Post by Deleted on Sept 25, 2013 19:55:26 GMT -5
"The Cairomoves Trilogy, Part I: Six Long Years"
Depression. Isolation. Regret. The pain of defeat. The dreadful feeling of opportunity squandered, never to be regained. Miscalculation. "Where did it go wrong? What could I have done differently? What could I have done better? Where did it all go wrong? Will I ever get another chance? So close, yet so far away. Why couldn't it have been me getting my hand raised? So close..." The thoughts that raced through Bobby Cairo's mind like scornful accