence creeping towards. But it is useless; the solitary pick cannot hold her slender form, its angle lessening until eventually its handle runs parallel to the mountain. Sweat is forming on the girl’s brow in spite of the cold. And then it comes loose, and she falls.

“Her slender body drifts downwards, caught up in the wind like the falling snow but driven by gravity’s inevitability. At the mountain’s feet, the shadows howl into the storm. They stare up at her falling form, sensing her fragility, waiting impatiently for her to cast her skinny body down. The shadows, tulips, they circle like braying jackals, preparing to pounce on the carcass and enjoy their ill-gotten spoils. They sense the time is now. The young girl is prone.”

Standing up, Michelle leant against the trunk and stared into the camera’s eye. A long, violent arc of sunlight clung on, biting into the lake’s surface, its reflection rippling gently with the water’s motions.

“As I watched these images, their meaning struck me with clarity and force, as I’m sure it does all of you. Snowmantashi is our inevitable mountain of a champion, and for the time-being he remains insurmountable. But seasons change, and conditions relax. Five-Star Attraction will not be the last time I plant my axe into the rock, but for now I cannot think of this. The peak is too far away; the storm rages too strongly. The shadows and the braying jackals. These are what I must confront first.”

In the blackening sky, blue stars drifted slowly into focus and began their nightly dance. The scene glowed as it bathed in their pale light. She adjusted her position against the cedar, and as she did a large, purple bruise on the small of her bag ran itself against one of the trunk’s knots. The pain of it rumbled through her body, a cruel reminder of Snowmantashi’s onslaught.

“Next week on Adrenaline Rush, the first of these scavengers approaches. Mr Enigma enters the fray, tulips, and he smells blood in the water. The battle scars of Madison Square Garden are fresh on us both. I cannot - and will not - claim any physical disadvantage. Snowmantashi and I went through a war at Five-Star Attraction, but Mr Enigma and Shade almost killed each other. There is only one difference; he won, and I lost. That brings with it a psychological edge.

“I’m sure that, as I say this, you assume my attitude to be defeatist. That I am making excuses for a loss that hasn’t yet occurred. But I do not give the edge to Enigma. I’m not speaking of the momentum and confidence that comes with a victory, nor am I setting myself up to fail. The edge is mine. To a certain type of person – the only type of person that really matters – failure is nothing but fuel. Edison’s teachers called him an idiot child. Disney’s first editor fired him because he lacked imagination. Newton failed as a farmer before he discovered the force that drags the young girl from the rock-face. I have stood on the brink before, and I stared into it with indifference.”

The last glimmer of sunlight disappeared into the horizon, its glow now distant and subdued. The woman’s image became less clear, her surroundings dimmed. All around, the once silent woodland began to stir, as if heartened by the hidden sun.

“Mr Enigma is a master of mind games, which he plays in search of a psychological advantage. He takes his opponent and, by stalking and whispering and snarling, drives him from comfort. His rhetoric is sculpted with one intention; to infiltrate the nightmares of his adversaries and run with their darkest thoughts. But Enigma must realise one thing, tulips. He will not drag me to the brink next week. He cannot force me to face my shortcomings. I seek them out willingly, and his humbling will bring with it their exorcism.”

 

[SupineSnake]

Promo history - volume 12.
"Eight Years No Change" (March 10th, 2016).
Michelle von Horrowitz def. Drew Connor (CWA: Adrenaline Rush).​

Marseille, France
December 14th, 2007

Stood in her corner of the ring, a tight black t-shirt wrapped around her tiny frame, a seventeen year old Michelle von Horrowitz felt suddenly quite alone. Amongst the fifty or so fans that lined the bleachers in the gymnasium, there were at least two people who knew her name. Franz was there, as he had been at all of her matches. Tonight, she’d even asked Margot to come, more because she’d been threatening to buy a ticket anyway than anything else. Even so, in that small, stuffy room, staring across the huge mat at the man walking down the ramp, it felt as if every pair of eyes was fixed upon her in mistrust.

Her two-strong fan club was situated a few rows behind the ring bell, a quiet anticipation settling upon them. Franz brooded with his trademark confidence. Margot was more apprehensive. She stared solemnly across the ring at the masked man that Michelle was supposed to fight. He was over six feet tall, and easily more than two hundred pounds. Average, for a male wrestler, but standing a few yards away from von Horowitz he seemed a giant.

This was her eighth match for the promotion, the largest regional outfit in Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur, but her first against a man. She’d torn through her first set of female opponents in minutes, the bookers eventually relenting and feeding her this guy. Le Boucher, he called himself, and she could almost smell his seedy smile from beneath his black mask. He had been less than charming on the microphone for weeks, flinging every gender-based insult his second-class mind could generate in her direction and hoping some of it might stick. He lumbered in a cumbersome fashion from left foot to right. He was slow. Unprepared. Complacent.

Before the bell rang, le Boucher thrust his pelvis in her direction three times, eliciting a large round of laughter from the audience. He put his hands on his hips and stared down at his opponent, chuckling to himself at the whole situation. She simply stared back, reminding herself to savour it. To take her time.

When the bell rang, she couldn’t help herself.

He charged in at her, as she knew he would, and she took him down with a drop toe hold, his face slamming against the second turnbuckle. She could still remember the three crunches that resonated as she repeatedly curb-stomped him against the pad. The crowd was silenced, a shocked awe descending on the gymnasium. A thin line of blood spilled out from beneath the man’s mask, and she did him a favour by ripping it off and giving him some air. Throwing the piece of leather into the crowd, she stalked le Boucher from the opposite corner.

Even this early on in her career, she knew that she had made the right decision. Margot had questioned her motives, even her sanity, both before and after she’d witnessed this match. Michelle had offers from universities, in France and England and Germany, but she’d chosen instead to take a few bookings around Marseilles. Her crowds hadn’t yet reached a hundred, but she’d been winning. That was probably more important. When her opponent was up to his feet, she revelled in the sweet sound of his face colliding with her knee, the Busaiku kick sweeping him off his feet.

He’d tapped almost as soon as she’d applied her ankle lock, but she’d held it in anyway, applying a grapevine and wrenching on the joint. As the time ticked on, she leisured in recalling every insult, every slur, every attack on her womanhood. The narrative drifted through le Boucher’s monologues and then, as the grand finale of his hip-thrusts were played back, the bone shifted in her grasp and he screamed in agony.

***
​

Atlantic City, New Jersey, US
March 10th, 2016

Near the Steel Pier, a young couple steps onto the boardwalk. Their arms are linked with the giddiness of a third date, their heads swimming with infatuation. The sun glides into its early afternoon position, the ocean stretching out sheer and immeasurable before them.

On a bench in front of Boardwalk Hall, an old man sits with a newspaper. The front page features a collage of presidential hopefuls, each putting on their best election-smile and waving at nothing in particular. He is immersed in the sports section, unable to tear himself away from a story about his beloved 76ers and their ill-fated visit to the Heat. He sighs and looks over the paper’s edge, watching a young family of tourists pointing at the hall. The father takes a photograph. The mother looks bored.

Traffic stutters and starts down the thirty as people stream in and out of the city. Airplanes lurch into action from AC International Airport, darting towards spots on the other side of the globe. The water of Absecon Bay slowly drifts towards the ocean.

And, in her locker room at the arena, Michelle von Horrowitz sits in front of camera, a small red light willing her to speak.

“Upon the side of a grassy hill, an old pelican surveys the horizon. His feathers have greyed to the point that you can no longer see the divide between white and black. His eyes hang heavily, a sad expression on his pockmarked face. Around him, the predators circle, parading their youth like an insult. The old bird looks on, rooted to the spot, not precisely going backwards but watching the world advance around him, slowly forgetting about his once-relevant existence. This scene was presented to me, my tulips, as I stole an hour of sleep last night.”

Michelle von Horrowitz sits, a tired face staring at the camera. She is alone, naturally, and he legs are folded in front of her, arms resting on her knees. She speaks plainly, composed, as if all she states is fact.

“At the foot of the hill there runs a river, and from it two peacocks emerge. Their feathers are obscenely bright, shimmering in the golden glow that the sun throws out over the land. When they approach their old friend, he walks among them, as if he’s found his place. But it is all lies. They know that they are not the same, and that one is clinging onto days that are still to come for the other two. And ahead the snake pit looms, hidden from sight but never from mind.”

She pauses for a moment, letting her words settle in front of her. Finally, she continues, still unmoving and abstracted, eyes focused on nothing but the lens.

“I want to talk about last week, tulips, and the events of Adrenaline Rush. In my first match since Five-Star Attraction and the defeat to Jon Snowmantashi, Enigma and I had quite the war. A battle worthy, perhaps, of even my respect. But after our match had run its course, two party boy punks decided to hit the ring and lay us both out with super kicks and crotch chops. Bro’ Drew and Bro’ Ethan took it upon themselves to get involved in my business, and this week they have to face up to the consequences of that.

“When this little Indy Club nonsense began, a Clique within the Clique, I had no particular interest in its ambitions or its deeds. The tag division, where The Echo apparently reside, is of little concern to me, so I’ve never cared much for the juvenile actions of the Brothers Connor. McGinnis would get his rematch, no matter what I said or did. He’d lose to Snowmantashi, though, and I’d be knocking on the door the next month. I was ready to let them cut their silly promos and thrust their hips to their heart’s content. But last week, I’m afraid things changed. The peacocks have stumbled into the snake pit.”

She stands from her bench, gently pacing back and forth in front of the camera’s gaze. She is dressed in a baggy, dark green t-shirt, black shorts, boots, and pads on both knees and elbows. In three hours she would compete on Adrenaline Rush again. The week seemed to roll around quicker each time. The bruises on her back and neck, badges of honour from her battle with Snowmantashi, had been built upon by Enigma and the Connors. If this match didn’t seem suddenly so personal she’d be inclined to ignore it entirely.

“The Indy Club, as they so adorably call themselves, have stated vague aims. To hold all the gold. To dominate and control the company. In truth, their ambition is as half-baked as their ability, as has become desperately apparent these past few months. The Moment have prized the prize away from The Echo. Darling Jonathan may have beaten Vegas at Five-Star Attraction, but what does that make it for 2016? One win in five? This banding together of fading stars is not the momentous event they seem to think it is. The world looks back and it yawns.

“When I lost at Five-Star Attraction, tulips, I looked on as this little Club formed around me. I watched as McGinnis arrived on the stage, jumping to the front of the line. Beforehand, I witnessed the Connor brothers, at the time having no clue which one was Drew, laying waste to Johnny Vegas. These are the sorts of actions that I’ve spoken about in the past, tulips. The actions of desperate men, kicking the limp carcass of this organisation along, fuelled by their own base ambitions. Before my match with Snowmantashi, I spoke about saving the CWA from itself… From the tumours that were festering and multiplying from within… And now, we have the Indy Club, the latest and the worst.”

She was sluggish, tired, slow. Her arms weighed her down, the effects of training and lack of sleep lying heavily on her body. She throbbed beneath the pain of a now semi-permanent hangover that had seemingly taken up residence in her skull. Her nights were plagued by terrors, of the mountain and the house, of the bird that eats itself, and of the golden wall stretching out before her. The Connor Brothers were nothing but roadblocks. Impediments. Bait.

“But, as I’ve already said, I would leave them be. The patriarchal structure of the CWA would have to be torn apart, no matter what form that structure took, so it mattered little to me whether Snowmantashi or McGinnis sat on the throne. Until, of course, you boys decided to drag me into your little conquest. A statement of intent, no doubt. But I fear that you haven’t thought too deeply about all of this. Not content with taking the fight to Snowmantashi and the Moment, three worthy adversaries and champions nonetheless, you decide to involve Enigma and myself. These are not the tactics of master strategists. These are deeds of petulant children, lashing out in all directions because their favourite toy has been taken away.

“But this, my tulips, is what the Echo have proven themselves to be time and time again. Even when they were on top, they still spent their lives whining about everything their feeble minds could consider. They weren’t getting the respect that they deserved. They were misunderstood. They were the greatest tag team in CWA history and didn’t get the credit. And now, the belts ripped away from them, the intensity of their bitching is only amplified. Everyone else is blamed for the defeat. The inability to own up to one’s failures is a characteristic of the weak.”

She sat back down on the bench, picking up the roll of tape that sat beside her. Time was wearing on, the battle on the horizon becoming clearer. She began to run the tape around her wrists. The bell was waiting to be rung.

“But tonight, on Adrenaline Rush? Oh, my tulips, Drew Connor will have no choice but to face up to things. I will push his face against the glass, and at long last his eyes will be wide open. His glory days are, as he fears, dead and gone, and all that remains now is this last gasp effort, this Hail Mary, this Indy Club. He is flailing in the wind, digging his heels into the mud and declaring himself still relevant. Tonight, the bell rings, and the facade dies. My hand has been forced, and if I’m compelled to pick a side, I find myself in the correct corner of the ring tonight.”

The Club arrives as abruptly as a tidal wave, crashing over the establishment of the CWA and destroying all in its path, but the water of Absecon Bay still slowly drifts towards the ocean. Planes still leave the airport and cars still choke the roads. The old man still sits on his bench, and his beloved 76rs have still lost. The chaos that the Connors and McGinnis bring to their sport has little effect on the young couple, as they steal a kiss at the end of the pier beneath the late afternoon sun.

The Indy Club kicks out at the world, and the world looks back and yawns.

 

[SupineSnake]

Promo history - volume 13.
"Trust" (March 25th, 2016).
Drew and Ethan Connor def. Michelle von Horrowitz and Enigma [Tag Team Match] (CWA: Adrenaline Rush).​

“For once, tulips, I wish to speak about nothing but reality. I mean this absolutely. A sort of State of the Union address, if you will, for you and your fellow viewers. Times in the Clique Wrestling Alliance are strange indeed. The once silent kingdom is now without rest. The Club runs amok, doing as it pleases with few consequences, its leader demanding a title shot he believes he’s entitled to. Meanwhile, our champion descends from his throne each week to fight lesser champions, which I guess is at least a step up from his part-time role in January. And the contenders circle the king’s castle permanently, as interested in each other as they are the man himself. You can see this with your own eyes.”

The camera is still, a sign of its independence. No cameraman is permitted entrance into her domain. Nobody at all. There is only her, alone with her thoughts and the lens, sat upon the bench with her knees beneath her chin. There are signs of life from without, the suggestion of fans willing on the start of the show with their cheers. She waits impatiently too, her ring-gear donned and her words loaded.

“There will be no shortage of contenders, that much I can say for sure. Obviously, we have Jonathan McGinnis but, if you don’t mind, we’ll save him for later. Then there’s my tag team partner, Enigma, who surely feels he’s owed something for his hard-fought victory over Shade, not to mention his long and storied career in this promotion. Maybe Johnny Vegas is watching on some hospital television, the date of Retribution circled on his calendar. The variations within this field are clear to see, but they do have one thing in common. All three of these men have been pinned or tapped out by me, my tulips. There is nobody in this company more deserving of a title shot than Michelle von Horrowitz. You can see this with your own eyes.

“Darling Jonathan will no doubt tell you a different story. He’ll talk about Wrestle Royale, and his right to a rematch after he was crushed by Snowmantashi. In my eyes, he forfeited that right when I pinned him in two straight weeks. So, he beat Johnny Vegas. Who hasn’t? He thinks that now he has a pair of lackeys flanking him his prestige has been restored. What is it that Snowmantashi said, even before this little Club popped into existence? McGinnis is not the man he was. Or something less grammatically sound. About this our champion is in the right. You can see this with your own eyes.”

Clearly, she begrudges giving Snowmantashi credit for anything, but at least it comes at McGinnis’ expense. She stood from her bench, beginning to pace from side to side, staring down at the floor as her black boots padded gently against the tiles.

“But McGinnis has inserted himself into prominence with his ill-advised antics. Along with his lapdogs, for that is all that the Echo are, Darling Jonathan has involved himself in other people’s business for weeks. It’s fitting that, as our little travelling circus makes its way through the state of New Jersey, Adrenaline Rush has turned into a string of mob-style vignettes, the Club injecting themselves wherever they see fit. Bro’ Drew tries to get involved in Bro’ Ethan’s match with Enigma. Ethan returns the favour when Drew faces me. The Echo are there to write off McGinnis’ match with Lightbringer. And, of course, we see them again after two of our champions have worn themselves down in their own bout. These are not the actions of strong men, though they are so obviously the actions of men. Darling Jonathan continues to bark his orders, the Brothers Connor asking how high. What exactly are the Echo getting out of this? It is hard to imagine, my tulips, that they wouldn’t get their tag title rematch anyway, and either way The Echo versus The Moment will be the second or third match of Retribution. An association with a jaded former champion in rapid decline, both personally and professionally, changes nothing for the Connors.

“Another thing that just doesn’t change is the extent of Drew Connor’s idiocy, and his ready willingness to flaunt it. Last week, he posted some lengthy diatribe about me, and my womanhood, and how much he was going to enjoy destroying me. He went on and on about how it was no concern of his that people thought it wrong for him to hit a woman. It is no concern of mine, either. I willingly signed my CWA contract, and have beaten better men than you every week since I did. But let’s get one thing absolutely clear, Drew; you shouldn’t lay hands on a woman, or at least this woman, because I am your physical superior. He played tough guy and told some story about his old dealing days, no doubt shaking those tail feathers and preparing to measure his penis. I am from the Netherlands. Your drug laws are stupid. I am not impressed by this, or you in general. And what did Drew proceed to do on Adrenaline Rush? Lose, of course. Like they all do.”

She has stopped pacing, and now stares only at the camera as if the Echo are deserving of her full attention. Or, at least, their butchering is.

“I’ve read somewhere that the Echo have the edge in this match-up, because they’re tag team specialists. Tag team specialists are just wrestlers who aren’t good enough to be singles specialists. This is nothing to brag about, tulips. I’m sure that even they feel their long but ultimately doomed title reign entitles them to the status of favourites. And sure, they’re brothers, that’s meant to mean something. I imagine they think the trust - -“

Here, Michelle paused, the final word falling out of her mouth and hitting the floor like broken glass. Her mind was pulled in many directions at once, to Rotterdam and to Berlin, Marseilles and Tokyo. She flew through the downstairs window of her childhood home, a grey terrace in the suburbs of Rotterdam. She watched as a young girl sat alone with her cello, a slightly older girl withdrawn on the stairs with a book on her lap, and her mother sat beneath the kitchen window, a glass of white wine in one hand and a cigarette in the other. The three of them were detached from another, isolated and unconcerned about it. Nothing was being built here except resentment.

She was borne away on the wind, over many leagues to Marseilles, where she had competed in some ball-room against a bearded bald wrestler who called himself Carrow. He was from the North-East of England and lumbered from left foot to right with the grace of a rhinoceros on ice. He had the turning circle of a Boeing 777. She had crushed him in about six minutes and retreated into the locker room, where some crew monkey had handed her a note from Franz. He’d been conspicuous by his absence that evening, but his letter made it clear why. His mother was ill and he had caught the train back to Budapest. She’d died like a selfish bitch three months later and Michelle had never seen him again.

Taken across seas and mountains, she arrived in Tokyo, as she and Iwao sat in the corner of an empty coffee shop. She was twenty three, which made it early 2013, and the two of them occupied their spots gloomily and burdened. They were working for a few independent promotions in the south and west of Honshu, and had faced off for the eleventh and final time just a few weeks before. Michelle had won, which was special for more than just taking her record against him to 4-6-1. It had been a champion versus champion match, after she’d been crowned the Okayama Senshuken Resuringu Regional Heavyweight Champion the month before. Iwao had held the Honshū Puroresu National Heavyweight belt for over a year now, and was cementing himself as the finest wrestler in the province. For once, all was good, at least going into that match.

Afterwards, though, things had gone to shit. HPW was shown all around the island on a number of different regional networks, whilst OCW had just negotiated a deal with a network based in Okayama, starting in the same timeslot as HPW and a natural competitor. The two had received the same chain of correspondences from both companies. First from HPW, who told the talent that they could not compete for any other televised promotions if they wished to keep getting booked on their shows. Three days later, OCW responded with a similar decree of their own, but specifically naming Honshū Puroresu as the forbidden pastures.

HPW was the bigger company, for sure. The two of them had main evented their last sell-out show the month before, which had also featured a strong undercard including Anzu’s homecoming match. But Michelle always had a soft spot for OCW. She and Iwao had spoken longingly of building it up, until it could compete with the biggest promotions in the region, or perhaps even the country. When she’d heard about the deal with Okayama Television, it had seemed like that was finally happening. But now, this. The pair of them agreed that they’d try to negotiate their way out of it, and Michelle had spoken passionately about her desire to side with the underdog. Three days later, she’d heard that he’d packed his bags and left Okayama, signing a new contract with HPW for more money and less fights. She would never see him again either, not in the ring or outside it.

Finally, she was carried back across the Pacific and dropped with a clunk in her locker room. Outside its confines, the Newark fans were screaming for the show to begin. They’d been waiting for hours. She’d been waiting for days.

“I imagine they think the trust they’ve built over the years matters. But it doesn’t. This match means nothing. I have no interest in the Connors, or in their ambitions to hold the gold after Retribution. I am involved with their Club only as a temporary measure, tulips, to climb the ladder of chaos towards Snowmantashi’s throne. I know full well what a competitor Enigma is, and what he can do in the ring. We stole the show in Trenton, and the aches have hung around long after the bruises disappeared. But I trust nobody but myself, and I believe we’ll meet as opponents far more often than we will as partners.

“Tonight, Enigma and I form a partnership of necessity, more than anything. Another win before Retribution will strengthen our respective cases before Richman’s announcement. But it is not a partnership that either of us will enjoy. I’ll be forced to find my enjoyment elsewhere, tulips, and I know just the place. The Connors are two of the most intolerably obnoxious people I’ve ever had the misfortune of meeting. They parade like peacocks, as if this world were theirs, when in reality they sit and wait for the orders of a second-rate has-been. Sure, they spur into action whenever Darling Jonathan decides he doesn’t want another pin-fall loss on his record, but when was the last time they actually won a fair fight? They are a sideshow and sidekicks. Irrelevant. Superfluous. You can see this with your own eyes.”

 

[SupineSnake]

Promo history - volume 14.
"Somebody Else's Plaything" (April 8th, 2016).
Jonathan McGinnis def. Jon Snowmantashi, Harrison Wake, Michelle von Horrowitz, Johnny Vegas, Enigma [Steel Roulette Match, CWA World Heavyweight Championship] (CWA: Retribution).​

As she stepped down from the bus, the familiar image hit her suddenly and with force. The New Orleans Greyhound Station was a vision, and not even in a sentimental, nostalgic sort of way. Anybody that had seen the stations in Atlanta or Omaha or Nashville would agree that New Orleans was like a palace. It was huge for one thing, with large glass windows separating the waiting passengers from their buses and otherworldly yellow lights illuminating the clean, white tiles. In the early morning light it was almost beautiful.

Michelle von Horrowitz waited patiently by the bus, staring at the bags slowly being collected from its innards. With each minute, the façade of beauty began to fade, the smell of the place beginning to hit her along with the realisation that her rucksack wasn’t in the same place that she’d left it back in Newark. The employee panted heavily as he lowered a massive suitcase from the bus, wiping a film of sweat from his forehead as yet another customer refused point-blank to acknowledge his existence. He seemed miserable, but at least he still had his belongings.

Eventually, the emptied bus was empty and reversing out of the station, retiring for the night and heading into hibernation. She watched it with antipathy, the large metallic vestibule almost mocking her as she stared back, impotent and bag-less. With a heavy sigh, she headed into the station and to the amusingly named customer service desk.

The Greyhound staff were on their eternal go-slow protest, taking what seemed like hours to print off tickets and check in bags for the handful of future-passengers ahead of her in the line. Above, the sound of an airplane could be heard, dropping its cargo off quickly and luxuriously in Louis Armstrong Airport. She resented them for their willingness to pay ten times as much for the same journey, as well as their acceptance that a metal box could safely fly thousands of feet above the earth’s surface. She fucking hated airplanes.

“Can I help you, mam?” the employee said over her spectacles as Michelle approached the desk. She was middle-aged and overweight and miserable, with hair that seemed to be painted onto her sweaty head and a name-tag that read ‘BERYL’.

“You’ve lost my bag,” Michelle responded, rubbing a few granules of sleep from her eyes and tapping the surface of the desk with her free hand.

“Mam, I haven’t lost your bag,” Beryl answered. She didn’t do anything.

“Well,” von Horrowitz started, doing her best to stifle a large and accusatory exhalation of breath. “The Greyhound Bus Company has lost my bag.”

She handed over the baggage tag she’d been given in Newark and waited patiently. Beryl didn’t say a word, she just tapped lethargically at the keyboard, thinking very carefully about each motion before she saw it through. Michelle tapped the floor with the soul of her boot impatiently. She was beginning to regret her impromptu trip home (she used that word in the loosest possible sense). Over twenty four hours of bus travel seemed to lie heavily upon her body, and her four-hour layover at the Atlanta station had been an experience she would never forget. The last time she’d seen her bag was in New Jersey, and she was about ready to accept it had been lost to the ether.

“Your bag is in Richmond, Virginia, mam,” Beryl said rather suddenly, snapping Michelle out of her malaise. “It was taken off the bus by mistake. I can have it forwarded here for you?”

“No,” Michelle said quickly. The idea of waiting here for days on end, with all the familiar sights and familiar people – along with the promise of another conversation with Beryl on the horizon – was too much for her. “Send it to Boston. I’ll meet it there.”

Beryl lowered her glasses even further. They seemed to defy gravity on the end of her nose.

“Mam, do you think that’s as easy as you just commanding it?” she said, her voice dripping with open disdain for Michelle and every other lowlife that caught buses from her station. “If you take a seat, I’ll try and sort that for you, mam. It shouldn’t take too long.”

After two hours, Michelle was ready for a drink. After four, she had finally been dismissed from the station with nothing but a slightly-unbelievable promise that her bag would be waiting for her in Massachussets. After five, she’d managed to find some old, ill-fitting ring gear in a corner of her sparsely decorated apartment. It was bright green with white lightning bolts stitched down the side of each thigh. The image of it filled her mind as she walked from her place to Larry’s, the worst and therefore the best bar in all of Louisiana. Her hands were forced into her pockets, her eyes directed towards the paving stones in an attempt to avoid staring at her dilapidated surroundings. This place was down-trodden… depressing… She couldn’t remember why she’d come back in the first place.

As she walked, a picture of herself gradually occupied her mind. She was wearing the offensive ring gear she had just managed to dig out a trunk; lime green shorts, boots of the same colour, black pads for the elbows and knees, and a tight-fitting black t-shirt with ‘NOW’ stitched on it in green lettering. She had worn that garb in Japan, during the early years of her travels there. In 2010, she had stood in the Osaka Dome, staring across the ring at three men, all of whom were dressed in plain black trunks. She was a bright green blaze against the monochrome monotony, and she felt ridiculous.

That night she had lost, as she often did in her early years in Japan. She had thrown herself over the top rope whilst Toshiro Matsui, Hideo Suzuki, and Koji Kagawa had traded blows on the outside, only for them to disperse and the hard concrete to rise up and meet her at an alarming pace. She could still hear the dull thud as it collided with the back of her head, and the shocked gasps of the audience. That was it for Michelle von Horrowitz that night. It was her own fault for trying to put on a show.

The first Jameson’s seemed to slip down her throat without touching the sides, and she sent the second in after it to check if it was alright. As the amber liquid started to have the desired effect, she found herself pulled back to Japan again, to the Osaka Dome and the Fatal 4-Way match. Koji had won that night, she remembered. He was a veteran, and had been knocking on the door for a National Championship match for years now. He had paid his dues and deserved it, they’d said. It didn’t make it any easier, watching from the outside and clutching her head as he covered Hideo for the three. It never was.

She’d spent a substantial part of her career watching from the outside as other people recorded a victory. Last week she’d done the same, watching as the Connors descended on a lonely Enigma and turned him into their play thing. It had happened on a monthly basis back in Japan. Hell, it had happened today, as the eternally damnable Greyhound Bus Company had stolen away her bag in the middle of the night. Back in the Netherlands and in Marseilles, she’d watched on as her life took shape around her, other people sticking their meddling fingers into the narrative to shape it. She found herself wondering exactly when her agency had deserted her.

The fourth and fifth Jameson’s were even better than the first three, although they couldn’t stave off the memories. The future didn’t promise to be any different. A Steel Roulette match, they were calling it. Five men and her, all vying for the same prize. The format was different, sure; an elimination match meant that she’d have to be beaten outright, not left to suffer and watch on as others decided the outcome. But she imagined herself, sitting in her pod and observing Snowmantashi or Vegas or McGinnis, and all of the memories flooded back to her. Mother taking Bella to Berlin and leaving her with Aunt Maude. Iwao taking his contract with the biggest promotion in Honshu without even consulting her, leaving her to stew in the independents for another pair of years. Franz departing from Marseilles to spend time with his dying mother. Koji pinning Hideo and moving on to his title match. Harrison Wake pinning Elijah Edwards in their Triple Threat as she desperately, unsuccessfully tried to break it up. The Connor brothers picking Enigma apart. Her bag abandoned and lonely in Richmond. The list went on.

She had no say in any of these things. Why should Retribution be any different?

As the eleventh glass of amber was placed down in front of her, she began to notice a group of men sitting in the corner by the window, half-empty glasses of piss-water lager in front of them. They were staring across at her as groups of men often did, either through lechery or recognition. It was always a toss of a coin, really, whether they wanted to fuck her or fight her. Even if it was the former, she’d insist on the latter.

“Michelle von Horrowitz, as I live and breathe,” one of them began, the biggest and ugliest of the bunch. He had stumbled over as she was working through Amber #13, the effects of intoxication and his own intellectual deficiencies plain on his face, and placed the palms of both hands next to her on the bar. She waited patiently for the follow-up but, of course, he had planned no further ahead than this.

“Yes?” she asked without looking at him, signalling to the barman – not Larry, as far as she could tell nobody by that name actually worked at Larry’s Bar – to bring over another drink. He placed it down next to her empty glass, a few useless ice cubes left within it.

“Me and my comrades in the corner would like to politely request your magnanimous presence this evening,” he said, thinking about each word carefully and deliberately, as if reading from a script. In the corner, the rest of his coven watched on hopefully. She sighed heavily and took a sip from the fresh glass.

“Not if you were the last men in New Orleans,” she said, placing the glass back on the bar and staring around the empty room. “Which it seems that you might just be. But I’m a woman of my word.”

She stared at the man’s face, which was mostly obscured by a beard, bits of food and foam hanging from the follicles. He looked wounded, like a dog being left at the kennels. He simply asked why?

“Well,” she began, looking into his small, beady eyes so he could read nothing into her countenance but honesty. “I have no interest in hearing what you have to say. About anything. Ever.”

There were a few moments of silence, during which the barman stared at the pair whilst wiping the remnants of lager from a tall glass. Michelle could almost hear the mechanical cogs rotating in the troglodyte’s head, a look of dejection beginning to take hold on his unremarkable face. Eventually, he lumbered forward, stumbling through an utterance of now wait just a moment missy and placing a massive, sweaty palm on her shoulder.

From there, things seemed to progress in a blur of sound and vision. She picked up one of the glasses – unfortunately the full one, wasting good whiskey in the process – and slammed it with full force against the man’s temple. The shards and the amber flew across the bar, almost in slow motion, a thousand tiny fragments of glass propelling themselves into walls on the other side of the room. A few moments later, the guy hit the floor, and already the barman was on the phone. They were on the scene only moments later, Michelle waiting patiently on her stool as they arrived in a torrent of blue lights and deafening sirens. There was no point leaving, really. The bar staff knew who she was and she’d only be delaying the inevitable.

When she arrived at the station, they seemed almost surprised that she had no possessions other than her ID, three cigarettes, and a few crumpled bank notes. They put her in a cell, alone, the battle-cries of the other caged beasts permeating her walls and bastardising the comfortable solitude. The walls were plain, thick, inevitable. There were no windows. No hint that the world continued outside of this cell. She had to assume that it did, despite her best wishes.

She took a seat on the bed, her head propped against the wall behind her and her hands folded on her lap. Retribution was hurtling towards her as suddenly as the floor in the Osaka Dome, and she felt equally unprepared for its impact. One of six, all gunning for the same prize, all attempting to make their own impact on a structure that had its own ideas. And here she was again, out of luck and down and out because some other fucker had different ideas for how her evening should turn out.

When she woke, a familiar face was standing at the door. Officer James Parish – no, Sergeant James Parish, now. He looked at her knowingly, partly in admonishment but mostly in acceptance. She had known him for over a year now, since she first took up residence in his city, but it’d been a handful of months since she’d seen him last. Not since before her CWA debut, at least. His face looked the same, just a little older and a little more tired.

“You still check for my name on the night sheet?” She asked, standing up from the bed and moving towards the door. She was still dressed in the same clothes as the night before; black skinny jeans and a baggy red shirt. Parish looked formal in his uniform.

“Every morning,” he said, with a sigh. Parish was the sort of man who enjoyed looking out for a woman, and then letting her know how much of a ball-ache it was. He moved out of the way of the open door and let her walk ahead, towards the familiar back exit. He was silent for the most part, handing over her belongings at the door and unlocking it lethargically, as if it were becoming more and more of a chore each time. She walked out into the pale morning light and lit a cigarette.

“Thanks,” she said, turning back to him and taking a long, rewarding drag.

“You know, Michelle,” he started in his best fatherly tone. “A bar fight, I can deal with. That can disappear in an instant. But you’re AWOL for months and then you come back to glass a guy? Why are you even here?”

There was more accusation in his tone than usual. She stared at him without response, sucking at the filter of her cigarette and blowing thick plumes of smoke up at the sun.

“You know why you’re here right, at the station?” He went on, hands in his pocket as if he didn’t enjoy dispensing this advice. He did enjoy it, obviously. “You’re here because you can’t help yourself. You can blame that man, but he’s not the first and he won’t be the last, will he? You’re here because you do your best to fuck things up for yourself.”

Still no reply.

“I’ve read about this Steel Roulette thing. ’The biggest match of her career’, the article said. And less than week before it you’re throwing whiskey at some punk in some dive bar?”

Silence.

“You let these people rile you, and when you hit back you’re only lashing out at yourself. You’re somebody else’s plaything, Michelle. And you can complain about that all you like, but I know that you love it. It gives you an excuse when you fail.”

She just stared into his tired, old eyes. Her cigarette was finished. She flicked it onto the tarmac of the parking lot. Parish shook his head, exhaling through his nose, a wordless acceptance that all he had were words and they weren’t going to be enough.

“When do you go to Boston?” he asked, giving up on his lecture. Michelle turned away from him and began to walk towards the Greyhound station, her mind already made up. She didn’t look back as she answered.

“Now.”

***​

“At the start of 1941, things were going rather swimmingly for Mr Hitler,” she began, somewhat out of the blue. She stood alone, as you might expect, within her plain locker room. She spoke slowly and with purpose, the scene entirely stationary for the duration of her monologue but for the deliberate, methodical movements of her lips. This was no time for frills. No extravagant, metaphorical orchestras or sunsets by way of foreshadowing. All she needed was her voice.

“I will elaborate, as I’m aware of the standard of public education in your country and thus the state of your personal grasp of history. Mr Hitler was progressing nicely through Central Europe, his domain now encompassing Belgium, Austria, Poland… the list goes on. Even my own home country of the Netherlands was occupied by his men. His borders ran from the large swathes of French land he’d captured, all the way to Stalin’s Soviet Union. He’d made many enemies, but friends still existed. In the south was Mr Mussolini, and in the Far East Emperor Hirohito was poised to enter the fray. Mr Hitler knew the importance of such men, even if he didn’t care for their characteristics. What he underestimated was the benefits of neutrality.

“You see, closer to home, Mr Stalin and his red army had pledged non-aggression with the Germans. The three people in this country with even a vague understanding of politics and international relations will know that this wouldn’t have been easy for either leader, what with the inherent contradictions of a Fascist-Communist agreement, but it was a necessary evil. Without the reds involved, Mr Hitler was free to run rough-shot over the rest of Europe, planting his flag in whichever bit of land he liked that day.

“But then came Operation Barbarossa, and German boots roared over almost three thousand kilometres of Soviet border. But Mr Hitler wasn’t prepared for the war of attrition that Mr Stalin inflicted on them, and in time he was beaten back. And that isn’t even the biggest flaw in the plan. With the Soviets’ hand forced, they entered the wider war on the side of the Allies. Germany were slowly stretched over too much disputed land, distracted them from their efforts in the West and obliging them to fight upon two fronts. In time – and it did take time – he was defeated, and Barbarossa’s shadow lay over his grave.”

Here, she allowed herself a brief pause, but sudden movement was still unnecessary. She slowly adjusted her elbow pads slightly, pulling the black material into position over the joint.

“Lessons are learned not from the successes of history, tulips, but from the mistakes. Take the month leading up to Five Star Attraction, for example. When I was embroiled in war with Jon Snowmantashi, desperate to prize his prize away from him, you did not see me debasing myself by throwing stones at the minnows. When I faced Jonathan McGinnis, Bell Connelly, Johnny Vegas… I simply defeated them and moved on. Only with the champion did I set off fuses. But when it was time for McGinnis to cash in his re-match clause? His vision became blurred, obscured by a latent sense of injustice and a tantrum thrown in repeated failure. He has lashed out in every direction at once, and now? He finds himself surrounded.

“Now, don’t get over-excited and start shouting ‘Goodwin’ at me – I am not comparing Jonathan McGinnis to Adolf Hitler, though I guess it’s nice for the Darling to have aspirations. But at Retribution, Jonathan could have quite easily been staring across the ring at Snowmantashi, without a care in the world for the rest of the arena. Now? There are four others he must stare at too, each with their own ambitions and their own grievances with the Darling. He does not have eyes in the back of his head, and – with a fence of steel between us and them – he does not have his pathetic little club either.”

She was dressed differently, lime green trunks and boots an unusual dash of colour. She felt uncomfortable with it, as if she was highlighting herself, emerging from the crowd to be picked off. Usually, she blended in, like at the Wrestle Royale, preparing to seize a chance when it presented itself. Things were different, now. Everybody knew Michelle von Horrowitz, for one thing. The background was no longer open to her.

“In one direction, we have Harrison Wake. Finally, some might say, Tough Guy Harrison has been given the nod and is stepping up to the adult’s table. His achievements in lesser battles are the only supporting evidence. An unsuccessful match for a mid-card championship. First runner up at the Wrestle Royale. These losses are not things to be proud of. The Backwoods Badass, as he so hilariously calls himself, will no doubt be telling everyone that he has beaten me before, in some Triple Threat match. This is technically correct, but only a thin slither of the truth. Unable to defeat me, Wake pinned somebody else – Eleanor Woods? No… Eli Ward? No… It’ll come to me later. And then, later in the night, when it really mattered, Tough Guy Harrison found himself staring up at me, the winner of the 2015 Wrestle Royale, from outside the ring.

“After Wake is Enigma, a man I once regarded with something vaguely close to respect. I look back on our match together as a war, but a war from which I emerged victorious nonetheless. But last week on Adrenaline Rush? Enigma was personally and wholly responsible for scarring my record. Thanks to the endlessness of his ineptitude, the Brothers Connor can now claim a victory over Michelle von Horrowitz. I find this unacceptable, and he is now less than nothing to me.

“Finally, there’s Johnny Vegas, another man that I’ve beaten. We can excuse the fact that Johnny-boy has been MIA for the last month, can’t we? He’s been injured, viciously assaulted, et cetera. We can excuse the fact that in his last match he lost to Darling Jonathan, can’t we? McGinnis is one of the best in the world, et cetera. We can excuse the fact that in the match before that he lost to me, can’t we? I’m the best in the world, et cetera. We can excuse the fact that in the match before that he looked on impotently as I pinned McGinnis again, can’t we? It’s a tag match and he was on the winning team, et cetera. But the excuses run out eventually, Johnny-boy, and you’ll find yourself asking when these anomalies begin to become the trend.

“So, some standard of competition, yes? You might even begin to feel for Darling Jonathan, if only he wasn’t such a colossal, gaping ass. Have any of them even won a match cleanly since Five Star Attraction? But, the thing is, you can include the Darling in that question and get exactly the same answer. There is only one person in this match that can feel hard done by Richman’s announcement, and she’s speaking to you now. Nobody in this company is as consistent as me, as good as me, or as deserving of a one-on-one championship match as me. Tonight should be Snowmantashi versus von Horrowitz II. You all know it. Harrison Wake, Enigma, and Johnny Vegas know it. And, deep down, McGinnis knows it, too.”

She allowed these words to settle in a moment of silence. They felt important.

“But, in spite of Richman’s bizarre decision, the world will get the match it wants eventually. When these four pretenders lie vanquished and sorry, the true re-match will take place. Only one man in the CWA can claim to have beaten me, fair and square. Only one man can say he has pinned me. That man happens to be the one I must go through to start the dream I have for this company. I know it must be that way, Jon. I think that you do, too. I think that you would agree that you underestimated me before Five Star Attraction, and that’s probably true in reverse as well. Now I know what I know. I have already said that lessons are to be learned from the mistakes of history. Tonight, we’ll find out how true that is.

“I want to finish with a history more recent. There is a reason, my tulips, that I have main evented every single pay-per-view that I’ve been a part of in CWA. This is not new ground for me, nor has it been even before I walked through that door and broke Little Annie’s ankle in two. I am used to the occasion. What is new is only superficial. Four glass pods and a steel fence. These are not important things. The music that begins with a bell rang three times is the same in any auditorium, in any ring, in any match. It is fitting that tonight we hear the song at Retribution. But the five of you should not fool yourself that the retribution will be yours, gentlemen. It belongs only to me, and the wounds of Madison Square Garden will begin to heal tonight.”

 

[SupineSnake]

Promo history - volume 15.
"Deluge" (April 20th, 2016).
Michelle von Horrowitz def. Harrison Wake (CWA: Adrenaline Rush).​

Karasu Resuringusukūru, Tokyo, Japan.
4th October, 2012.

She stood beneath the entrance, set back from the main road by a narrow alley and a short flight of steps, thin strands of smoke ascending into the Tokyo air from her tightly-packed cigarette. A few metres away, vibrant advertisements lined tall buildings, shining down upon the streets and giving them an unnatural, electric glow. Her alley, though, was hewn in dull browns and shades of grey, but for the argon-blue light that read ’GYM’ above the door and the handful of colourful A4 sheets that had been fly-posted next to it.

Amongst them, Michelle noticed the familiar sight of the official poster for her upcoming HPW show at the Nagoya Dome. The small, yellow sheet had followed her everywhere, through Metro stations and libraries and wrestling gyms, to the point where she could describe each pixel of it from memory. The most dominating feature was the figure of Osuushi, a three hundred and fifty pound mountain of a man, all rage and theatrics in his stock photograph. He roared down the lens, fists lifted as if the camera-man was about to pounce, eyes ablaze with a wild wrath. His championship belt – dwarfed by the sheer size of the man – hung proudly on his right shoulder. He was Osuushi, or The Bull, and he was a serious man.

Across from him stood a twenty-two year old woman, dressed immaculately in almost-entirely black ring gear, pulling her best uninterested pose with arms folded, an affectation of apathy upon her face. Her hair was cut neatly above her shoulders, blonde roots giving way to dyed green ends, the same colour as her bright, piercing eyes. The letters MVH were stitched onto her tight, black shirt in green thread. Beneath the pair, Japanese lettering hyped The Bull vs. Michelle von Horrowitz for the Honshū Puroresu Television Championship. The date was a cruel reminder. She had twelve days and she wasn’t even slightly prepared.

Michelle flicked her cigarette towards a drain and took one last deep breath of the clean, evening air. Inside, six men waited with the same impatience as the rest of the city.

Forty minutes passed, during which she’d already rolled around the mat with the brawler and the technician. Now it was the grappler, a giant lug of a man standing at six and a half feet tall. He wore a baggy t-shirt to conceal the mounds of fat and muscle that ran unregimented around his torso, tribal tattoos sketched upon his biceps and hands. His hair was a tangle of sweat and knots, and when they came together the smell of him was like a high impact move all on its own. He staggered forward, lumbering from left foot to right, and the small woman slid through his legs, pushing his hulking form towards the turnbuckles. He grasped the ropes to keep his feet and she was on him in an instant, clubbing the small of his back with her forearm. She rolled him up in a schoolboy and the referee was down in an instant, his palm slapping the mat twice before the big guy drove his shoulder up.

The brawler had been a similar size but leaner, tight skin wrapped around bulging muscle, quick as a dart but with enough power to make it count when he caught you. He’d knocked the air out of her more than once, his hammer-like fists raining down on her like a storm, cornering her against the turnbuckle and driving knees, elbows, and forearms into her torso. The technician had looked to wear her down. As soon as he’d caught her once he refused to let her go, dragging her down to the mat, tearing and gnawing at her joints, working them loose like an engineer at a machine. And now there was the grappler, throwing her around the ring like a rag doll, clumsy suplexes and stiff power slams painting her back with bruises.

He came at her again, taking her in a bear hug, squeezing the oxygen out of her lungs with his trunk-like arms. She took the point of her elbow and slammed it against his head, the hold loosening for just enough time for Michelle to throw a forearm into his jaw. The brawler stumbled backwards, a couple of metres of separation forming between them. She roared at him with a Busaiku Knee Kick, the big man crumbling into a heap on the deck. He rolled onto his front and she wrapped up his legs around hers, pulling his chest away from the mat with his arms, before slamming him face-first into it with a curb stomp. The referee counted the three, which incidentally was the number of the big man’s teeth that had spilled onto the canvas.

She took her seat on the stool they’d set up for her in a corner, her body a chorus of screams and aches. The big man was sliding beneath the bottom rope, his haggard trainer helping him to his place on a bench alongside the other two fallen giants. Iwao Karasu climbed onto the apron next to Michelle, a towel draped over his shoulder, staring beyond her at the three men sucking oxygen the other side of the ring. Iwao had agreed to help ready her for Osuushi, despite his own preparations for a number one contender match at the same show. They’d grown close over the years. Beating the shit out of each other for forty-five minutes every now and then did that for a relationship.

“These are the best three you have?” she asked, taking a long, laboured pull at the water bottle. She’d expected this to take twice as long.

“The best three willing to work at this time,” Iwao said, watching his head trainer patch up the three journeymen he’d assembled. Above them, the slender hands on the clock drove on towards midnight. “If you’d only train in the morning like a normal person we could get you some proper competition. These bums won’t prepare you for Osuushi.”

“Maybe later. These’ll have to do for now,” she said, standing up from her stool and loosening her shoulders for another round. “Get them up, I want to go again.”

“Maybe you do,” Iwao replied, glancing at her opponents. The brawler was sat on the floor, his back propped up against the wall and his head between his knees. The technician’s tight muscles were being massaged by the aging trainer. The grappler had a large ice pack pressed against his face. “I’m not so sure about them.”

She had felt more than their body’s bruising beneath her blows. Their pride was hurt too. “They want to go again.”

***​

Caledisi Island State Park, Dunedin, Florida, USA.
17th April, 2016.

“Last night I dreamt of a family, and a village. These things came to me as I slept, vivid and clear, as real as anything I see now. I would like you to listen carefully. You see, my tulips, these images are not for nothing; they are messages, and they do not lie.”

The scene is dark, a red glow visible on the horizon, the light a promise of coming sunrise. Michelle von Horrowitz sits upon a beach, feet in the white sand, the sea stretching immeasurably before her. The last, dying efforts of the pale moonlight dance across its surface, stars fading into the blue morning’s sky high above.

“Beneath the Spring light, the villagers would build their houses and plant their gardens deep within a crevice of a mountain, the Sun shining on their backs as they work. The settlement grows up around them, a living being in its own right, bathing in the morning glow as it rears up under its own weight for the first time. A mother and her daughter watch as their home breathes, and unfolds, and grows, the intricate work of their people building up the city until it reaches out to touch the sky itself. And then comes the deluge.”

The camera watches on over Michelle’s shoulder, the clear sky unremarkably blue, kissed by the suggestion of sunlight that peers over the horizon. The sea is calm, folding over itself with the rhythms of the tide. The shore stretches towards us, each gentle wave reaching out a few centimetres further than the last, sinking into the dry sand as it relentlessly marches on.

“The winter arrives, and the villagers retreat into the higher reaches of the mountain. Our young hero watches on from within her mother’s arms, the cruel waves marching into their corner of the world and tearing at the foundations of the city. Their lives had been lonely, their toil long and their burden heavy, but they had been building something. It was their own vision. Their own. But nature has other ideas, and they watch as the water comes to wash the paint from the canvas.

“After the deluge, the villagers climb down into their canyon once more to survey the damage. They see the destruction not as a setback, but a clean slate. When they start to build again, the old designs are humble and modest in comparison to the glory they have planned now.”

There are a few other souls on the beach, but it is vast enough and early enough for them to pass by one another like boats in the night. A man walks his dog in the shadow of the southern cliff. A young couple recline on a beach towel a hundred metres upland, a dozen or so empty beer cans discarded around them. They are only interested in themselves, in their morning, their latest sunrise. Michelle felt alone, stranded and insignificant beneath the fading stars.

“At Retribution, I was pinned by Jon Snowmantashi again. The memory of Five-Star Attraction was already raw, and the KAIJU ripped open the wound in Boston. I am acceptant that, for now, McGinnis and Snowmantashi must be left to finish their battle. Eventually, these wounds will need to be answered for, and I know that I must take this up with the Man-Baby himself, regardless of whether the championship belt sits upon his sweaty, disgusting shoulder. But the deluge has just destroyed weeks of work, and I must go down into the breach to rebuild before I dance in the pale lights with Snowmantashi again.

“And so, my tulips, the endless march of the CWA travelling circus brings us to Flordia, where I must once more climb into the ring with the Backwoods Badass. You see, Tough Guy Harrison and I have something of a history – he was present for my greatest victory, as well as my first and last defeat. He pinned Elijah Woods during our Triple Threat match, putting him next in line for a High Voltage Championship shot, and just last week he fought on with the Man-Baby and Darling Jonathan after I’d been eliminated. Harrison Wake has watched me fail, twice.”

A brief pause. The day is beginning to take over, a fresh promise warding off the oppressive night. An early morning breeze rolls in across the sea front, a respite from the dry, humid air that will only get worse with the day. A thin fog hangs out to sea.

“It’s also true, my tulips, that Harrison was the last to fall during my successful Wrestle Royale effort, but these are now just historical footnotes. People like Elijah Edwards are right to point out that my momentum has stalled since that night. I’ve had just two truly important matches since then, and in both my night was finished by the KAIJU. Winning on Adrenaline Rush each week does not satisfy my hunger. But I’d remind you, whilst this is true of me, Harrison Wake finds himself within a glass house with a useless pile of stones sitting next to him.

“Whilst I was putting on match-of-the-God-damn-year with Jon Snowmantashi in New York City, Tough Guy Harrison was demoted to the side-lines by Elijah Edwards and Craig Owens, impotent in his attempts to break up Double E’s championship-winning submission. Since then? Whilst I’ve been dealing with The Echo, refusing to let them get in the way of my head of steam, Wake has allowed each of his matches to be disrupted by Darling Jonathan. He couldn’t even get to the opening bell with Shade, and he’s lucky McGinnis saved him a pin-fall loss by getting himself disqualified. But it’s his contest with Dustin Dreamer that reveals most about Tough Guy Harrison. With victory in his sights, he allows rage to cloud his vision, and he chooses to pander to his bloodlust rather than concentrate on the result. These are the actions of a weak, stupid man. They should not be rewarded.”

Behind her, the city is beginning to wake up, and birds can be heard in the distance beginning their morning song. In the background of the shot, a boat is visible through the fog, sailing past the bay and towards the docks. Buoys slowly bob above the surface, listlessly following the whims of the sea. The day is new. The slate is clean, ready to be drawn upon again.

“This week, Harrison Wake and I will battle one-on-one for the first time, and I am glad that it is him. He has often been compared to the KAIJU. The similarities are plain for all to see. His heavy strikes are like a beating war drum. His focus is relentless. He is a force of nature in his own right. But he is not Jon Snowmantashi. He is merely like Jon Snowmantashi. He is preparation. Harrison, do not think of yourself as the deluge. You are not the destructive force that wipes clean the work that I have done. You are only the rebuilding, and the day is new.”

 

[SupineSnake]

Promo history - volume 16.
"Twenty Four Hours in Orlando" (May 5th, 2016).
Michelle von Horrowitz def. Dustin Dreamer (CWA: Adrenaline Rush).​

The bar rested on her shoulders, the chromed steel cold even through the thick, baggy t-shirt that covered them. A film of sweat was quickly building on her back, pinning the black material to her skin. Once more, she slowly squatted toward the ground, her back straight and her thighs burning. In the corner of her eye she saw three men standing in a huddle, sneaking glances at her, counting the one hundred and twenty kilograms that rested across her shoulders. She cleared her mind of the distraction. The gym was a solitary experience for her, a time for reflection as much as training. She stared only at the wall. She thought only about Harrison Wake.

Her neck was still stiff, from what seemed to be well over a hundred headbutts and a piledriver on the ring steps. She hadn’t been able to work for three days, and should probably still be taking it easy now, but another match was already on the horizon. The injuries to her back were mostly her own doing rather than Wake’s, the obvious outcome of a botched elbow drop through the announcers’ table. Her arms ached from holding them in front of her face as Wake wailed away at her. Her brain throbbed, memories of forearm smashes and lariats (not to mention the headbutts and the pilderiver) refusing to dissipate. This is what going life and death for fifty minutes with Harrison Wake the week after a Steel Roulette match will do to a person.

Yet here she was, three more squats to go, sucking in oxygen, her eyes wide open but registering nothing more than a notice pinned up in front of her. Please put weights back after use. Her mind was occupied, playing back the final moments of her match with Wake. The failed elbow drop, the failed 450 Splash. She’d been lucky when Wake nailed her with a superkick, the referee still unconscious thanks to her Busaiku Knee Kick and his Throatbuster. The match was riddled with her mistakes, and she almost felt that a loss would’ve been deserved.

She hated this sort of training, but for a woman her size it was important to work on strength, and thankfully – as she had no interest in bulk - this type of workout was infrequent. Her ring-style was constructed so that her power was only needed in short bursts, for the odd suplex or the Psycho Driver. These squats were for her Burning Hammer, mostly, though she had found no use for her last resort finisher in the CWA so far. She imagined – or hoped, perhaps knew – that she would find herself in the ring with Wake again, and it was important to be prepared. It had taken everything to beat him on Adrenaline Rush, perhaps she’d finally have to dust off the Hammer again soon.

Her mind raced back, trying to pinpoint a match that had driven as much life out of her in one fell blow. Osuushi, maybe. When she’d tied it up with The Bull (雄牛) in 2012 at the Nagoya Dome, the three-hundred pound man had run right through her with more than a hundred kicks and what felt like a thousand chops. It was a different sort of match to the one with Wake – shorter and slower, owing to the deliberate tone and pace that The Bull had inflicted on it – but the effects on her muscles had been the same.

It hadn’t been the one fight in the Nagoya Dome that had aged her in 2002, but rather the weeks surrounding it. There was the ‘FIRST BATTLE (初陣)’ show in Yokohama, during which she’d lost to Toshiro Matsui, the Nagoya opponent of her oldest friend Iwao Karasu. Matsui had liked headbutts, too, wearing them as some sort of self-damaging badge of honour. Iwao was meant to wrestle the Bull that same night, and then the four of them would have a tag team match at the ‘SECOND BATTLE (第二の戦い)’ show in Shizouka. Finally, the road lead to Nagoya and ‘FINAL BATTLE (最後の戦い)’, where she’d find herself alone in the ring with The Bull at last. At least, that’s how it was meant to go.

When The Bull had walked out in Yokohama, the first of three bouts on the week’s tour, he had no interest in warm-up matches. He bruised five of Iwao’s ribs, cracked three more, and placed a break in his ulna, another in his humerus, and two in his radius with an arm bar. If the big man had wanted to send a message, it had come through loud and clear. If he’d just operated in the heat of the moment – well, that was a message all of its own. Iwao had pulled out of their tag match, obviously, and she’d had to draft Anzu in as a replacement. She still owed her that favour.

She placed the bar back on its notches, relieving her shoulders of its weight. Closing her eyes, she tried to force the memories of Harrison and The Bull away from her. Now wasn’t the time for reminiscences. She had another match, another opponent; Dustin Dreamer, the number one contender to Lightbringer’s High Voltage Championship. A dangerous man in his own right, having won the Lower-Card-Battle-Royale at Retribution. He was more King of the Foothills than King of the Mountain, but at least the lad had won at the event. That was more than she could claim, at least.

And through it all, visions of Wake and Dreamer and Osuushi, the large form of John Snowmantashi danced clumsily. The only man to have pinned her in this company, and he’d done it twice. Dustin and Harrison suddenly felt like stops on the tour towards another 最後の戦い.

***​

She hadn’t received hostility like this for a while, and as the Orlando crowd – no more than two thousand, for a change – rained down the hatred upon her she felt the whole experience refreshing. It was like being greeted by an old friend.

You couldn’t blame them, really; she’d just taken six minutes to beat some stalwart from the local shit-stain promotion that used this hall twice a month. He was from the city, working some surfer gimmick that went some way to hide the fact that had a bit of talent buried down deep. He was surprisingly swift when it came to chain wrestling, and two or three times in the early throws she’d found herself in a rear waist lock or hammerlock that she didn’t see coming.

Class showed through, though, and soon enough the kid was on his back following a Busaiku Knee Kick. She’d dragged him up by his hair and, slender thing that he was, hoisting him up for the Psycho Driver had been relatively straightforward. A four-fifty and a three followed, and then came the boos.

Michelle collected a microphone from Lindsay Monahan (who had climbed into the ring to begrudgingly announce that the next wrestlers came to you tonight from your Mother’s bedroom) and waited patiently for the Floridian to be rolled out of the ring. Her breathing was a little laboured, owing to a forearm the boy had managed to fit through her guard, reminding her of a deep, tender bruise that Harrison Wake had given her four days prior.

“Trogs, your disdain is nothing but fuel, these local heroes you offer up to me only a sacrifice that feeds my strength!”

The hostility was re-doubled. Winding up a house show crowd was one of Michelle’s favourite things to do.

“You should be grateful, boys and girls, that my travelling circus decided to pass through this city – a city only famous for fascistic animators and hexagonal wrestling rings – and that your lives have been brightened if only for one solitary evening. For I do bring the light, boys and girls, and you have seen that it is good. You see this week in, week out on Adrenaline Rush, where I provide you with classic matches each and every time I climb through those ropes. I elevate weak men like Enigma and The Connors, and when given a warrior like Harrison Wake to work with I serve you match of the god-damned year. This is the revolution that I warned you of. The Deluge. I wanted to lead the CWA into this new dawn as its champion, but – for now at least – this circus must be dragged through the night from beneath.”

Michelle pauses, realising that she’s been pacing across the ring. As she continues, she wonders towards a corner, taking a seat with her head propped up against the second turnbuckle.

“But next week, when we pitch our Big Tent in Jacksonville, I am not given a warrior like Harrison Wake, who himself is only a warrior like Jon Snowmantashi. Instead, I am fed a lamb like Dustin Dreamer. Dreamer versus Dreamer, I read somewhere, but these comparisons are only surface level. I have been following the short but tumultuous career of the so-called King of Chaos, my dear trogs, although it must be said his work in the independents is patchy and, if I may be so bold, insignificant. Here, where it matters, he has shown momentary glimpses of skill and a certain talent for violence. But, nine times out of ten, Dustin Dreamer has come up short. He is not a winner. Hurting your opponent means nothing if you can’t pin his shoulders to the mat. Winning is what separates wrestlers from fighters.

“Pinned by Charles Murphy. A Club-gifted DQ victory over Harrison Wake. Submitted by Lightbringer. A laundry list of almosts and nearlys, getting closer each time but always finger tips away from the mere scent of victory. And then, at Retribution, the Dreamer could stop dreaming, that elusive victory finally handed to him by a quartet of underachievers and novices. I almost hope he does beat Lightbringer for the High Voltage Championship, if only so the Kisai can stop wasting his time with it and join us at the adult’s table.”

A small ’Dustin Dreamer’ chant begins to build towards the back of the small arena, spawned from nothing more than antipathy towards the woman in the ring. She didn’t perceive it as affinity with the King of Chaos himself, but there was enough disdain for his next opponent to hand him begrudging praise.

“Now, before I find myself rambling on about inconsequential things like Dustin Dreamer –“ she almost spits out his name in derision. “- I took this microphone and debased myself by speaking to you people for a very important reason. You are all journalists and voyeurs. Many of you are holding phones up in front of your faces as I speak, and the word will get out. I want Harrison Wake, one more time. I don’t care where, and I don’t care when. I don’t care if I need to clear it with Richman. I don’t care if I must go through his puppeteer Mia Walsh. I want Harrison Wake. Any time, any place, any match.

“I see Dreamer for exactly what he is. A stepping stone. A message waiting to be sent. He has his own path to tread, his own opponent to worry about, but next week he must put all hopes of glory out of his mind. He walks in my shadow! On Adrenaline Rush, my dearest trogs, the King of Chaos will learn to observe order, and to accept his place within it.”

Dropping the microphone, von Horrowitz climbs out of the ring, the hostility following her up the ramp as Roy Orbison begins to sing.

 

[SupineSnake]

Promo history - volume 17.
Volume 17: "Wake Up" (May 20th, 2016).
Michelle von Horrowitz and LIGHTBRINGER def. Harrison Wake and Dustin Dreamer [Tag Team Match] (CWA: Adrenaline Rush).​

Nagoya, Japan.
October, 2012.

The match with Osuushi, or The Bull, was coming toward her with all the subtlety of a double-decker bus. She was a rabbit in the headlights, blinded by the man’s intensity and ferocity. She had watched him tear the great Iwao Karasu - a man who’d taken her to the limit no less than eleven times - limb from limb just two days prior. Osuushi was no less than a beast, without mercy or honour. Usually, that was exactly the sort of man she would relish the idea of dancing with. But now, with eight days between her and her first opportunity at the Honshū Puroresu Television Championship, it was looking more and more unwinnable with each passing hour.

After the events of ‘FIRST BATTLE (初陣)’, when Iwao’s bones had been cracked and bruised at will by the three hundred and fifty pounder, she’d found herself floundering in search of a replacement for him. Karasu was meant to be her tag partner at ‘SECOND BATTLE (第二の戦い)’, but they could hardly wheel him down to the ring in his hospital bed. She almost regretted her hard-headed, isolated nature, a nature that had won her very few friends in the back. Potential substitutes had slammed doors on her, laughed in her face, or launched into rants about why they wouldn’t tag with her if she was the last woman on earth. The idea of a handicap match against The Bull and Toshiro Matsui – Iwao’s supposed opponent on the night she was to face Osuushi – was not a pleasant one. She’d lost to Matsui a few nights prior, after all, and the memory of his headbutts still stung her brain and her pride.

All that was left was a fool’s hope. She’d had a partner in the early stages of 2011, when she’d been rising through the ranks and happily latched onto somebody else’s star to help the ascent of her own. They’d only had a few matches as a team, and both of them knew it wasn’t really going anywhere, but Anzu Kurosawa had been there for her before. The only remaining issue was that Anzu was half the world away, wrestling in Mexico or Cuba or some other Latin American stink-hole. Contacting her was the easy part. Convincing her to fly back to her homeland to confront a beast and a lunatic would be more difficult. But Michelle had no other option, if she intended to even make it to ‘FINAL BATTLE (最後の戦い)’.

When Anzu had picked up the phone, von Horrowitz found herself stumbling through what she’d thought was a carefully planned soliloquy. After exchanging some pleasantries (a social skill she’d never enjoyed or been particularly good at), she’d meandered her way through the events of the last week. Each time she approached the question, she veered away from it again, as if part of her was ashamed that she was asking somebody – anybody for help. She still mistrusted the idea of a teammate, and showing vulnerability had never been something she’d favoured.

Eventually, Anzu had to cut her off.

“When do we fight them?” she asked. It was the first thing she’d said in about ten minutes. Michelle smiled to herself, safe in the knowledge that – with the Pacific between them – Anzu wouldn’t know how happy she’d made her.

“I owe you one.”

***​

Tokyo, Japan.
June, 2013.

She found her seat with difficulty, hidden away as it was in the far reaches of the massive Dome, and scanned the scene. It was like nothing she’d ever seen before. A sea of humanity, to use the old cliché, and it was a stormy one. Thousands upon thousands of people, crammed into every crevice of the arena and alive with activity, all here for the same reason. She’d heard him called ’the greatest Intercontinental Champion in SPJ’s history’, a history that was long and storied and full of great intercontinental Champions. And there he stood, in the middle of the ring with his hands at his side, not an ounce of vulnerability about him.

She’d heard other things, of course. He came from wealth, and there had always been unfounded rumours that his father was paying for his success. She couldn’t comment on the claim’s veracity until she’d seen him in person, and tonight was the first chance she had to do so. The year had been a busy one. She’d left Honshu Puroresu (HPW) after they’d demanded she give them exclusivity, and when Iwao signed a contract with the island’s goliath promotion she’d turned her back on him, too. She was still wasting her time in Okayama Senshuken Resuringu (OCW), a small-time, regional promotion that she’d once had faith in. Now, looking around at the sheer quantity of souls piled into the building, she realised her faith had been misplaced. OCW would never fill a place like this and – as a direct consequence – neither would she.

These sorts of thoughts had been plaguing her mind for weeks now. It wasn’t all about winning championships and filling arenas, of course, but visions of insignificance had been draining her drive for most of the year. She was only twenty-three years old, and had beaten some of the biggest and baddest that Japan had to offer, but what was it all for? Her arm, broken four times already in her short career, seared with pain constantly, and she’d begun to forget what muscles felt like without the accompanying aches. It didn’t seem worth it, for a few hundred people in some abandoned warehouse or high school gymnasium. And now, as she surveyed the Tokyo Dome and all its luxury, these feelings were only compounded.

When the match started, the man they called LIGHTBRINGER was everything she’d been promised. His offense was unparalleled in its versatility. His opponent, some up-and-comer who’d won a contenders’ tournament earlier in the year, couldn’t seem to get into the match. It was more likely that LIGHTBRINGER wouldn’t let him into it. They danced for a few minutes, the Star of Tokyo encouraging chain wrestling and subsequently schooling the young pretender. LIGHTBRINGER seemed to throw him down and drag him up at will, wrenching at each of his joints in turn. And then came the power moves; a fireman’s carry neckbreaker, a tombstone piledriver, and finally a top rope Samoan driver. He was quick, too – aggressively so. His moves were fluid and elegant, his technique flawless. The boy was spent ten minutes into the match. The LIGHTBRINGER lariat had sealed the deal. The cover was academic. This man was for real.

When the three count was made, the crowd erupted into euphoria. The man himself wanted little of the fanfare. There was something about him that suggested he didn’t do this for the fans. She liked that in a man. ’He’d make a hell of a tag partner’, she thought, in spite of herself. She despised the idea of tag team wrestling. The idea of being reliant of beholden to anyone or anything but herself was repugnant to her. Even when she’d tagged with Anzu, someone she certainly respected and almost even liked, the concessions that had to be made and the compromises that had to be absorbed were too much. She redrafted her initial thought. ’He’d make a hell of an opponent’.

***​

Orlando, Florida.
May, 2016.

A candy-coloured clown they call the sandman…

The reaction was mixed, as it often was nowadays. The cheers were as unexpected as they were unappreciated. She hadn’t changed one bit – she still looked upon these people with the same blind hatred as she had the week after Global Collision. But, as she’d told Jon Snowmantashi, the cream rises, even in the eyes of the trogs.

As Roy began to warble about his dreams, she made her way down the entrance ramp. About half way down, she stopped to survey a sign, a large, bearded man shaking it in front of her face. The childish scrawl read ’MARRY ME, MVH!’ Her eyes drifted slowly from the placard to the man’s hopeful face, and then back to the text, and once more to the trog. Suddenly, and rather unpredictably, she burst out into wild, uncontrollable laughter. She held her gut, her diaphragm expanding and contracting at a tremendous rate. She sank to her knees, raising a hand to point a finger at the man’s unremarkable face, the hope slowly draining away and replaced by embarrassment. Finally, she pulled herself back to her feet, stifled a few remaining chuckles, and ripped the sign away from him. She crumpled it into a tight ball and continued on her way down to the ring, shaking her head as she went.

After Lindsay Monahan had given her a microphone, she waited patiently for her music to die down and allowed herself a moment to soak in the atmosphere. There were still boos – many boos – but now they had to compete for prominence. She didn’t quite know how to feel about that. Eventually, remembering herself, she lifted the microphone to her mouth to impart her wisdom on the mindless, still throwing the crumpled paper-ball up and catching it in the same hand as she mused.

“Ladies and gentlemen, tonight is not a special night,” she began. “Tonight, your beloved puppet masters have decided to team me with a man I have no interest in and no affiliation with, against two men that I have already beaten. If I were you, paying so much for your awful seats in this stuffy arena, I’d demand my hard-earned green back. But no, you lap it up like nodding dogs, chanting this is awesome and the like when all you’re getting is recycled garbage. Variations on the same uninspiring theme.”

The cheers subsided a little, the tide not necessarily turning entirely against her but the derision winning out for the time-being. She paused and she smiled. This was familiar. This was comfortable. She threw the ball of paper up once more, catching it again with a flick of the wrist, allowing herself a sideward glance at the announcers table. She meandered over to the ropes and, somewhat unexpectedly, threw the ball at Tim Coleman’s head. It bounced off his temple, causing him to slap at the air as if defending himself against some invisible attacker.

“But, I’m not here tonight to talk about the shortcomings of bookers. These are inherent, and do not need further analysis. No, tulips, I’m here tonight to address the matter at hand. I’m here to talk to you about Harrison Wake. Two weeks ago in Florida, Tough Guy Harrison and I put on quite the show. A Match of the Year candidate, they’re calling it, and although such plaudits are nothing in comparison to the sweet scent of victory. We pushed each other to our limits, and – through piledrivers onto steel, missed elbow drops onto wood, and botched 450s onto canvass – when the dust had settled and the smoke had cleared, my hand was once again raised. You may have earned my respect, Wake, but that’s all you earned. The spoils were mine.

“It is my understanding, though, that one defeat is not enough for Tough Guy Harrison. No, the idea of taking a step down in the pecking order is not appealing to our resident Backwoods Badass. And nor should it be – people who accept losing will continue to lose. I expect nothing less from a man so tenacious. So, after another defeat, Wake stood in this very ring, microphone in hand, and confidently challenged me to a rematch at World’s Strongest. I don’t know if Marcus Bennet dropped him on his head enough times to forget what happened the last time, but I fear that the unhinged has finally lost the plot entirely. There will be no redemption, only further disappointment.”

A small ’BACK-WOODS BAD-ASS’ chant could be heard, but a duelling ’M-V-H’ call rose to meet it. Michelle couldn’t help but think her audience was struggling through the decision as to which wrestler they disliked less.

“If you want a match, Tough Guy, you’ve got one. But I don’t want any doubt left as to who the better person is. I don’t want to give you any room to negotiate your own position after yet another loss. That’s why my acceptance comes at a condition; two out of three falls. Beating you once is old news. I’m not interested in re-treading the past. When I’ve pinned your shoulders to the mat twice without reply, there’ll be no debate. Cold, hard facts are exactly that, Harrison; cold and hard. But you must confront them regardless.”

Michelle paused again, realising she’d been pacing, meandering in both thought and action. She forced herself into a stationary position, leant on the top rope and staring directly at the lens. Mockery crept into her town, in spite of the respect that Harrison had earned. It was only her nature.

“I’ll even give you an out, Wake,” she said, unblinking and unflinching. “After all, when does a sour patch become normality? First runner-up at the Wrestle Royale. An unsuccessful challenge for a secondary title. Second runner-up in the Steel Roulette. On the losing end of a Match of the Year Candidate. You may decide, when I’m done showing you and your partner why I’ve never been pinned on Adrenaline Rush, that you’ve bitten off more than you can chew at World’s Strongest. That’s nothing to worry about, Tough Guy; it takes a big man to recognise his own shortcomings. If, when you’re staring up at these very lights on this very ceiling, you begin to have second thoughts, all you need to do is say the word. I’m sure Captain Klappton would be willing to wrestle you next week, even at such short notice. Now, let’s get this thing over with.”

After throwing the microphone in the general direction of Monahan, Michelle took up her favoured position in the corner, almost horizontal with her head against the bottom turnbuckle. She waited patiently for Harrison Wake. LIGHTBRINGER didn’t matter. Dustin Dreamer was irrelevant. There was only Harrison Wake and Michelle von Horrowitz.

 

[SupineSnake]

Promo history - volume 18.
"Grand Stage" (June 3rd, 2016).
Michelle von Horrowitz def. Harrison Wake [Two out of Three Falls Match] (CWA: World's Strongest).​

The scene is still. Dewdrops hang from the vibrant, summer leaves. Clouds are tinted grey. A slight breeze rolls through the picture, branches dancing and whistling and creaking. The largest - an old, proud oak - sits alone on top of a gentle hill that dominates the foreground, casting shade over one of the slopes and the eight men that walk through its long grass. Their heads are bowed, their backs sheltered from the peeking sun by the dense mass of wood and leaf.

Slowly, the camera glides over the scene, until the figures meandering up the hill become clearer. They are dressed in black, hooded cloaks, and their faces are obscured by masks of the same colour. Some represent tragedy, others comedy, but at this point the opposite sides of this duality march together, in time and as one. On their shoulders is a casket without a lid.

They stomp ever-upwards, the long, untamed blades of grass gently waving in the wind, towards two women stood at the trunk of the oak tree. They too are dressed in mourning black, with veils hiding their faces. One is tall and young, her long, black hair thrown back by the breeze. The other is old, short, and fat, grey hair sitting in tight curls atop her head. Both stand stoic and emotionless. In front of them is the grave.

When the bearers arrive, they slowly lower the coffin into its pit, thick arms controlling the structure until they no longer have the strength. It falls with a thud. They turn away wordlessly, marching back in the direction that they've come, a solemn danse macabre in the silent, summer light. The two women creep towards the hole, bending over to pick up a handful of dirt. They reach over the gaping earth and allow the soil to fall. They don't speak. They don't cry. They only turn and leave.

The camera creeps towards the grave, peering into it and blocking the rest of the scene from the viewer. All that is left now are the walls of the hole, brown and cold and unforgiving, and Michelle von Horrowitz staring up at the lens.

"I wanted to speak to you all about a vision I was afforded in dreams," she begins, her eyes open and unblinking. "But I have done this many times. I fear that my word alone is no longer enough. It is not being taken for what it is worth, and my word is worth everything. So, I thought it might be an idea to show you."

The camera slowly inches downwards, into the earth, narrowing in on Michelle. Her hands are resting on her abdomen, her fingers interlocked. She looks comfortable. Almost relaxed.

"These images, of a hill like this one and a tree like this one and a grave like this one, have come to me a number of times in the past week. Ever since Adrenaline Rush, in fact, when I almost single-handedly defeated both Dustin Dreamer and Harrison Wake. The King of Chaos and the Backwoods Badass. But both Kings and Badasses fall to the one, true Dreamer, and the night through which she dances. Almost every evening I have watched the coffin brought up the hill to be placed in the grave, and each night I observed my own eyes staring back at me, open and alive but contained in this hole. These are not empty visions. I understand this better than anyone."

Still we are meandering down towards the buried, the hard soil creeping past the camera as it silently glides. There is no other movement. The hole a self-contained universe with Michelle von Horrowitz its only inhabitant. Nothing else mattered, nothing else existed, but her and the words that she spoke.

"This scene does not foreshadow my death, tulips. I am not checking each direction twice before I cross the road, and I still go out in thunderstorms. When Death comes for me I shall greet him like an old friend, but I know that this day is in the distant future. No, tulips; this scene symbolises stagnation. It is the slow rotting of a corpse that relates to me and my mission. When the body is buried, it is fresh, and only the deadness of the eyes lets you know that there is nothing behind them. Over time, the forces of nature erode and devour, until what is left is nothing like the thing that once was."

She pauses for effect, allowing her audience to find their way through the maze of language she's just laid for them. The edges of her lips curled upwards, a mere suggestion of a smile creeping onto her countenance. She enjoyed picturing the trogs struggling through the CWA.com upload. Fuck them. She wasn't speaking to them. She spoke to Wake, and to Snowmantahi and McGinnis, and to Richman.

"And like time erodes the integrity and the familiarity of a corpse, my missteps have eroded the integrity of my mission. When I arrived in CWA, I spoke about the company's new dawn, a dawn that I would usher into being. The revolution needs a figurehead, and I had appointed myself as the one to don the white armour and go once more unto the breach. But, alas, each defeat has dragged me closer to the grave. Each failure has subjected me to another squandered month. I cannot drive the train from its rear. Nobody can. The world looks on to McGinnis and Snowmantashi for direction whilst I must prove myself against lesser men. This is stagnation and it cannot be explained or excused.

“My opponent for the World’s Strongest pay-per-view is a man I would almost say I admire. He and I did go to war three weeks ago, and it took everything I had and then a bit more to finally put him away. My limits were reached, my respect was earned. A rematch with Tough Guy Harrison is the best I could hope for; the most impressive message I could sign my name to at this juncture. We have been evenly matched throughout much of our CWA career, though it’s true that he’s walked these halls longer than me. The final two in the Wrestle Royale, where I emerged triumphant. Third and fourth in the Steel Roulette, where he outlasted me. Our battle on Adrenaline Rush three weeks ago. The question asks itself, the answer needs to be given at World’s Strongest. Who is the better wrestler?”

She allows herself a stretch of the arms - to suggest that signs of life still yet remained - as the camera glided on regardless. It was as if it were trapping her, almost crushing her. She refocuses on the lens, doing her best to eliminate these fears.

“But this question comes with caveats, my little tulips. You begin to ask yourselves about the circumstances of these encounters. Third and fourth in the Steel Roulette, behind who? Snowmantashi and McGinnis, of course. The final two in the Wrestle Royale, but only after Snowmantashi and McGinnis had beaten the shit out of each other for the World Championship. A match of the god damn year candidate on Adrenaline Rush, but the episode doesn’t end with Michelle von Horrowitz standing tall over Harrison Wake. No, it ends with Darling Jonathan and the Man-Baby making eyes at each other. Let’s face it, Harrison; we play third and fourth fiddle in a band of two.

“The opportunity that comes with this is obvious for all to see, I trust. Jon and Jonathan cannot dance forever, one would have to assume, and soon enough another challenger must emerge. We enter the coliseum this Sunday, not so much as enemies, but rather as rivals. Claims must be staked, Harrison, and at World’s Strongest I intend to make mine at your expense. I am aware, of course, that your answer to this almost writes itself. Even you must see it, Tough Guy, and if you don’t I’m sure that Mia does. It’s true that I’ve lost at every single pay-per-view that I’ve fought at. Five-Star Attraction, Retribution, even Wrestle Royale, though the phoenix did rise later that night. Nobody is more consistent than me week in, week out, but I’ve yet to prove I can win the big one.”

She expected Harrison to throw this in her face because it had been so a number of times before. As far back as in France, working at some two-bit Marseille promotion, she'd managed a single championship reign totalling eleven nights. She'd earned an opportunity at the promotion's top prize, nothing more than a regional heavyweight belt, after a handful of weeks tearing her way up the card. The man she was due to face, Le Bourreau, no-showed the event and she was handed the title by default. Less than two weeks later, the former champion had decided to show for his rematch and she'd choked, crashing and burning from the top with an attempted 450 before offering herself up to his Death Valley Driver finisher. The pain of being dropped on her head was nothing compared to the pain of being a champion without a single defence.

The accusations - that she would snatch defeat from the jaws of victory when it really mattered - had hounded her from Europe to Japan. It had come to a head in Nagoya in October of 2012, the night she was due to face Osuushi, or The Bull. She had peeked at the arena during the opening bout, a sea of people rocking back and forth like the tide. They were intimidating in their quantity alone. She had vowed that day to never again look before it was time. No good could come of it. The people were there for many reasons, but for the first time in her career she was the main attraction. The call had been sent down with a runner mere minutes before the show began. They were to go on last. The weight of expectation hung heavily on her shoulders.

The people were only so interested because of the build, and she had contributed very little to that. They had come to watch the latest matador stand in the way of The Bull. His tear through Honshu Puroresu (HPW) had reached almost legendary status. He was unbeaten since entering the company, a total of eight months, and he'd beaten forty six different men in that time. Eleven by knockout. The advertisements had taken the narrative up of a beast that no man could defeat, so a woman had been offered up instead. The Bull's manager had dredged up memories of Marseille, and similar crushing defeats in Berlin and London, and judged Michelle - among innumerable, unrepeatable things - a secondary player. It had stung, but the onus was upon her to correct him.

Within the grave, the camera finally reaches its destination. The shot is taken up by Michelle von Horrowitz’s profile, unblinking and solemn. The brightness of her green eyes offset her ghostly pale skin, staring at the lens with clarity and intent.

“It all changes tonight, Harrison. A two out of three falls match favours conditioning and technical prowess, two things I proved I have over you in Jacksonville. You can huff and you can puff but you can’t blow the house down, and if it takes an hour again then it takes an hour. I have all night. This stagnation must be stayed, a message must be sent, the ceiling must be smashed. Regardless of respect, even admiration, Harrison, these things can only come to me if they are denied to you. There is no luck that can be wished to you on Sunday, no glory waits in Miami. It has already been decided.”

When she walked out beneath the lights in Nagoya, the audience ceased to exist as individuals. They had become one, all sound produced combining into a ball of energy and adrenaline that seeped into Michelle. She must have walked down the ramp, but she couldn't remember doing so. When she climbed through the ropes, thirty thousand people screaming for the opening bell, it had seemed like she'd always been standing within its ropes.

The Bull lumbered to the ring more slowly, but with an intensity that she couldn't place and had no hope of describing. He wore black trunks and black boots, fat rolling over stubborn patches of muscle, and his eyes were alive. There was no malice in him, save that felt towards a thoughtless animal that rips into its prey. He was only what he could be, what nature had made him. As he rolled into the ring and got to his feet, eyes only for Michelle, the ominous nature of the event's name became more real. The ‘FINAL BATTLE (最後の戦い)’ was here.

The match had started in the way she had hoped. He was quick for a man his size, as Iwao - her oldest friend in the industry who found himself on the shelf thanks to his tussle with Osuushi at ‘FIRST BATTLE (初陣)’ in Yokohama - had warned her, but she was quicker. She danced around him, retreating to the outside at any opportunity, giving him reasons to be frustrated. She thought that eventually her superior conditioning would begin to show, and then she could tear him apart. But she needed to be patient, and careful; one or two power moves from The Bull and it was all over. She limited him to a few scoop slams here and there, and a vertical suplex at the twenty minute mark drove the air out of her, but for the most part she was evasive. When he tried to throw her up into a fireman's carry she would slip out the back after a pair of hard elbows (with a loaded pad) and return to the leg.

Weakening the base had been her staple for years, especially when she'd haphazardly come across someone with skill in the ring in Europe or Asia. It had brought down dozens of huge men. But The Bull was carved out of granite, and she kicked herself stupid against his sturdy base. He kept on coming at her, stubborn and brainless as an ox, and sooner or later he'd hit something big. She decided it was time to go all in - that he was as weak as he'd ever be - and floored him with two Busaiku knee kicks and a drop toe hold into the exposed turnbuckle. It was enough to keep any normal man down. But her 450 had missed, the big man rolling out of the way at an impossibly late instant. She had fought to her feet, only to be thrown back down with a power bomb. She could just about remember the second, but she left the scene before the third and fourth.

Le Bourreau in Marseille and Osuushi in Nagoya had played on her mind for months afterwards, and the thought that the same thing was happening in the CWA had not escaped her. It wasn’t just important that she beat Harrison Wake. It was essential. The integrity of the remains depended upon it.

 

[SupineSnake]

Promo history - volume 19.
"Old Debts" (June 16th, 2016).
Michelle von Horrowitz and Anzu Kurosawa def. Taylor Toxic and Raquel Wednesday [Tag Team Match] (FWA: Back in Business).​

As she tore another handful of bread away from the loaf and threw it onto the surface of the lake, she was only partially aware of the myriad of everyday scenes going on around her. A few yards to her left, a family did its best to restrain their youngest from diving head-first into the pond. Behind her, a boy tried to steal a kiss from a new girlfriend, though she was having none of it. Away across the lake, a pair slightly further on in their relationship ate sandwiches from a picnic basket, staring off into slightly divergent directions as if they'd ran out of things to say to each other. A man walked his dog along the western path. A youth bought a shit bag of shit weed from a muscular, bald man in a grey hooded sweatshirt. As a half-dozen ducks circled the latest crust that had been deposited into their lake, she was only partially aware of these everyday scenes. Michelle von Horrowitz was alone, but for her memories and the birds.

She watched each ripple expand, gently forming a series of concentric circles that were propelled outwards towards the banks. They would die away before getting to their destinations, but the next piece of bread would form another set of hopeful waves that would eventually fade into nothing in turn. Each ripple was its own life, short and pointless like the rest of them. Concentrated into a few moments, they would rise and fall again like each human would over decades. Staring into them, with the cold, Berlin air pressed in tight against her skin, scenes of her own life began to disturb the surface of her mind.

She was here for Anzu, of course, and nothing else. She had a sister in Berlin, but they'd seen each other a few months prior, when Bella von Horrowitz had visited New York during the weekend of CWA's Five-Star Attraction. She wasn't one for superstition, but she associated Bella's face and Bella's voice with the crushing defeat she'd been handed by Jon Snowmantashi. This visit was not to tighten familial bonds, but rather to pay old debts. Harrison Wake and the World's Strongest PPV would be waiting for her in America, but for now all thoughts lay on Anzu and Berlin.

They had met back in 2008, when Michelle was just starting out in Japan. She didn't know anybody, not even Iwao, the man who'd guide her through life on the islands. She'd been working on the European independents for about eighteen months, and had been offered the opportunity to fly out to Nagoya to work a few shows for a regional promotion there. She'd won her match on the first night against some weak, green girl from Osaka, and was reclining in her corner of the large, communal locker room, basking in the glow of her glorious self. Suddenly, the great Anzu Kurosawa had barged in, screaming and blathering in her native Japanese.

Michelle lit another cigarette in the Berlin park, watching the birds peck away at the last remaining crumbs. A larger, cleaner, almost prouder bird floated a few yards from the pack, refusing to debase herself in the scramble for food. Her mind was drawn back to Nagoya and 2008, and her first impressions of Anzu. As a veteran wrestler who had fought all around the world, Anzu was afforded her own private locker room with all the seclusion and comfort that came with it. She was visiting Japan on a homecoming tour, culminating in an appearance for Honshu Puroresu, one of the nation's biggest promotions. These dates in Nagoya for this shit-stain company were little more than warm-ups.

Anzu had a tag team match scheduled, where she was due to team up with some newcomer to face Tsuki no On’nanoko, the promotion's 'Women's Champion', and her hench-woman Kurētā. According to a nearby wrestler who happened to speak French, Anzu's rookie teammate had failed to show up, and Kurosawa was ranting in pursuit of a replacement. Anzu didn't have the most ingratiating personality back then, so nobody was forthcoming and the veteran quickly disappeared again. She had a match against Tsuki for her championship in three nights time and something about her manner suggested she didn't like the idea of a handicap match. Michelle had quietly sauntered to Anzu's private locker room, knocked three times, and casually offered her sword. She wasn't usually one for allies, but she'd seen Kurosawa fight. Some allies are worth having.

They'd won the match in about eleven minutes, Michelle hitting a 450 on the champion before the legal woman - Anzu - leapt on her for the cover. It's wasn't victory-theft or anything; the veteran had expressed nothing but gratitude, and had even gone as far as to offer Michelle her championship shot. She'd politely declined. Even that far back, Michelle saw little point or use in women's championships.

After that night she didn't hear from Anzu for six months, until February of 2009. Michelle was still scrubbing out a living in her Nagoya backwoods promotion and making occasional appearances for Okayama Senshuken Resuringu (OCW), a company no bigger but with at least something resembling ambition. It was whilst at OCW that she first fought Iwao Karasu, in the main event of one of their fortnightly shows that sold two thousand tickets, her biggest audience to date. But Honshu Puroresu was always the eventual aim, and it was Anzu that helped her achieve it. She needed a tag partner for a series of five matches for a HPW tour, and Michelle was only too happy to escape the gymnasiums of Nagoya and Okayama.

She'd been given a full time contract with HPW off the back of it, and had even been allowed to keep her OCW dates for a while. The partnership with Anzu had gone nowhere particularly exciting, and they sort of drifted apart when Kurosawa left again for Mexico or Colombia or whichever dessert she was set to appear in next. They had one more tag match in 2012, when Michelle had been desperate. She'd bitten off more than she could chew with a three hundred and fifty pounder named Osuushi, or the Bull, and her only option had been to call the closest thing to a friend she had in the business. Anzu had flown across the Pacific to help her that night, even in a losing effort. It felt only right to repay the favour; the Atlantic was the smaller ocean, after all.

Inside the ring, the duo had never accomplished much. Outside of it, though, they could fill a library with memoirs. Most of it would only be interesting or even intelligible to those that were involved, but to Michelle it seemed that most of her Japanese memories took place during that four-week HPW tour. Anzu seemed to collect mugshots, and whilst Michelle was no stranger to a bar fight herself, their attitude towards them differed drastically. Michelle preferred solitude, especially whilst drinking, but was more than willing to defend herself if someone recognised her and fancied a pop or refused to take no for an answer. Anzu, on the other hand, openly courted confrontation.

Michelle thought back to a night in Nagano, where she and Anzu had been drinking in some quiet bar near the arena after the fourth match of the tour. They'd decided to head into the city centre, and hit a place that had been recommended by a youngish barman who seemed to know what he was talking about. It was quiet (late on a Thursday), but a group of young, Japanese girls had gathered around a thirty-ish looking Latino with a pot belly, a greying beard, and sweat patches. He was holding court on some topic or other, and Michelle had attempted to drag Anzu into a quiet, shadowy corner of the room. Kurosawa had waved her off and taken position on a bar stool within ear shot of the group.

"And when you're there in the ring, chicas," the man was saying as Michelle sheepishly sidled up next to Anzu at the bar. They ordered a pair of Jameson's as he's continued. "And you stare into the eyes of the bull? That is the only time a man can truly feel alive. At all other moments he is a ghost, a shell! When you are in the ring and you stare into the eyes of the Bull, that is when a man is a man. We matadors are a- -"

Here, Anzu took her first sip of the amber, and instantly blew it back out of her nose onto the bar. She let out a thin, high giggle, and then shook her head. The man had stopped talking to stare over at the two of them.

"You are not a matador," she declared triumphantly.

The man blinked at her, and stood from his seat. Only then did Michelle notice the two younger men either side of him.

"I was the matador," he insisted.

"I have lived in Mexico and Brazil and Cuba," she began, draining her glass and placing the empty in the bar. "I have watched the bullfights in Spain and Santiago. I have known matadors. I have loved matadors, and I say that you are not a matador."

The young Japanese women that surrounded the man shuffled uncomfortably from foot to foot. They moved a lot faster when he lunged at Anzu. His friends followed, and Michelle was forced into the fray. Thirty seconds later, Anzu was sat on the matador's back, waving a red serviette in front of his eyes.

"Michelle, my sword," she was shouting. "I've left my sword in the hotel!"

In the park in Berlin, the ducks had lost interest in Michelle. She had no more bread to give them and they began to paddle away. The sun was creeping towards the horizon. Evening was beginning to take hold. With a sigh, she pulled her coat tightly around her and meandered off towards the address she'd been given. It was a small office space a few hundred yards from the park, and Michelle took one last deep breath amongst the greenery before she plunged out into the concrete maize that the city had become.

***​

She’d be forgiven for thinking that she’d come to the wrong place. The building looked unspectacular and unoccupied, as if it had stood without being noticed for centuries. She pushed open the door, expecting nothing but an ocean of cobwebs behind it, but what she saw was a clean, almost-sterile office space. There were a few unfortunate souls working away their Saturday afternoon, filing things away and standing at photocopiers, and when she asked at the desk for Anzu she did so with a sense that this was the wrong place. ”No,” she imagined the receptionist saying. ”We sell boxes, not anzus.” The old, sort of frumpish woman nodded and smiled, though, and led her to a room at the end of a short corridor.

Inside the office, four people sat around a table. One of them was an old, white guy, face riddled with wrinkles, pockmarks, and the other clear signs of a long, hard life. The second was slightly younger but no less haggard. He was Japanese and the only one to look up when Michelle entered the room. There was also a younger, Chinese woman with a stern face and an ash tray full of cigarette butts in front of her. She was quietly working her way through another. Anzu was the fourth, sat in a bright, purple tracksuit with a foot propped up on the desk in front of her.

“Ah, Ms. von Horrowitz,” the oldest one said, still staring down at his newspaper. He waved his hand in the vague direction of his counterparts as he introduced them. “My name is Ethan Rose. This is Tatsuo Kawaguchi and Hua Ji-Shen. I believe you know Anzu Kurosawa. Please, take a seat.”

Michelle did as she was asked. She exchanged a sheepish smile and an awkward wave with Anzu. She hadn’t expected this many people. She’d seen the handlers before, though they’d never formally been introduced. Tatsuo, the Japanese man, had been with Anzu when they’d met in Nagoya, and had translated their first conversation. Hua had been there during the HPW tour, and both of them had come to watch their confrontation with Osuushi. They hadn’t seemed to do much but skulk around the ring and take notes, but now – sat in what was essentially a conference room, complete with a spreadsheet chronicling Anzu’s matches, a flipchart listing audience trends, and a screen with a video paused on the FWA logo – she began to realise that Kurosawa’s relationship with them was a little more intricate than that.

“I assume you’ve been told who you’re here to fight?” Ethan asked, turning over the page of his newspaper. Michelle noticed that it was written in German.

“Yes,” she said, meekly. She felt uncomfortable and shuffled her weight uneasily around her seat. “Taylor Toxic and Raquel Wednesday.”

“And what do you know about Taylor Toxic and Raquel Wednesday?” he asked.

“That their names are Taylor Toxic and Raquel Wednesday,” Michelle answered, deadpan. Anzu smiled, but the others continued without response. Ethan read, Hua smoked, Tatsuo stared.

“They are members of a stable with Dinorah Redgrave, a former FWA Women’s Champion and the number one contender to Bell Connelly’s title,” Ethan continued. Michelle had heard of Redgrave, and of course she remembered Connelly. No doubt Bell remembers me, too, she thought, the memory of an ankle lock and three taps on the canvass flooding back to her. “They are not afraid to break the rules, and aren’t above sneak attacks. They have a gang mentality about them. Toxic is the brawler, though Raquel is a vicious striker as well. Wednesday is more of a submission specialist. Toxic will just try to bludgeon you into defeat. But the most important thing about them is their loose morality. They won’t think twice to bend and break any rule that they can. And what do you think is the best strategy against such women?”

“I’m sure you have some ideas,” Michelle answered, sitting back in her chair. She intended to watch some of Toxic Wednesday’s matches later on in the day. She didn’t need some old man to tell her about strategy.

“Taylor Toxic and Raquel Wednesday may be submission specialists who hit hard and play dirty,” Ethan replied, looking up from his newspaper for the first time in the conversation. His eyes were big and black, like a frog’s. “But so are you. Anzu’s career is at a critical point where messages need to be sent. You will confront Toxic Wednesday head on, fighting as they fight. You will wear them down and beat them at their own game, and when they are broken, then you can do as you will with the remains. Our strategy is simple; to do exactly what they do, only harder, more often, and better. Do you understand?”

Michelle blinked. It was hardly an intellectual tour de force. She was sure she could keep up.

“I understand,” she said. There were a few moments of silence, during which Ethan continued with his newspaper. “That’s it? No pre-match promo? No backstage interview?”

“We have prepared a video package,” Tatsuo began as Hua stubbed out her cigarette. She opened her packet and lit another. “Chronicling your history with Ms Kurosawa and her battles with Ms Toxic and Ms Wednesday. It ends with Anzu’s demolition of Olga the Ogre last week on Fight Night, and the narrator discusses that assimilation with the barbarians is the best path to victory. It’s from the Art of War. You know, Sun Tzu? We’re really rather proud of it. Would you like to watch?”

Michelle stole a glance at Anzu. She had gone whiter than Ethan.

“No,” Michelle said, a little abruptly. “No, thank you.”

“Well, I think all that needed saying has been said,” Ethan interjected, rising from his chair and stretching out his hand. “Ms von Horrowitz, I’m sure that we can rely on you. We shall see you tomorrow.”

She shook his cold, clammy hand and regretted it immediately. Anzu stood too and accompanied her from the room, and the two shuffled uncomfortably outside of the office as people filed their files and copied their copies. A fat, sweaty man waddled right up to them to use the water cooler that Michelle was leaning on. It seemed to take forever to fill his cup, the water dribbling out of the drum as she stared down at his reddening bald patch. Eventually, he took a sip, smiled at them both, and left.

“Will you have time for a drink before you leave?” Anzu asked, her hands in her pockets. She didn’t seem happy. “After the match?”

“Of course,” Michelle answered. There was always time for a drink. They shared a nod and Michelle turned to leave, getting a few paces before Anzu called her back.

“One more thing,” she said, opening the door to the office as if intending to make a quick getaway. “They want you to do Fan Access tomorrow.”

“Motherfucker.”

 

[SupineSnake]

Promo history - volume 20.
"Meet the Press" (June 19th, 2016).
Michelle von Horrowitz def. Ariel Justice (CWA: Adrenaline Rush).​

Michelle von Horrowitz had faced her fair share of what you might call hard times. Struggle, worry, and anxiety often greeted her like old friends, usually when she felt most comfortable or on the verge of personal or professional development. Standing outside the door of her Aunt Maude’s living quarters as a small child, knowing that the woman lay dead within the walls. Climbing into the ring with Osuushi and staring into his big, black eyes as he lumbered from foot to foot. Sensing her world championship match against Jon Snowmantashi slowly slipping away from her. All of these moments had been brutal, crashing like waves against the calm shores of her being. But this was different. She was about to conduct her first press conference.

Michelle had been trying to compose herself next to an exit, warming up her lungs with a Camel and watching a thick, grey cloud temporarily obscure the yellow sun. She sucked hard and long at the filter before throwing it away, exhaling a thick plume of smoke, and pushing her way back into the corridor through a fire exit. She stopped before the only other door and took in a deep, anxious lung-full of the hallway’s stale air.

The fact that she’d never been asked to do anything like this before was no accident. Her natural habitat was below the radar, and for the first couple of months here she felt certain that management, not to mention the established veterans, had no idea who she was or what she did. That all changed with the Wrestle Royale, of course, and since then there’d been a steady request for interviews from various journalists, bloggers, and podcasters. She’d managed to ignore them until now, but finally management had begun to insist. Her star (or, rather, their star) was rising and, for some reason that always escaped her, dancing to the press’s music like a cymbal-wielding monkey went hand-in-hand with a place on the upper mid-card.

The room itself was rather large, with tacky, 1970s carpeting the dominant feature; discoloured and worn out in various patches, vile in its insistence on browns and oranges and yellows. There were no windows, leading to a stuffy, enclosed atmosphere. She stared at the men and women who were garrisoned with notepads and recording devices, all of whom turned around to stare at her as she entered. She counted them up; sixteen in total, plus a couple of security men and some CWA officials making twenty three. Apart from arenas, she couldn’t remember the last time she had been this close to this many people. Silently, staring down at the haggard carpeting and stuffing her hands into her pockets, she moved around the mass of writers, giving them a wide berth, and took a seat alone on the raised stage before them.

There was a moment of silence. It’s the deep breath before the plunge, as Gandalf once said. And then it began.

“Michelle… Gary McGary here from PWOutsider,” a man in the third row started. He had a Hail the Club t-shirt on and raised his pencil as he spoke. “Last weekend at the World’s Strongest pay-per-view we saw you and Harrison Wake battle for almost an hour once more, this time in a two-out-of-three falls match. There was something about that match that suggested closure. Are you done with the Backwoods Badass?”

“I think he’s probably done with me,” she replied, tapping her fingers on the desk and staring at Gary McGary. “There’s only so many times you can lose against the same woman and retain your credibility as a, how did you put it, a badass. I can fight Tough Guy Harrison again, and I can beat Tough Guy Harrison again, if that’s what they decide is best. But there are plenty other men to beat, plenty other statements to make.”

“Jonathan Basingstoke-Fontlewinkle of The Gentleman Smark podcast,” a second man began, a black suit on his back and a sort of spiv moustache on his face. He stood up as he spoke and held his recording device up towards the dais. “It sounds to this humble reporter as if you have something in mind. Or someone in mind. Care to elaborate?”

“Well, Jonathan,” she began, leaning forward and regarding his pale, thin face. He was gaunt in spite of his youth. “That’s no secret. I’ve said it every single week since the last time I faced him, and – if you insist – I’ll say it again today. Jon Snowmantashi. But my ’prized whale’, if you’ll forgive the rather literal metaphor, is busy for the foreseeable future. There is only one man that I’ve faced and haven’t beaten. More importantly, there is only one man who has pinned me. I want Jon Snowmantashi, with or without that championship belt on his shoulder, but it appears I must wait until he is finished with his hard-headed, futile crusade against McGinnis and his goons. And so I wait, patient as ever, treading water and tearing through whatever they give me in the mean-time.”

“Jared Cunté, Total-FWA.com,” another man – young, heavy-set, perspiring slightly under the moderately bright lights – interjected. “In the last two weeks we've seen you twice on FWA programming, once to save Anzu Kurosawa from Taylor Toxic and Raquel Wednesday on Fight Night, and then again in a successful tag team outing at Back in Business. Can we expect to see this again? Do you have one eye on a move to the Clique Wrestling Alliance’s biggest rivals?”

“No,” she replied, rather simply. There was a pointed silence, in which the reporters stared back at her, almost in demand. She sighed and leant back, tapping the heel of her foot against the chair and watching the hands of a clock move solemnly, inevitably onwards. “Look, I have no interest in the FWA, or its champions and their championships. I went to Berlin to help out an old friend and to pay off an old debt. As far as I’m concerned, I’ve already beaten the best of FWA, past and present. In my third match in CWA, I pinned an FWA hall of famer. The very next week I snapped their Women’s Champion’s ankle and watched her tap the mat in desperate defeat. No, I have no interest in the FWA. The CWA is my home and the CWA is my battle.”

Total-FWA.com’s Jared Cunté nodded and then sat down, a look of vague disappointment on his face. Several others raised their arms or stood up or spewed out their vapid questions. Who is your dream opponent? What’s your locker room ritual? When did you decide to move to America and join the CWA? They were questions she had no interest in answering, and that you have no interest in hearing the answers to, I’m sure. Things like this – press conferences, interviews, and the like – they only distracted and confused her true purpose. This was The Circus, and she had no real interest in any of it, but she’d yet to find employ in a promotion that didn’t insist.

Take this press conference, for instance. It was creeping onwards towards the twenty-five minute mark – about half the time it would take her to have match with Harrison Wake, or to beat Anna Malikova four and a half times – and not one of these pen pushers had thought to ask her about the immediate future. They knew as well as she did that her next match was against Ariel Justice, and that she’d agreed to give them half an hour of her time, but - as she meandered her way through her answer to which OCW, HPW, or SPJ wrestlers would you like to see make the jump to American soil? – none of them had even brought up her name. Perhaps she’d make it through the entire thing without having to address her. Or perhaps not.

“Marianne Yeltzov, from the Rosie the Wrassler podcast,” a woman began, clearing her throat and holding her pen and notepad to the ready. “Next week on Adrenaline Rush you go head-to-head with Ariel Justice, in your first all-female match-up since your very first contest in CWA. What are your thoughts on Justice and the match? I assume you see the inherent similarities between yourself and your opponent?”

“Well, of course,” Michelle began, looking over at Yeltzov whilst the rest of the reporters began to pack away their things. They didn’t seem interested in Michelle von Horrowitz versus Ariel Justice. Why should they be? It was throwaway and thrown together, and she hadn’t given them any reason to care. Truth be told, there was no reason to care. Justice was nothing but a stepping stone.

“Justice is a figure that I’ve been thinking about a lot recently,” she continued, ignoring the other, disenchanted reporters and focussing entirely on Yeltzov. “And I’ve been watching her matches carefully, too. When I first began to wrestle the way I wrestle and speak the way I speak, I hoped that this would happen. In fact, I knew it would. Women remained an untapped resource in our sport, and promotions continued to limit their roster pool to half of the population, until I proved in one night in the Wrestle Royale match that this was a bullshit, patriarchal position. I applaud Ariel’s ambition, and I even respect her for following me unto the breach. But this won’t stop me from destroying her. More women in wrestling is a great thing, but if one should come between me and what I’m trying to do here? Well, I guess you can all watch for yourselves next week.”

“But what about the differences?” Marianne continued, fully aware of her peers checking their watches and rolling their eyes, but ploughing on unfazed. “The contrast between yourself and Justice is plain to see, both in the ring and outside of it.”

“I have noticed this, yes. At least inside the ring,” Michelle responded. “She is taller than I am, probably more powerful, too. She may think that this gives her an advantage, but I am used to going into matches in such a position. My whole strategy, everything that I do within those ropes, is predicated on going into the match as the smaller wrestler. Perhaps even the weaker wrestler, if we’re talking about strength alone. But Justice is stubborn. She refuses to adapt her style for the environment that she is entering. She thinks she can apply the same skills that made her a fierce competitor in the world of women’s wrestling to her life in the CWA. This is almost admirable, but I fear for her. I really do.”

“And outside of the ring?” Marianne Yeltzov went on, insisting on this becoming a one-on-one interview. “You speak at length about your opponents… You indulge in a certain… psychological warfare… You’re fond of telling us that you’re the best in the world… We haven’t really seen very much of that from Justice. Do you think that makes her something of an unknown?”

“Yes, of course it does,” Michelle responded, checking the clock. She still had two minutes to fill, but that seemed like too much time to address Ariel Justice in her entirety. “As I’ve said, I’ve studied her tape, watched her matches, and listened to her interviews. And what do I have to go off? A couple of losses to Elijah Edwards and a fifteen-second interview before her first match. Ariel Justice says nothing because she has nothing to say. You’ve all seen what I’ve done here. I beat the entire roster on my first pay-per-view. I’ve pinned our current World Heavyweight Champion, not once but twice. I’ve tapped out Bell Connelly, I’ve pinned WOLF, and I’ve destroyed Drew Connor. I say I’m the best and then I back it up, each and every week, not just when it really matters. And Ariel knows this. When you face Michelle von Horrowitz, you face all of her, whether it’s a house show, Adrenaline Rush, or Five-Star Attraction.

“This is not the week that Ariel Justice arrives. This is not the week that she announces herself. This is the week that she realises just how far she has yet to go.”

With that, she stood up to leave, nodding at Yeltzov before she went. At least she was tied down to the here and now, unlike the rest of the reporters. Michelle didn’t like to look backwards, and her future planning was generally focussed on what could be done in the present. Jon Snowmantashi was always standing upon the horizon, blocking out the sun, she knew there were miles to go before she could face him once more. She had to keep winning, and winning well, no matter who they put in front of her, if the late-blooming flowers of her Retribution were eventually to come through.

 

[SupineSnake]

Promo history - volume 21.
"Half-Eaten Sandwiches" (July 5th, 2016).
Michelle von Horrowitz def. Mark Merriwether (CWA: Adrenaline Rush).​

The painting was old, unimaginative, stained by both age and a lack of care. The yellows of the sand were patchy and uneven, the whites of the waves stark and unreal. The blues of the sea, though, still stood firm, untouched by the years that the painting had been hung upon this wall. She assumed it had been there for years, but seeing as this was the first time that she had regarded it she couldn't say for sure. She didn't know whether the tide was coming in or going out, but that didn't matter. The coming and going off the tide was just a game, pointless and zero-sum, limited to a strict set of boundaries that the sea had no will to push past.

Michelle asked herself how long she'd been staring at the old painting of the older sea, and had no answer. Michelle asked herself how she'd got to this corridor in the first place, and had no answer. Michelle asked herself where she was, and had no answer.

She stared off towards the north end of the corridor, the rest of the walling bare and a ninety degree left turn visible perhaps twenty metres in the distance. She began to walk towards it, running the knuckles of her right hand against the wall as she did, the concrete coarse against her pale, white fingers. The carpeting, wallpaper, and ceiling were all the same deep red, constricting and contracting around her as she moved down the corridor. She seemed to be travelling upwards, too, dull aches in her calf muscles hinting at an incline. When she reached the turning she placed her hand on the angle, feeling the need to suck in a couple of deep breaths before she moved on.

Around the bend, she found a man sitting at a table, leant back in a relaxed and comfortable manner in a high-backed chair. He tapped his fingers idly on the surface of the makeshift desk, and as she approached he slowly moved into focus. He had no eyes and no nose, but the thin, pursed lips of a small mouth occupied the normal position. His head was hairless and a sleek, black suit fitted him well. On the table sat three objects; a small, unused notepad, a pencil, and a large platter of sandwiches, each of which had been bitten once and then placed back into the pile. When she reached the desk, she stopped and stared at the man. For a moment he did nothing, but eventually, with a sigh, he leant forward to retrieve the pencil, proceeding to scratch 'Michelle von Horrowitz - 07/03/2016 - 08:58:21'. Afterwards, he placed the pencil back down, continuing to stare at Michelle with no eyes.

"Where am I?" she asked, staring off at the far end of the corridor, where another left turn waited.

“Don’t you know?” the man answered, his voice meek and unassuming but still dominated the corridor. Then, he motioned towards the sandwiches. “Are you hungry?”

Michelle shook her head, and something within her suggested she should get away from this man. Without another word, she moved to the end of the corridor, turning left and finding another hallway exactly like the last. Hanging up half way down was another painting, again of the moon shining down upon the still sea. She couldn’t be certain, but here it seemed that the waves had invaded further up the shore, the white foam waves encroaching on the foreground. The frame seemed to be older, more worn by age, but the artist stayed the same.

She moved onwards, turning another corner, and waiting for her was the same eyeless gentleman that she’d just abandoned. Or, a second exactly the same as the first. She looked down at the pad as the man began to scratch a second entry into the log, exactly the same as the first – ’Michelle von Horrowitz – 07/03/2016 – 08:58:21’.

“Where am I?” she asked again. She would’ve still refused him eye contact, even if he had eyes to make contact with.

“You used to know,” he replied. Again he nodded towards the platter. “Please, take a sandwich. They’re good. I’ve tried them myself.”

She stared at the man’s blank countenance for a few beats before pressing on. Around the corner, she found exactly what she expected to. Another framed picture was pinned to the wall, and in this image the waves had forced their way to the top of the beach, to the point where the sand was no longer visible. It looked tumultuous, the indifference and treachery of the sea captured well in the brush strokes. It gave her a headache. She turned another corner, ever onwards and ever left-wards, and her old, faceless friend awaited her once more. He lifted his pen, writing ’Michelle von Horrowitz – 07/03/2016 – 08:58:21’ beneath the two pre-existing, identical log entries.

“Where am I?” she asked for the third and final time.

“You will know again one day, I’m sure,” he answered, with finality. There were more sandwiches on the plate than before, as if they were reproducing. “You should take some food for your journey. You’re almost there.”

She stared at the man for a few moments, tracing her eyes from the greying crown of hair around his ears, passed his feature-less face, over dishevelled clothing and finally to hands worn by age. He was unremarkable and without authority. She had no reason to trust him, or to follow his instructions, or to respect his pointless words. She turned away, walking back in the direction that she’d come, seeking only escape. As she turned the corner, the inner wall began to fold and give way, collapsing into nothingness, revealing a vast, drastic landscape before her.

And, in the far distance, a lonely mountain reared up from the earth like a stallion. It dominated the horizon, massive and inevitable.

And then she awoke.

***​

The camera pans across the faces of audience members as we return to the arena, anticipation and excitement upon their faces. The masses of Canada were here to see their favourite stars, the men that they pinned their hopes on when their own lives were hopeless. The heroes of this world would descend the ramp and they would scream their name, the bright lights of the ceiling reflected from their suits of white armour. They waited, and they watched, and they listened, ready to pledge themselves to the man who would be King.

’A candy coloured clown they call the sandman…’

For the most part, this was not one of their heroes. Michelle von Horrowitz wore no suit of shining white armour, and inspired no love from the people. Instead, the reactions she evoked were generally bred of mistrust, filled with mixed emotions and trepidation. They could cheer her, but she resented giving them something to cheer her for. They could boo her, but she had shown them too much talent for that to be done sincerely. Whenever she spoke within a CWA ring, which was admittedly quite infrequently anyway, she would stare out at the faces of her audience as they filled with wild frustration. They knew the words she spoke were true – perhaps even more-so than the words of proper heroes – but she said them in such a hateful and spiteful manner that a crowd would look for any reason it could to dismiss them. Today would be no different. Every day is the same as the last; long and hard and like Sunday.

As a small ‘MvH’ chant began to circulate, she climbed through the ropes and listened carefully. She could make out the form of the three initials that they chanted, fighting desperately for prominence amongst the overwhelming hostility like a child held beneath the waves, reaching for the surface. They did not anger her, or disappoint her, or sustain her. The chant was as irrelevant as the people that produced it. She did not speak for these people or to these people - they were as dispensable and interchangeable as her opponent for the evening.

“My silence can be kept no longer,” she began, after collecting a microphone from Lindsay Monahan. There was no need for elaborate metaphors or dreamish narratives. She had something to say, and it needed to be blunt. “My tulips, for as long as I can remember I’ve done precisely the same thing, week in and week out. I am bored of it. I am sick of it. So God knows how you all feel. I come to this ring, or I stand in the back next to Michelle Kelly, or I go to a nearby park to cut a soliloquy in the twilight. I declare myself the best physically, the best psychologically, the best full fucking stop, and then I climb through these ropes and I prove it. They feed me a different man to emasculate, a different hero to cut down. Whether it’s Harrison Wake or Jonathan McGinnis or Johnny Vegas or Mr Enigma, the result is the same. I come, I win, I leave. And then I wait. I wait not for recognition from my peers, and not for the love of you people. Your love is unclean. I do these things because I have a duty, a god damn right, to lead this company into the new age. An age where we don’t rely on stupid men and old men and fat men. An age where we can look at our champions, and the lineage that they’re a part of, and say with confidence and clarity that the Clique Wrestling Alliance is the premier wrestling organisation in North America. No, the God-damned world.”
The crowd are on her back already, the standard ’BORING’ chant climbing above the woman’s supporters. A lazy ’WE WANT WRESTLING’ chant rises up in answer, quickly gathering momentum before it is all that can be heard within the Toronto arena.

“You want wrestling?! YOU WANT WRESTLING?!” she continues. The volume of the repetition is so sudden and uncharacteristic that the chant is broken up, only the most ardent von Horrowitz detractors daring to continue. “Who do you think it is, you fucking trogs, that gives you wrestling?! When Jon Snowmantashi decides that he needs a night off, AGAIN, who is here to pick up the slack? When the Tag Team Champions spend half an hour running their mouths about something that literally nobody cares about, who is next up to put on a match of the fucking year candidate? When Jonathan McGinnis refuses to let one of his matches reach a proper conclusion, who reminds us all that the CWA can be a true sanctum of sporting competition? FUCKING ME, that’s who! I’ve wrestled on every single episode of Adrenaline Rush this year, and we’re half way through it. And why do I do this? Because it’s the right thing to do, obviously. And you tell me that you want wrestling? The fucking gall. You people make me sick.”

There is some applause, particularly in lambast of the Indy Club, but for the most part the Canadian crowd grows quickly defensive. Only her most loyal supporters remain, but that was more than she wanted, anyway.

“Last week on Adrenaline Rush, Isaac Richman came down to this ring and decided to make a match. He put Elijah Edwards and myself in a triple threat for a championship. And, to be honest, on the surface that sounds agreeable. As much as I hate to commend such a person, Elijah Edwards is maybe the only other person on this fucking roster who has competed with as much consistency and regularity as myself, albeit against weaker opponents. He’s earned a shot at the top prize, more-so than the Man-Baby, who doubtless will get yet another opportunity to wage his impotent war upon the calm shores of the Indy Club. But no. NO! Elijah and I are not to be in the world championship match next month, as he could argue he deserves and as I know that I deserve. You all know it, too. Each week I’m out of the championship scene is another week that McGinnis slides towards being a paper champion. He is not the best until he has defeated the best. I am the best, and he has not defeated me.

“Instead, we are given a chance at the High Voltage Championship, held by that proud, arrogant man who calls himself LIGHTBRINGER,” she goes on, her rage still palpable but a little more focused. She is openly pacing the ring, now, irritated by the company and the crowd, a bundle of energy just waiting to be let loose on Mark Merriwether. “The undefeated LIGHTBRINGER, I should say, and my one-time tag partner. The time will come when my words are pointed at the Tokyo Kisai, but that time is not now. The same goes for Elijah Edwards. I don’t even wish to talk to Mark Merriwhether, whoever the fuck he is. I speak only to CWA management, and my message is clear. Next month, I’m taking this second-rate belt from the waste of your new poster boy, and I’m walking straight through the fucking exit with it. I’m done with the disrespect, the underestimation, the blatant, festering misogyny. You don’t deserve Michelle von Horrowitz. You deserve the slow, pathetic death that you’ve been sliding towards for years. I’m taking your belt and I’ll defend it wherever I choose. Whether that’s HPW or SPJ in Japan, or PAW in Mexico – hell, even FWA. Anywhere but here.”

The crowd are close to silent, perhaps even dumbstruck. From the back, a scream of ’JUDAS’ is heard, and then all hell lets loose. The hatred comes on like a tidal wave. Plastic cups begin to hit the ring. The CWA faithful chant the company’s initials in accusation. Michelle stands unfazed, unmoving, a smile on her face and the microphone raised for the final blow.

“You know my plans. They will not change. I am taking your belt and I am leaving this piss-hole. And if you want to stop me? You’ll have to send better men than Mark fucking Merriwether to do it. Let’s get this over with.”

She throws the microphone at Lindsay, taking a seat in the corner with her head propped up against the bottom turnbuckle. She waits once more, the animosity gathering and building around her as if she were stood in the eye of a storm.

 

[SupineSnake]

Promo history - volume 22.
Volume 22: "The Edge of the World" (April 8th, 2016).
Michelle von Horrowitz def. LIGHTBRINGER, Elijah Edwards [Triple Threat Match, CWA High Voltage Championship] (CWA: Kings Reign Supreme).​

MvH VOLUME 21 "THE EDGE OF THE WORLD"​ July 11th, 2016 – Air Canada Centre. Toronto, Ontario, Canada. “You know my plans. They will not change. I am taking your belt and I am leaving this piss-hole. And if you want to stop me? You’ll have to send better men than Mark fucking Merriwether to do it. Let’s get this over with.” She throws the microphone at Lindsay, taking a seat in the corner with her head propped up against the bottom turnbuckle. She waits once more, the animosity gathering and building around her as if she were stood in the eye of a storm.

14th July, 2016. Dear Ms von Horrowitz, CWA-NW Talent Office. Seattle, Washington. We are writing in regards to your recent appearance in Toronto, Canada on an episode of ‘ADRENALINE RUSH’ for ‘CLIQUE WRESTLING ALLIANCE’ (CWA). Specifically, we write in response to your plans to defend the CWA High Voltage Championship on our programming at ‘PAN-AMERICAN WRESTLING’ (PAW), should you be successful in your challenge at the forth-coming ‘KINGS REIGN SUPREME’ super-show. The pro-wrestling audience here in Central and South America would welcome you with open arms, should you decide to go through with your plans. We were surprised to hear that you have never performed in Mexico, or in Latin America in general, and we have a series of challengers that we think are worthy of stepping into the ring with you, pending your approval. We do, however, find it highly irregular that you are not contactable by phone or by email. Regards, Raoul Almodovar. (Chief Talent Scout, PAN-AMERICAN WRESTLING)

I. 17th July, 2016 – CWA North-Western Headquarters. Seattle, Washington, US.​ It was the first time I’d had cause to venture into the corporate swampland of our dear little promotion. The executive wildlife – malignant suits who filed and networked and photocopied without ever making eye contact – generally did their best to ignore me, which was a mutually agreeable arrangement. I sat behind the desk, staring through the huge windows that made up the western wall of the office. We were high up, looking down upon the Seattle sprawl. The Space Needle jutted out proudly in the distance, a gaudy, phallic sentinel standing guard over the city. In front of me, a man whose name I couldn’t remember – Gregory? Graham? Something oh-so-vanilla like that – paced in front of the window, muttering his way through a soliloquy regarding responsibilities and contractual obligations. He was heavy-set and balding, and had removed his jacket to cower from the heat some time ago. Gentle patches of perspiration had formed beneath his arms. He had a funny habit of placing his thumbs behind his braces as he spoke, flicking them against himself as he finished each of his dull, unremarkable points. I wondered if he’d ever had an original thought in his life, if any measly morsel of his being wasn’t manufactured. “It’s just something you have to realise, Miss von Horrowitz,” he said, picking up his coffee cup and placing it down again without sipping. “You can’t always do whatever you like. You have a contract here. You can’t just up and leave whenever you like.” I thought about this in silence for a moment. “I think you’ll find,” I began, carefully. “That I can do whatever I like.” Gregory/Graham looked as if he intended to start his response a number of times, but on each occasion he’d climb back down before the first words passed his lips. Eventually, he sat down and looked over at the other man behind the desk. He was thinner, gaunter, with an entirely bald head and a sinister-looking beard. Like Ming the Merciless. Never trust a man who looks like Ming the Merciless. “Miss von Horrowitz,” he began, leaning forward in his chair but remaining seated. His eyes were piercingly blue. “I think what my associate is trying to say is that, should you fail to appear in the weeks following Kings Reign Supreme, the company will sue. Yours isn’t the most lucrative contract in CWA, sure, but you will still be in breach of it, and I doubt you can afford to buy yourself out. I know how much you earn, after all.” “Well, Mr Whatever-the-Fuck,” I began, yawning and placing my hands behind my head. In fairness to Ming, he didn’t flinch. “You may know how much I earn, but do you know how I live? Of course you don’t. If you did, you’d know I was a woman of simple pleasures. A bottle of Jameson’s, a box of cigarettes, and I’m happy. You pay for hotels, travel. No extravagance required, besides a return trip to Berlin earlier in the year. But the FWA gave me a huge cheque to make up for that, anyway. I haven’t cashed one of your cheques since February. I have them in my bag, if you’d like to see. And as for my contract, I signed for one year. That only leaves a couple of months after Kings Reign Supreme. I can afford to buy myself out and still have more money left than I could ever spend.” “Miss von Horrowitz,” he said again, his grating formality as deliberate as the rest of his demeanor. “Even if what you say is true, we still have the moral argument. Just think of everything the CWA has done for you. You’re a household name. To leave with the High Voltage Championship, should you take it from LIGHTBRINGER, would be to bite the hand that feeds you. You’d be spitting in the face of your fellow wrestlers, the Board, the fans…” “What the CWA has done for me?” I scoffed, louder than I intended. The larger man recoiled, nervously rotating in his chair as I continued. Ming remained resolute. “What about everything I’ve done for the CWA? I’ve plugged holes bigger than the one in the o-zone layer for months. They asked me to waste my time with Enigma, with Wake, with the Echo, just so there was something worth watching on the show, and I went along with it. The people wanted to see McGinnis and Snowmantashi. I understood. But they’ve been at it for months, and literally nobody cares any more. You should have thought about all of this before you spat in MY face, asking Michelle von fucking Horrowitz to slum it in the midcard in some thrown together triple threat. You’ve made the match, you’ve sold pay-per-views on it, and now you can’t just cancel it. You have to lie in the grave you’ve dug for yourself.” Ming reclined in his chair as I stood, nodding his head and interlocking his fingers. He was the type of man who prized himself on being unflappable, but I could see through it. I saw his soul through his eyes, and a storm was raging. All that needed to be said had been said. Well, almost everything. “And it’s Ms von Horrowitz, you fucking troglodytes.”

20th July, 2016. Ms von Horrowitz, CWA-NW Talent Office. Seattle, Washington. ‘HONSHU PURORESU (HPW)’ was pleased to hear of recent developments on ‘ADRENALINE RUSH’, a production of ‘THE CLIQUE WRESTLING ALLIANCE’. The HPW board are unerring in their desire for Michelle von Horrowitz to return to the promotion for her potential forthcoming defences of the CWA High Voltage Championship. HPW is confident that Ms von Horrowitz, a student and graduate of our school, will have the number of Elijah Edwards and LIGHTBRINGER, who came through the ranks of one of our rival promotions. This being said, HPW would request that Ms von Horrowitz agree to exclusivity in the great nation of Japan. It is our understanding that you have also expressed an interest in defending the championship in SPJ, and you spent many years in your early career performing for OCW. HPW would hope to be the only company promoting Michelle von Horrowitz in the country. In return, the HPW board of executives would negotiate appearances or title defences in our sister promotions in Russia (CZB – Чемпионат железа борьба) and China (WSW - 冬季風暴), as well as our partners ’London Brawling’ in the United Kingdom. As we did many times whilst you were under contract with our company, we yet again request that you provide us with a phone number or email address. It is good, professional practise. With thanks, Kyuzo Kimura. (Head of Talent Relations – HONSHU PURORESU)

II.​ 25th July, 2016 – The Stampede Corral. Calgary, Alberta, Canada.​ The show may have finished, but the fun goes on. As Michelle lurks within one of the exits, surrounded by CWA fans with her hood up to conceal her identity, a special attraction “dark match” is reaching its conclusion in the ring. With the Women's Wrestling Classic fast approaching, management has decided it prudent to showcase some of the talent that will be involved in the tournament. Georgie Calloway, some local heroine who had given an emotional speech about her dead Daddy and how the tournament provided some hope of redemption for her, had been put up against Beth Sokurov, a Soviet nobody. Calloway seemed to have the advantage, teeing up her trademark Spear… but as she charged, Sokurov utilised her ‘Now You See Me’ technique, evading the attack and sending poor Georgie face first in the turnbuckle. Sokurov dragged her to her feet by the tights, booted her in the midsection, and nailed her with the pedigree. The three count was academic. It was at this point that Michelle hopped the barricade, just as Beth Sokurov took her leave and stamped up the entrance ramp. She rolled beneath the bottom rope and waited patiently for the Canadian to rise. Calloway was ignorant to her presence, more concerned with coordinating her feet into a position where they could support her weight. She turned right into the Busaiku Knee Kick, crashing back to the mat once more. The crowd soured on the scene instantly, the cameras – sluggish after the culmination of this week’s Adrenaline Rush – perked up to focus in on a close-up of the assailant. Michelle von Horrowitz stood, a rare smile on her face and her arms raised either side of her, her trademark ‘Pro-Wrestling Jesus’ pose. After barking at Lindsay Monahan, she is handed a microphone and a steel chair, the former of which she places in the corner for later. Throwing the chair down on the mat, she hoists up Georgie Calloway’s dead weight, executing a double arm underhook DDT, sending the local hero’s head crashing into the steel. With the rookie lying face down and motionless on the mat, she nods in a contented manner at nobody in particular, before retrieving the microphone and taking a seat upon the top turnbuckle. “You know, I used to think that the Clique Wrestling Alliance, and those in positions of authority here, just don’t listen to the things that I say,” she begins, staring around at the assembled audience. Some, her most ardent detractors, have got up to leave, whilst others have stayed to boo. “But now I know the truth, and that’s not right at all. They do listen to the things that I say. They just choose to disregard them, and do precisely the opposite. How many months have I been here? Ten? Eleven? And how many times have I called Women’s championships and Women’s tournaments utter, contemptible bullshit? To be the best in the world, you need to be able to stand with anyone that could be put in front of you. Heavyweights and cruiserweights, male and female. If you cordon yourself off in your own little division, craving safety over competition, you end up with silly creatures like this one tripping over her own boot laces. This is not a petting zoo. It’s a jungle.” She hops down from her turnbuckle, walking across the ring to stand over her fallen prey. “But I shouldn’t expect anything more from the cretins that run this place. They are, after all, the same people who put me in this afterthought-extravaganza with LIGHTBRINGER and Elijah Edwards next Sunday. I’ve spoken about my problems with this booking at length, and others have spoken about it more, so I don’t see the point in re-hashing my plans. You know what they are. They haven’t changed. All that remains to be done is to rip that belt away from its paper champion. This Sunday is the precipice, my dear tulips.” To her credit, Geogie Calloway shows signs of life. Her limbs have gradually become responsive, and at length she begins to make her way to her hands and knees. Michelle, unmoved by the effort, simply scrapes the sole of her boot against the local’s head, sending her back to the mat. She repeats the motion whilst continuing her monologue. “I call LIGHTBRINGER a paper champion because, well, that’s what he is. He may be something somewhere else. In Japan, the name that he uses is regarded with respect and with honour. This means nothing to me. All he has done here is graciously accept the meager offerings being fed to him. Dustin Dreamer? Johnny Vegas? These are victories that we are meant to take seriously? This man beats Elijah Edwards a couple of times and all of a sudden he’s the second coming? Let me remind you, boys and girls, that I defeated the entire fucking roster on my first pay-per-view. I’ve pinned WOLF, I’ve tapped out Bell Connelly, and our current World Champion succumbed to me on two separate occasions. I went to war with Mr Enigma and Harrison Wake, and both bowed down to my will. We’re meant to respect that little charade you call an undefeated streak? Come back when you’ve beaten somebody, anybody, worth beating.” She allows her words to sink in whilst busying herself in removing the middle turnbuckle cover. She places the microphone on the top one so that her words are still audible. “At least Elijah Edwards challenges himself. I mean, his crusade against the Club is doomed to fail, of course, but it shows a sort of charmingly futile ambition. He refuses to play it safe. I once thought I could respect a man like LIGHTBRINGER. He wasn’t the worst tag partner I’ve ever had, not by a long shot. But in truth? He allows himself to be used as a pawn, without even realising it. I see it all now. Clear as day. LIGHTBRINGER fits the corporate mold perfectly. In some ways, he is the second coming. Of Snowmantashi. The Man-Baby’s heart hasn’t been in it for a while, and it doesn’t surprise me to see the powers that be lining the Kisai up to take his place. Krash and Cyrus have joined the queue, too. Throw in Darling Jonathan and you have five men that are variations upon precisely the same theme, competing in matches that we’ve all seen before, even when we haven’t.” After placing the microphone on the mat she lifts Calloway’s dead weight, pulls her over to the corner, and plants her face-first onto the exposed steel with a drop toe hold. She turns her back on the rookie to retrieve the mic, refusing to further acknowledge her presence in the ring. “But I mustn’t neglect Double E. I want to quote to you what a very wise person once said about Edwards, less than a year ago. ’Elijah Edwards is a man blinded by hypocrisy, floundering in the torrid guidance dished out to him by his manipulative little pipsqueak of a manager. Rollings is a cretinous leech driven by money, and a man like that is to be neither trusted nor admired. Edwards’ association with this creature only highlights the magnitude of his double standards. He paints a mundane picture of himself as a respectful, honourable soul. A general solid guy. Yet he buys into the spin of a squalid little runt like Rollings, eyes wide and starry at the merest suggestion of accolades, wealth, and power. Edwards is full of the ugliest of lusts, and unintentional vanity is just as bad as deliberate.’” She pauses at the quote’s climax, lowering the microphone to unleash a wicked grin. Georgie Calloway lies forgotten about and twitching in the corner. “Do you know who said that? That was me, my dear tulips. The week before the Wrestle Royale, when I stamped my name on this company by sheer force of will. I repeat it now because it is still true today, and Elijah Edwards is not worth wasting original thought upon. He has many qualities that one might deem admirable. He is relentless, and, as I’ve already discussed, ambitious. But he is also deluded. He did not keep his championship because he could not keep his championship. He hasn’t torn apart the Club because he cannot tear apart the Club. And he will not defeat Michelle von Horrowitz because he cannot defeat Michelle von Horrowitz. I present these things as facts because they are so.” After checking upon Calloway and content that she’s incapacitated, Michelle moves to the opposite corner and climbs to the second turnbuckle. She extends her arms to either side of her and allows the crowd’s hostility to wash over. She smiles, as if refreshed by the waves of angst and mistrust. The silence endures, and then lingers, and then stagnates. Eventually, with the camera focused upon her euphoric face, she concludes. “I’ve already said that to be the best you need to show yourself willing and able to confront all foes. Heavyweight, cruiserweight, male, female, brawler, technician. LIGHTBRINGER has shown himself unwilling and Elijah Edwards has shown himself unable. I am the only competitor on this roster to consistently do this, week in, week out, for almost a year. No weeks off. No vacations. No excuses. And yet I’m still told to eat scraps at the kid’s table. And so, I’m leaving, with your precious High Voltage Championship, along with its holder’s reputation. And there’s not a god damn fucking thing any one of you can do about it. We’re standing at the Edge of the World. Throw yourselves over, tulips. You haven’t got a chance.” The FWA.com footage fades to black with Michelle still atop the second turnbuckle, her eyes closed, soaking in the atmosphere. The next day, it would be announced that Georgie Calloway had withdrawn from the Women’s Wrestling Classic.

27th July, 2016. Ms von Horrowitz, We are writing to express our interest in your recent comments with regards to the CWA High Voltage Championship. However, it would of course be our ultimate goal to retain your services on a full-time basis, as is the case with all of our talent. We would hope to honour your status as High Voltage Champion and, in time, potentially unify it with one of our own championships. However, all of this would be contingent on you providing our offices with a phone number or an email address. It is unprofessional and archaic to have to communicate through the mail. With regards, Mike Mundane. FWA Talent Officer.

III.​ 29th July, 2016 – Ellesmere Island, Qikiqtaaluk, Nunavut. Quebec, Canada.​ The snow was thick on the ground, and she held her coat around her as tightly as she could. The man who’d agreed to bring her to this place – Onatok, a middle-aged inuit man from the nearby settlement named Griese Fiord – sat nearby, eating the raw beans that he’d carefully wrapped up before they’d left the village. The snow pressed through the thick trousers she’d bought especially, leaving her damp and cold and genuinely dissatisfied. But the mountain that reared up ahead of her was everything she’d thought it would be. She’d seen a picture of it in the bus station upon arrival in Montreal: Barbeau Peak, a lonely and dominating pyramid of rock, covered with snow, hostile and unforgiving and inevitable. It was the one she’d seen many times before, in her dreams and nightmares alike. She was sure of it. And now, sat at its feet, damp and cold and genuinely dissatisfied as she was, she felt, well, at least she felt something… Truth be told, the shadow of the hill engulfed her, and – as she shivered with her back propped against Onatok’s tent – she felt as if the mountain knew she was cowering from it. It had been this way in her dreams, too. Each time the formation of rock had reared up before her like some angry stallion she’d been feeble and deferential. It seemed eternal, and now that she sat upon its foothills that feeling was only compounded. Michelle was snapped from her malaise by a bark from one of Onatok’s dogs. Another pissed against the side of his sled, ricocheting down to cut through the snow. She must have jumped at the noise, the first to break the utter silence in a while, for Onatok let out one of his strange, low giggles. “The dogs are bored, Shivers. They don’t know why they’re out here, either,” he said, in his monotonous fashion. He’d taken to calling her Shivers, which she wasn’t crazy about. “Up past the mountain there is a settlement named Alert. Five people live there, left over and forgotten when the Cold War petered out. Alert is the northernmost settlement on Earth. That’s where you are, Shivers; the Edge of the World. You’ll find nothing here.” “That is here,” she said, nodding towards the mountain. It didn’t acknowledge her. It didn’t need to. “I mean to climb it.” Onatok let out another low giggle, unable to contain himself. “You have a match. In two days’ time, I believe,” he began, slow enough for her to understand. He clearly didn’t think she was particularly intelligent, and – when it came to mountaineering – he was probably right. “Even with dogs, sled, the Barbeau Peak cannot be climbed so quickly. If it can be climbed at all. The snow is deep and cold, and you have been shivering for hours already.” Michelle stared at the peak, as insurmountable now, sat just a few miles from it, as it had been in her dreams. “Not today,” Michelle conceded. “But soon.”

 

[SupineSnake]

Promo history - volume 23.
"Wilderness Champion" (Various Dates).
Open Promo.
​

i. Part One (August 12th, 2016).

MvH
WILDERNESS CHAMPION​

July 11th, 2016 – Air Canada Centre. Toronto, Ontario, Canada.

“You know my plans. They will not change. I am taking your belt and I am leaving this piss-hole. And if you want to stop me? You’ll have to send better men than Mark fucking Merriwether to do it. Let’s get this over with.”

She throws the microphone at Lindsay, taking a seat in the corner with her head propped up against the bottom turnbuckle. She waits once more, the animosity gathering and building around her as if she were stood in the eye of a storm.

July 31st, 2016 - Centre Bell Arena. Montreal, Quebec, Canada.

LIGHTBRINGER collapses to the mat after the lariat as Michelle rolls over still clutching her ribs. She fights the pain, bent over in the corner, lying in wait... LIGHTBRINGER rises up... BUSAIKU KNEE KICK! LIGHTBRINGER falls on his back but Michelle isn't through yet... BURNING HAMMER! Michelle drives LIGHTBRINGER to the mat and slowly drapes her arm over him for the cover...

ONE ...

Tim Coleman: "Please kick out!"

TWO ...

Elijah begins to slightly stir...

THREE!

Lindsay Monahan: "The winner of the match, and the NEW High Voltage Champion...MICHELLE VON HORROWITZ!"

All three competitors lay in the ring, completely spent, as "In Dreams" by Roy Orbison rings throughout the arena. It seems like an eternity before Michelle moves. She rolls over and is handed her championship by the official. She's on her knees now, cradling the belt as if it were newborn baby...

Jim Taylor: "What does this mean for the High Voltage Championship?"

Tim Coleman: "I couldn't tell you, Jim, but I'm disgusted by this and for once I share these fans' feelings."

Michelle hugs the championship belt as if there was nothing else in the world at that very moment as the fans shower her in hate and trash. She eventually exits the ring and walks up the ramp cradling her championship, while the fans continue to litter the ring. She doesn't turn back and disappears behind the curtain

-- i --​

Update on MvH title "defenses"; Noah Hanson Adrenaline Rush announcement.
5th August 2016
By Johann Jerberger

The internet has been abuzz this past week with news of the High Voltage Championship, which was “stolen” from the company last Sunday by its new holder. Michelle von Horrowitz, after emerging triumphantly from a war with LIGHTBRINGER and Elijah Edwards, left Montreal with the gold and caught the first flight off the continent. Von Horrowitz has been promising to do as much for the last month, leveling accusations of disrespect and undervaluing against CWA management and creative. It’s unclear what the promotion plans to do with the championship, although we are expecting an announcement from Noah Hanson next week on Adrenaline Rush. In the meantime, though, von Horrowitz is now competing as the “Worldwide High Voltage Champion”, and already has two successful ‘defenses’ under her belt.

Obviously, CWA.com doesn’t recognise these matches as official High Voltage Championship contests, but that hasn’t stopped MvH from declaring them as such. Mere minutes after the culmination of the triple threat match at Kings Reign Supreme, the Honshu Puroresu [HPW] promotion in Japan announced on their Twitter feed that von Horrowitz would be competing on the Champion’s Feast supershow [チャンピオンの饗宴 – Chanpion no kyōen] in Nagoya. It’s obvious that the appearance was arranged in advance of Kings Reign Supreme, contingent on von Horrowitz winning the championship. Michelle had competed for the company for four years between 2009 and 2013. Her biggest match in HPW saw her go up against The Bull [雄牛 – Osuushi] for the promotion’s Television Championship, again at the Nagoya Dome in October of 2012. There wasn’t much talk of a rematch back then, when The Bull pretty much steamrolled von Horrowitz in just over thirteen minutes, but almost four years later the pair returned to the same stadium to fight for a different championship.

The match, which you can see on HPW’s website for free, went on second to last behind the HPW World Championship match. The Bull’s age was certainly a factor, and von Horrowitz looked surprisingly fresh considering the battle she’d been through with LIGHTBRINGER and Elijah Edwards just a few nights before. MvH picked up the win over the Japanese veteran in just more than twenty minutes, after a Dragon-Style Curb Stomp and a 450 Splash. It seems that almost a year in CWA, wrestling men like Harrison Wake and Jon Snowmantashi, has taught von Horrowitz a few lessons about larger opponents. After the match, Michelle asked for a microphone and took her trademark position seated on the top turnbuckle. The HPW.com footage cuts out here, but grainy camera videos are already on YouTube.

“I used to think that a company in America, a company named Clique Wrestling Alliance, was the greatest and purest version of my beloved sport on this Earth,” she begins, to an audience that only half understands. “Week after week, month after month, I would climb into a CWA ring and, almost always, I would climb out of it a winner. I’ve left CWA without ever having been pinned on Adrenaline Rush. I beat the best the company had to offer – McGinnis, Vegas, Wake, the Connors, LIGHTBRINGER – time and time again. Everyone except one man. Jon Snowmantashi has pinned me, fair and square, and he’s the only man at that company who can say that. But nobody had proved themselves more worthy of another shot at the World Championship than me. Snowmantashi had lost to McGinnis, twice, and should've gone to the back of the line. As far as I can see, there was nobody in front of Michelle von Horrowitz.

“And what do they do? They offer me this,” here she holds the High Voltage Championship high into the air. “This secondary championship. This child’s toy. This placeholder. They expect the great Michelle von Horrowitz to be happy with this? Please! So, I took the nuclear option, and left their shitty little company with their shitty little belt. And by doing so I've elevated it further than any number of hollow wins on Adrenaline Rush ever could. It is now a symbol of my victory over the machine. It is a golden horse with a black rider,. A harbinger of the Clique's demise. Now, as you might expect, my dear tulips, this has caused a little bit of a stir back at home. The CWA has been quick to distance itself from me. Many keyboard warriors have declared any defenses I might have out here invalid. Or so I’m told. I don’t have a computer. Idiot boxes. But these peoples’ opinions matter not, tulips. All that matters, at least now, is this.”

Of course, by this she means the championship belt. Again she raises it, and the gold seems to glimmer beneath the bright ceiling lights. She holds it proudly above her head for the remainder of her monologue.

“But word from America has not escaped my ears. I have heard, just like the rest of the world has heard, that Noah Hanson – offender-in-chief amongst the troglodytes in CWA management – has a special announcement regarding the CWA High Voltage Championship. But Hanson is mistaken. There is no CWA High Voltage Championship. I stand before you now as the first and only Worldwide High Voltage Champion. No empty words or hollow threats can rip this belt from my grasp. For that you’ll need a three-count.

“Hanson can stand in whatever shit-tip of a city his circus rolls into next, and he can come to any conclusion that he wants. He can put together some sort of battle royal or tournament and give some nobody a replica of my belt. He can claim that the championship reverts back to its previous owner and adorn LIGHTBRINGER with a tarnished crown, as I’m sure he’d like to. He could even bury the High Voltage moniker entirely and institute some new award. But the facts will not change. I stand before you as the lineal champion, the one true holder of this prize. Any new torch-bearer that they wheel out on stage will be little more than a sham. You all know it. Even you, Noah.”

Finally, she hops down from the turnbuckle and walks into the cente of the ring, the belt upon her shoulder.

“I started tonight by telling you what I once thought: that the CWA was home to the purest form of wrestling imaginable. I began to question this last month, and tonight I disregard the opinion entirely. Tonight I’ve seen more ambition, more talent, and more passion than in ten months at that sink-hole of a promotion. It’s a big world, and it’s selfish of America to demand all of Michelle von Horrowitz.”

Two nights later, MvH competed for China's 冬季風暴 [Winter Storm Wrestling – WSW] on their Red Alert supershow [紅色警報 – Hóngsè jǐngbào]. The High Voltage Championship opened up the show as MvH successfully defended against 太陽的女兒 (Tàiyáng de nǚ'ér), a rising star in the promotion. Her position on the card, and a lukewarm reaction from the Shanghai Indoor Stadium crowd, pointed out the Chinese audience’s unfamiliarity with western wrestlers and von Horrowitz specifically. MvH won the fast-paced, high flying affair after a combination that saw her hit a devastating Regal-plex before grinding 太陽的女兒 down with a cross-face chicken wing plus bodyscissors, finally floating over into the Cattle Mutilation for the submission.

Von Horrowitz left Shanghai almost immediately, but since a further appearance next week has been announced for Russian promotion Чемпионат железа борьба [Chempionat zheleza bor'ba (Iron Championship Wrestling) – CZB]. Nothing’s been confirmed as of yet, but it’s rumored that von Horrowitz will be facing “Knockout” Vladmir Kruschev at the Summer Snows IV show in St. Petersburg. You may recognize the name; Kruschev is a former amateur boxing world champion, and the man who ended the FWA’s Jean-Luc Watkins’ hopes of turning professional in that sport.

Cynical commentators have pointed out that The Bull, MvH's Nagoya opponent, is now forty-one years old, whilst von Horrowitz – little more than a rookie in their first encounter - has entered her peak years. It’s also true that太陽的女兒, her Shanghai opponent, was a teenage prodigy who’d been wrestling for less than a year. MvH’s most ardent detractors (who also happen to be the CWA’s most fervent supporters) have suggested that the challengers being lined up for her are heavily vetted, and that we should expect to see more green boys and old men. Regardless, PWOutsider will keep you up to date with developments, both overseas and here at home.

-----​

ii. Part Two (August 17th, 2016).

--- ii ---

on LIGHTBRINGER.​

“The essential conflict was between the tradition of the nineteenth-century asceticism and the actual existing luxury and snobbery of the pre-1914 age. On the one side were low-church Bible Christianity, sex puritanism, insistence on hard work, respect for academic distinction, disapproval of self-indulgence; on the other, contempt for ‘braininess’, and worship of games, contempt for foreigners and the working class, an almost neurotic dread of poverty, and, above all, the assumption not only that money and privilege are the things that matter, but that it is better to inherit them than to have to work for them. Broadly, you were bidden to be at once a Christian and a social success, which is impossible. At the time I did not perceive that the various ideals which were set before us cancelled out. I merely saw that they were all, or nearly all, unattainable, so far as I was concerned, since they all depended not only on what you did but on what you were.”

She finished the passage and set the book down, her eyes drifting onto the high peaks that the train snaked effortlessly between. A woman came past with a trolley full of drinks, Michelle shaking her head politely but distantly. Her hand was in her bag, fingers tapping idly against the glass bottle within. She wanted a drink, almost needed one, but it wasn’t yet midday and the journey ahead was still long between here and St Petersburg. You can drink yourself to ecstasy and to ruin when the boredom of travel sets in. Scenery is beautiful for a second, a minute, sometimes even an hour, but eventually everything becomes repetitive. The woman disappeared into the next carriage, and Michelle took the opportunity to take one deep pull of Jameson’s, placing it back in the bag and hearing the satisfied clink of the glass against her championship gold.

She picked up the book and read over the same paragraph for the fourth or fifth time. She saw within its convoluted phrasing and snaking structure a truth that had thus far escaped her. It explained the dichotomy of LIGHTBRINGER. Maybe even the reason that he had failed. You had to squint your eyes, and replace the context of an early 20th century boarding school education with an early 21st century professional wrestling promotion, but the comparisons were there to be found. For instance: that money and privilege are the things that matter, but that it is better to inherit them than to have to work form them was the assumption of the CWA Universe. The silly little troglodytes that paid to see LIGHTBRINGER or Elijah Edwards or Jon Snowmantashi but went away talking about Michelle von Horrowitz. Kisai may have won a few matches against various low level gate-keepers, but he’d been protected through a laborious undefeated streak. She had no doubt about this. The people bought into the hype and the company patted itself on the back as their hot new signing fulfilled his potential. Their audience, Michelle believed, lauded LIGHTBRINGER’s championship run because it was expected whilst they scoffed at hers because it was inconvenient.

The dichotomy of LIGHTBRINGER was becoming clearer by the day. He’d even alluded to it himself before their match at Kings Reign Supreme. Michelle had watched him often in Japan when he’d wrestled for SPJ. The man was ruthless, calculated, ambitious. He climbed the ladder to earn both championships and prestige for himself and his school. He would do anything to win. Since coming to the CWA he’d displayed none of this, or at least very little. A few glimpses in the Triple Threat Match, maybe, but Michelle had watched as he was constantly drawn back to the trogs and what they might possibly think of him should he bend the rules. And, at Kings Reign Supreme, there were no rules to bend, the No Disqualification stipulation playing into her hands. She’d made use of steel chairs, ring steps, and – albeit ultimately unsuccessfully – the announcers’ table. He had been hampered by a lack of conviction. An inability to do what needed to be done.

LIGHTBRINGER, she concluded, had fallen into the trap set for him by CWA management and CWA fans. They wish their heroes to be both gallant and successful, two things which are often mutually exclusive. And LIGHTBRINGER intends on being a hero, so he must at least attempt to bridge the impossible gap between the two. This desire to be both a Christian (in the vaguely positive, pre-war British sort of sense) and a social success had, eventually, led to his failure.

She closed the book again, amusing herself with the scenery that had meandered past her window for the last handful of hours. She couldn’t be sure how long they had been going through the Ural Mountains, but it had been enough time for the scene to become stale. The snowy peaks were a way off, and instead the serpentine track weaved its way around the foothills, occasionally darting up into the higher reaches to provide an endless panoramic of the surrounding land. In her dreams there was only one mountain, sheer and bleak, rearing up from the earth like a wild stallion. It had seemed insurmountable, and she’d likened it to Snowmantashi within her thoughts. How romantic of her. She’d seen the Barbeau Peak in the northern reaches of Quebec, a single pyramid of rock casting its shadow over its snow-white foothills. But now, as she found herself surrounded by the Urals, she felt that this was closer to the truth. There wasn’t only one mountain, solitary and abstracted from the pack. There was a cluster of peaks stretching out before her, each summit progressively higher and more arduous than the last.

I merely saw that they were all, or nearly all, unattainable, so far as I was concerned, - she had read and re-read, the words now ingrained upon her mind – since they all depended not only on what you did but on what you were. She knew what she was, much like she knew what Snowmantashi was, and LIGHTBRINGER. Even McGinnis, though now he was little more than an artifact of the past. They were draws, brought in to boost ratings or sell t-shirts or ‘get the internet community buzzing’ (whatever that meant). They were the heroes and the flag-bearers. She was just a grunt, a cog in the machine, slowly throwing away the best years of her career, grinding out results at the kids’ table whilst the adults talked business elsewhere.

But, so long as she had their belt, she was also a champion.

-----​

iii. Part Three (August 24th, 2016).

-- iii –
​

MvH defends 'Worldwide' High Voltage Championship in Japan, Russia; Reaction from LIGHTBRINGER camp; von Horrowitz on forthcoming Hanson announcement.

​

17th August
By Johann Jerberger

As we roll towards Adrenaline Rush and Noah Hanson’s big announcement regarding the CWA High Voltage Championship, Michelle von Horrowitz has again been popping up all over the Far East. Last week, we reported on successful ‘defenses’ (not recognised by the Clique Wrestling Alliance as such, of course) against 雄牛 [Osuushi] for HPW in Nagoya and 太陽的女兒 [Tàiyáng de nǚ'ér] for WSW in Shanghai, and the last seven days have seen her wrestle two more matches on foreign soil.

]Most interestingly, von Horrowitz was in action two days after her appearance for 冬季風暴 [Winter Storm Wrestling], this time in Tokyo for the Women’s promotion P E A R L S. This was notable for three reasons. Firstly, von Horrowitz has spoken frequently and at length about her disdain for women’s titles, tournaments, and promotions, so her appearance for P E A R L S was out of the blue. Secondly, it was common knowledge that von Horrowitz’ HPW booking carried an exclusivity agreement, blocking performances in Japan for a period of six months. It has since become clear that this was little more than a verbal understanding, executives at HPW trusting the word of a former long-term employee and in return organising matches for MvH in China, Russia, and Britain.

Of course, von Horrowitz had already completed her China booking by defeating 太陽的女兒 in Shanghai. In addition, the Russian promotion Чемпионат железа борьба [Chempionat zheleza bor'ba (Iron Championship Wrestling) – CZB] – as well as London Brawling in the UK - had announced forthcoming matches involving the Worldwide High Voltage Champion. It appears that both of those organisations are going forward with the matches (indeed, the Russian match has already happened at the time of posting), creating some tension with Honshu Puroresu in Japan. This also represents a burned bridge between Michelle von Horrowitz and HPW – some thought that MvH would end up there when she was finished country-hopping with the belt, but there seems little chance of that now.[

The third interesting factor ahead of the match, and possibly the one that explains the first two, is the opponent. The match was set up after a challenge laid down by Himawari, shortly after she’d defeated “Super Girl” Sachi Arai at a show in Kobe. Of course, Himawari was, at least up until very recently, the manager and close ally of LIGHTBRINGER, the man from whom von Horowitz took the High Voltage Championship at Kings Reign Supreme. The opportunity, apparently, was too much for MvH to pass up, and the match was made official only two days later, for the promotion’s 7th August supershow ユリとシャクヤク [Yuri to shakuyaku].

The encounter, main eventing the Osakajo Hall, was a twenty-six minute showcase of both competitors’ aerial and technical ability. The opening exchanges of the match were primarily mat-based, the only pin-fall attempts coming from roll-ups. Things took to the outside when MvH gave Himawari a big back body drop over the top rope, von Horrowitz proceeding to utilize every moment of the twenty-count and get the most out of her environment (steel steps, ring post, and barricade all came into play). Himawari showed resiliency, though, kicking out and surviving an Ankle Lock, managing to roll through and propel von Horrowitz into the turnbuckles. She followed up with her Sunflower Kick X finisher, only for the Dutch competitor to get a foot on the ropes. The finish came when MvH ducked a wild lariat from Himawari, proceeding to bounce off the ropes and nearly take her head off with a Busaiku Knee Kick. A 450 splash and a prompt three count followed, much to the chagrin of the fans. The Osaka audience had been firmly in Himawari’s corner throughout the match, as you’d expect against foreign opposition.

Never one to pass up the chance to voice her opinion, Michelle stood on the stage after collecting a microphone, her Worldwide High Voltage Championship draped over her shoulder. She spoke as Himawari came to in the ring, no doubt intending to goad a reaction from the LIGHTBRINGER camp.

“A woman debases and reduces herself to arm candy – hidden beneath the professional guise of ‘manager’ but arm candy nonetheless – and clings firmly onto the coat tails of The Next Big Thing,” she begins, keeping eye contact with her fallen opponent as she does. “Said Next Big Thing promptly loses his newly won championship to the most undervalued, oft-disrespected, and outright ignored wrestler working today. Aforementioned arm candy thinks she can avenge The Next Big Thing’s crushing defeat. It’s an adorable premise, isn’t it, tulips? Compelling… dramatic… hopeful… with just a hint of poetic justice about the whole thing. But it is also naïve, as I have just shown. If your boss couldn’t beat me, what makes you think that you could? Your challenge was brave but doomed, little one. And if your master and commander is watching let it be known that he will never get another chance at MY Worldwide High Voltage Championship, or at Michelle von Horrowitz. At least until he wakes up and follows me out of that stagnating cesspool of an organisation.”

Himawari would give a post-match interview backstage, and had the following to say in response.

"It is disappointing to lose the match. I felt that I had a good showing and that I was close to winning. I could have done more and I'm sorry that I let my team and the fans down - small errors on my part contributed to my downfall. It's unfortunate. I wish Michelle had not spoken after the match as her words were not kind or truthful, just ignorant. I didn't want the match to have anything to do with Kisai - I was the one who made the challenge... for myself. I thought I could win, that was all. It is wrong that Michelle thinks I followed Kisai to America just to be 'arm candy' when I was in retirement and was the only available SSD member to travel. It is wrong that Michelle discards my achievements and thinks I hang onto my teammate's coat tails. She has a high opinion of herself and she will find that will lead to her downfall one day. If she wants to use this victory to try and get at Kisai then she will end up regretting it. I have not seen him for a long time but I know that he is not someone you should try to force into action or throw jibes at. It is telling sign that she is the one trying to talk up a rematch and not him. Isn't Michelle supposed to be the star attraction in her mind? What does she need him for? I would stand here and say that I respect Michelle from our match but her actions mean I have no respect for her at all. She is a talented individual but deluded to the highest degree. If Kisai does not feel the need to reappear and challenge her then I would like a rematch... with no rope breaks to save her. But now, my focus will turn to facing Mika-chan in her return match."

LIGHTBRINGER was confirmed to be in attendance for the event and was spotted backstage along with new SSD acquisition La Volpe III. He was approached but did not give any comment worthy of note - he shrugged his shoulders and simply stated: "Tonight's match was about Himawari and not me. If Michelle von Horrowitz wants to face me then she knows where I am."

It seems clear to this writer that many issues between Michelle von Horrowitz and LIGHTBRINGER remain unresolved.

Regardless, the procession of the WorldwideHigh Voltage Championship did not stop there, MvH flying into Beijing for the six-day journey to St. Petersburg on the Trans-Siberian Express (von Horrowitz is reportedly a bad flier, and most of her travel in the States was by bus). Her 16th August booking for Чемпионат железа борьба came and went with less fanfare, most likely due to her opponent. “Knockout” Vladmir Kruschev may have been a world class amateur heavyweight boxer, but in a wrestling ring he is slow and clunky. Last night, von Horrowitz made short work of the 6’11” veteran in front of his home-town crowd, earning her no supporters amongst the St Petersburg audience. The match finished after von Horrowitz slipped under a hefty but lazy right hook, taking the big man down with a drop toe hold into the middle turnbuckle. Kruschev kicked out at two, but MvH quickly manoeuvred into the Cattle Mutilation, the big Russian quickly tapping and the bell accordingly rung.

Thanks to a rapidly and progressive more hostile crowd, von Horrowitz made a quick exit from the Petrovsky Stadium, but did stop to give an interview with the promotion’s Igor Gorbachev. After flippantly dismissing Himawari’s comments (“I try not to listen to anything that woman says”), Michelle discussed the upcoming announcement with regards to a new High Voltage Champion, but couldn’t help herself from straying onto the topic of LIGHTBRINGER.

“I don’t know what Noah Hanson is cooking up, serial crackpot that he is,” she began, Gorbachev holding the microphone in front of her after asking his question in broken English. “I imagine a placeholder will be put in place until he can put something more long term together. I don’t really care, to be honest. It is irrelevant. Any champion that is crowned on Adrenaline Rush, or on pay-per-view, is a fraud. I am the lineal champion, that much cannot be denied. For as long as I clutch this belt, this symbol, my credentials cannot be questioned. To be honest, Hanson’s plans were derailed the moment the referee counted the pin fall, LIGHTBRINGER staring up at the lights and his championship transferring to me. It wouldn’t surprise me if that’s where the crackpot ends up placing his bet, once again. But I’ve said it before and it’s still true now: any champion, or championship, that the CWA invents is nothing more than a sham.”

Von Horrowitz said little else about her former employers, and is probably awaiting Hanson’s announcement like the rest of us. Tonight’s episode of Adrenaline Rush will feature the first round of the annual Ruler of the Ring tournament, as well as the General Manager’s decision (if he’s come to one) with regards to the High Voltage Championship. Meanwhile, MvH is looking ahead to two further bookings; the first on the 19th August for Marseille championnat de lute [MCL], the promotion for which von Horrowitz made her professional debut, and then at London Brawling’s “Horrorshow” event in Whitechapel, London. There have also been whisperings of a potential FWA appearance, which – according to our sources within the promotion – is being openly courted by the Worldwide High Voltage Champion.

More, doubtless, to follow.

-----​

iv. Part Four (September 6th, 2016).

-- iv --

on the Fantastic Five.

Rotterdam, the Netherlands.

August 18th, 2016. 2:36 AM.[/CENTER]

”And then, when Adrenaline Rush goes off the air next week, we will once again have a champion that we can be proud of, that we can believe in, and not a petulant child who takes her ball home when she’s not getting her own way. Savage, Humanity, Connor, Truth, Edwards – the very best of luck to you all. May the best man win…”

The young woman stared up at the screen listlessly, idly rotating the glass of amber on the bar in front of her. The amber contents were slowly becoming more and more diluted by the melting ice cubes, but at this point in the night (morning?) that didn’t seem overly important. Noah Hanson was finished, his monologue completed and a smug, satisfied smile on his face. The Sacramento audience were applauding politely, Taylor and Coleman (fucking Coleman) were selling the five-man cluster-fuck as best they could, and Hanson went on smiling with a replica of her High Voltage Championship on his shoulder. She finished the drink and signaled for another, looking away from the screen in disgust (not despair).

The sports bar that she’d occupied for a handful of hours was dark, dingy, and empty. There was no discernible charm about it. No feature could be described that would differentiate it from a sports bar in New York or London or Tokyo. This one happened to be in Rotterdam, her home city. She’d decided to stop over for an evening in-between bookings in Saint Petersburg and Marseilles. It wasn’t too much of a detour and it seemed like the conventional thing to do. It hadn’t taken her long to regret the decision. Her mother was still living in the suburbs, probably, but she had no intention of going to see her. There was little else for here in the city. So she had come to this bar, because it was anonymous and nondescript and un-Rotterdam. And it was always open.

She stared around the room, taking in each of the screens that lined the walls. A Kenyan was pacing away from the chasing pack in Rio. Footage from a training camp of some football team was showing on ESPN. Celtic had just put their fifth past some Israeli minnow. And, tucked away in a corner, a re-run of FWA’s Red, White, & Bruised was reaching its climax. Ryan Rondo was standing on the stage, his two championship belts on display and his challenger already waiting in the ring. Another glass of Jameson’s arrived and she threw it back greedily.

Forcing herself to stare at the CWA product directly in front of her, she saw Elijah Edwards making his way down to the ring. One of the fantastic five. Probably the one that she knew best. He had debuted at roughly the same time as her, quietly proving himself and slowly climbing the card. She had stolen the headlines with her victory at the Wrestle Royale, but Edwards had a similar win-loss record, a High Voltage Championship reign, and a pin-fall victory over then World Champion Jonathan McGinnis. People were beginning to speak about him now, and for good reason. She shuffled uncomfortably on her chair, the thin line of bruising that ran from her waistline to her right clavicle burning as it tended to do periodically. She’d received it when Edwards had dived out of the way of her elbow drop, sending her crashing through the announcers’ table. It had only been exacerbated by the Excellent Execution, which he’d locked in later in the match. She had no intention of finding herself in that predicament again.

Regardless, she didn’t fear Edwards. Perhaps she respected him, at least as much as she did anyone else in the promotion, but she didn’t fear him. Familiarity brought comfort. She had watched him, or his sniveling runt of a manager, take to the stage in order to run through Elijah’s credentials. And each time it happened there was a growing sense that his accomplishments were hollow. Before their match at Kings Reign Supreme, he had proudly boasted that his win percentage was nearly as good as hers. But when you did a little basic maths (though undoubtedly beyond the capacity of the troglodytes lining up for tickets to Adrenaline Rush) you realized that 67% didn’t really compare to 81%. He had won the High Voltage Championship, sure, but had dropped it the very next week against that self-aggrandized poser LIGHTBRINGR. He had beaten Jonathan McGinnis, but by the end so had literally everyone. Some list of achievements.

She had been in the ring with Ethan Conner before, too, and had watched on as his brother secured the pin fall victory over Enigma in a tag match back in March. Tag matches mean fuck all. The week before she had defeated Drew, but Ethan had been absent from ringside thanks to the general manager’s decree. The younger Conner probably felt he had an advantage over her, given that his team had triumphed over hers. Maybe he did, but he was distracted. Krash and, more imminently, Cyrus Truth still wait for him, fists raised in both vigilance and rage. The Conners are young, brash, obnoxious, and intent on stamping their own repugnant prints all over the promotion. Good luck to them. That’s not to say one single fiber of her being respected (let alone liked) either of the brothers, but at least they stood for something. Krash and Cyrus Truth are the status quo, standing only for the continuation of a broken formula. The clash between old and new was a re-tread of an overused cliché, but it was also a smokescreen. She didn’t believe either man could put aside their hatred for the other, even for the sake of championship glory.

She stared back over at the screen showing Red, White, & Bruised, the main event coming to its climactic throws. Truth had the Long Road to Nowhere – his patented neck crank submission, undoubtedly dangerous – locked in on Rondo, the then-current, now-former champion forcing the challenger’s shoulders down to the mat. Cyrus kicked out, but the hold was released, allowing Rondo to fight to his feet and attempt an RKO. Truth pushed him off into the turnbuckles, landing the Journey’s End and following up with the pin fall. She sipped at another Jameson’s that had arrived as if by clockwork. Truth celebrated with confetti and two belts. How lavish. She should like two belts. She should have two belts.

Truth could, of course, be a threat to anyone. He was the current Undisputed FWA World Champion and a two-time CWA World Heavyweight Champion for a reason. But even a legend cannot afford to spread his focus so thin. Amidst keeping hold of his belt in the F’ and plaguing the Echo in the C’, it was impossible to see Cyrus mounting any serious challenge for Hanson's faux-championship. He could be disregarded. Humanity and Savage could not be so easily reasoned away. At least not yet. She had always been careful to fear the unknown. One should approach a precipice with caution. But they would have to show their hands soon enough. Hers could remain close to her chest.

On the screen in front of her, Snowmantashi evaded Edwards’ Kick of Fury before nailing him with a jumping axe kick. The Hailstorm was all that was needed to secure the three-count. Edwards had shown heart, she was sure (well, not sure, she hadn’t been paying much attention), but he had come up short once again. She smiled to herself. Part of her knew why this was: she hadn't pinned or submitted Elijah in her near-one-year run in the CWA, despite being given several opportunities. He was wily and evasive, if nothing else, and the only comfort she could take was in his misfortune. But his time would come, as would Snowmantashi’s and LIGHTBRINGER’s alike. Time waits for no man.

-----/CENTER]

v. Part Five (September 14th, 2016).

-- v –-​

MvH runs in on Nate Savage following Adrenaline Rush fatal five-way; “Worldwide” High Voltage Championship defending in France and the UK; Challenge laid down to Savage and CWA Management.

September 5th, 2016
By Johann Jerberger.

It’s been an eventful few weeks for Michelle von Horrowitz, the self-proclaimed Worldwide High Voltage Champion popping up on two more continents to ‘defend’ her title and steal a new one. We last reported on her travels as she left Asia, heading west for a successful defense against “Knockout” Vladmir Kruschev in St. Petersburg. Since then, MvH appeared on Marseille championnat de lute’s anniversary show at the Roucas-Blanc City Gymnasium in Marseille. The assembled audience of three hundred people witnessed a rare treat and a match of particular significance for von Horrowitz: MCL and the Roucas-Blanc City Gymnasium were where she made her professional debut back in 2007.

Von Horrowitz defeated a veteran local wrestler named L’Guerrier des Irises, a man almost twice her age, in just under eight minutes. The match wasn’t a particularly good one, and is available for free on MCL’s website, but von Horrowitz took to the microphone afterwards to thank the fans and speak briefly about the forthcoming fatal five-way to declare a new CWA High Voltage Champion. Her tone was softer than usual, playing to a hometown crowd and the first to have been firmly in her corner on this tour. Of course, that didn’t continue as she progressed onto the topic of Noah Hanson’s replacement champion:

“All of these five men are interchangeable. Anybody who wasn’t good enough to make the semi-finals of the Ruler of the Ring tournament shoved into the ring together and told to have at it. Truth and Conner will be blinded by their hatred for one another. Edwards has been falling from grace ever since he beat a fading champion. Savage and Humanity are near non-entities. It doesn’t matter which one of them manages to lose slowest next week. Their championship belongs to me.”

MvH was cheered out of the building, and spent a week apparently reveling in the adulation of Northern Europe before catching the ferry to the United Kingdom. She did not receive the same reception during her defense at London Brawling’s event in Whitechapel, London. Von Horrowitz would be challenged by British HOSS at the promotion’s “Horrorshow” event, the patriotically named wrestler receiving the unbridled support of the assembled audience. He also represented the biggest threat to von Horrowitz’s championship since the challenge of Himawari, and the match went twenty eight minutes before MvH managed to duck beneath a Super Kick attempt. She caught HOSS and hit an exploder suplex, before locking in the Stretch Muffler, eventually eliciting a tap out with a series of vicious stomps to the back of the head. With the fatal five-way on the horizon, von Horrowitz was all business, leaving the arena amidst hostility and begrudging respect to prepare for the events of Adrenaline Rush.

It was thought that MvH was heading to Central America, where she is scheduled to appear on two PAW shows in Mexico and Cuba. However, at the climax of the fatal five-way match, when the dust had settled and Nate Savage stood alone as the new champion, von Horrowitz stormed the ring with a Busaiku Knee Kick. She skipped away with Savage’s belt, a team of security in pursuit, before exiting the arena flanked by a team of security. Since, the CWA has sent very mixed signals about their former employee. On the one hand, they have invited MvH to appear on the next episode of Adrenaline Rush, presumably for a dressing down from Noah Hanson. On the other, the company has opened legal proceedings against von Horrowitz, accusing her of breach of contract and theft. Von Horrowitz was asked for comment on the events of Adrenaline Rush, and sent the following hand-written statement to PWOutsider:

“The CWA can make as many legal threats as they feel are necessary. I can weather the storm. I have the resources and the time. What they really want, what they need are my championship belts. And they are both mine, for I am the lineal champion. That is verified fact. Nate Savage isn’t fit to clean my boots, and Noah Hanson knows that full well. It is why he has invited me to appear next week on Adrenaline Rush in San Diego. It is because he knows that his puppet Savage couldn’t defeat me out here, in a neutral setting. So he must stack the deck. He wishes to blindside me, to take MY titles from me. I am no idiot. One doesn’t need powers to see what would happen if I walked into The Valley View Centre next week. I would walk out without my championships, should I walk out at all. But I will appear… by video link. If only to tell Hanson face-to-face what he’s probably already realized: that whatever surrogate champion he installs stands firmly in my shadow.”

MvH is still set to honor her bookings for Pan-American Wrestling, before returning to the states for the satellite-enabled encounter with CWA general manager Noah Hanson. More, as always, to follow.​

 

[SupineSnake]

Promo history - volume 24.
"The Women's Classic" (September 30th, 2016).
Michelle von Horrowitz enters the Women's Classic [Tournament - results unfinished] (BWW: Women's Classic).​

In a well-lit corridor of an unnamed stadium, a woman of classical beauty walks slowly. There is something unsettling about her – a vacancy in the eyes, a lack of imperfection, wisps of white smoke that seem to rise from her clothing. She remains silent as the night for a few moments before beginning.

“Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Beth Sokurov. At least, that is what I have been known as since I came to this place. And I have been here for longer than you think. The truth is, I have been known as many things: Bethesda is the name that my parents gave me… The Lonely is the name that I chose… The Unbroken… The Second-born… The Outlaw… The Chained. My names are these and many more, but they will not tell you who I am and where I am from. I was formed almost at the point of singularity, when the universe was flung out into existence. In that Chaos, the Planet Khal’ed was formed, and on it the great continent of Har’hoth, from which rose the single, giant peak of Mount Zharro. In its highest reaches which reached out into the Chaos itself, the First-born inhaled their first breathe, formless and ethereal and wild. Two of them came together and a third was formed, and that was I – Bethesda the Second-born. And the halls of time stretched out before, and I saw it all. The birth and the death of the universe, and everything in-between. Including this tournament. I have seen the women who will climb into the ring with me. I have seen them all fall, and fade, and I will remain the Unbrok- - -“

Out of nowhere, Beth is bowled over with a massive chair shot! She slumps to the concrete floor and the camera retreats a few metres, following the assault from afar. The steel is brought down onto Sokurov’s shoulder four times, five times, six… The perpetrator throws the weapon down and turns to the camera, a grin spreading across her face as she flicks her hair from her eyes. It is Michelle von Horrowitz, wild-eyed and excited, and she nods at the camera before turning back to Sokurov. The victim has rolled onto her front and is heavily favouring her shoulder, and Michelle looks to capitalise with a full nelson, perhaps hoping to follow up with the Cattle Mutilation… but as she lunges at Sokurov the ceiling lights begin to flicker and Michelle finds herself falling through Beth’s form as if it were thin air, and eventually she is sprawled on the floor.

The camera picks Beth up again, looming above MvH, who is still wrestling with the afterimage effect. Von Horrowitz begins to disentangle herself, but she’s taken down with a spear. Sokurov reels off some rapid fire forearms before MvH throws her off, and the two race to get to their feet. Michelle is slightly quicker… allowing her to take Beth down with a Busaiku Knee Kick! Von Horrowitz reaches around for the chair, proceeding to nail Sokurov’s shoulder a total of seven times with the steel. A Dragon-Style curb stomp follows before a security team arrives on the scene, separating the CWA High Voltage Champion from the newcomer. A series of doctors arrive, and eventually Beth Sokurov is placed onto a stretcher.

Michelle turns to the camera, which has been watching the scene from over her shoulder. She beckons it to follow her around a corner, leaving the medics to attend to Beth.

“We don’t need to watch that,” she begins, the camera struggling to keep up with her. “Just like you didn’t need to hear that. Absolute drivel. Circus tricks and lighting effects – that is the sum of Beth Sokurov’s parts. She claims to be some sort of God, but she is fallible, just like all humans. I’ve just shown you that this is true. But why, I hear you ask… Well, because I had told the organisers of this little tournament that I wasn’t interested in it. That women’s tournaments were beneath me. And rest assured, tulips, they still are. But I am here, and this feels… I don’t know, important. Like we are standing at the precipice, staring out into a new frontier.”

She pauses and collects a bag from the ajar door of a nearby locker room. From within it she retrieves two identical championships: her ’Worldwide’ High Voltage Championship, complete with LIGHTBRINGER’s name on its plating, and Nate Savage’s official CWA High Voltage Championship. She throws the ruck sack into the locker room, closes the door, and places the championship belts on her shoulder.

“You see, we are at the start of something. Shannon O’Neal is talking big, predicting an all-woman main event for next year’s Back in Business. Bell Connelly, obnoxious little runt that she might be, has been deserving of a championship shot for months now, and is finally being given what she has earned. Anzu Kurosawa and Eimi Sanada are poised to leave their mark on the Fantasy Wrestling Alliance, and it is quite possible that we will see an all-female final in this year’s Quest for the Best. When I spoke about an uprising, I didn’t mean that the quality of the women’s divisions in each promotion – if CWA had one, of course – would gradually increase until women’s championship matches were as looked forward to as men’s. No. This would not be an uprising at all, and has been happening for years all on its own anyway. What I predicted was that we would replace the men altogether. First we would take their titles, and then their main events, and finally their pay checks. Overrated has-beens like Cyrus Truth and Krash would be relegated to their rightful place, at the foot of the card, staring up at the likes of Anzu, Eimi, and the great Michelle von Horrowitz with envy and regard. I’ve been speaking about it for nearly a year, and finally it is happening.”

MvH continues to walk, the cameraman back-pedalling as she rounds various corners, continuing down identical corridors. She sporadically runs the knuckles of her left hand against the coarse walling. The light plays on the faces of her title belts.

“Just think about where we will be after the next CWA and FWA shows are in the books. I will have defeated Nate Savage and will be the official and final CWA Worldwide High Voltage Champion. Bell Connelly will be the FWA World Champion. Anzu Kurosawa will have won the Quest for the Best and, if she’s a team player, will challenge either Parr or Watkins and take another of their crowns. The only credible contenders for the FWA Tag Team Titles are Bell and Shannon O’Neal or Anzu and Eimi Sanada. It is a new dawn, ladies and gentlemen. And I am here to lead it, as I always have. Hell, maybe after Global Collision I’ll take this belt to the FWA too, and offer to unify it by beating whatever remnants of the patriarchy is still left standing. And how does one lead an uprising? One shows that they are worthy. That they are the best choice. That they are the only choice. This tournament will place a sword in the hand of a champion, elected by force. I mean to finish what I started.

“Beth Sokurov purported to be some sort of God, but the glories of divinity is in their creations. And what did Beth ever create? I have given you all of this…”

She spreads her arms out either side of her, motioning to her surroundings.

“… not these bare corridors, with their stagnant smell and drab demeanour, but rather this idea. This very notion of an Uprising was planted MY win at last year’s Wrestle Royale… the belief that the time is right for the deconstruction of an entrenched hierarchy was supported by MY year-long Adrenaline Rush undefeated streak.MY victories… MY hard work… MY blood and MY sweat… Bell Connelly can talk about her wins, but she’s played it safe for months. Only now has she stepped up. Shannon O’Neal can talk all of the fine, brave words that she wants to, but nobody has taken her seriously for years. Nobody saw the true significance of Gabrielle’s elimination from the Wrestle Royale, brought about by these hands…”

She offers up her palms to the camera, and a devious little smile along with it. There’s a glint in her eyes as she re-adjusts her belts before continuing.

“She alone can claim to have truly lead this industry, but I mean to go one further. First, I created the conditions for our Uprising, with months of hard work. Now, tonight, I have created the opportunity to lead it. When I called Mister Cage and told him I’d win his tournament after all, he told me that the field was full. But if there should be any injuries and subsequent drop-outs, my name would be on the top of the list. Beth Sokurov had to be sacrificed, but I’m sure she’ll understand. Who else in this roster of misfits is in any state to take up command? Nobodies like Dreyer, Kavvanagh, or Carter? Kurayami, another joshi whose arrival well after the likes of Anzu and Eimi is no accident? The impressively named but inexperienced Phoenix? You could make a cogent argument for Gabrielle, I imagine, but who honestly believes that the Caramel Princess will still be around in three months’ time, in any other capacity than Eyesnsane’s strumpet? A woman who debases herself to the point of being an auxhiliary character for a perennial mid-carder is in no position to lead. Nikki Albarn may have the pre-requisite experience, but she also has weak wisdom teeth. These people are not leaders. They follow.”

The lights flicker again.

“Some people will think of this tournament as a natural end. The finale of a stage in their careers, the culmination of years of hard work. Others see it as a beginning. The point when they become something… when they fulfil some abstract, nearly forgotten idea of potential.For me, it is neither the start nor the end. One year ago, a video heralding my arrival played at Global Collision. I debuted the next week, defeating Little Annie Malikova in a ’Women’s Proving Grounds Match’. How quaint… how patronising. Two weeks later, I was pinning Wolf, and the week after that I out-lasted every man on the roster. That is when this all began. And it will not end for a long time yet. But this tournament is a platform, and only one will emerge on the other side of it. And who else could it possibly be, but Michelle von Horrowitz?”

Finally, she arrives at a large set of glass doors, a green sign reading ‘EXIT’ illuminated above it. She pushes her way through them and into the streets. Night has taken over. It starts to rain.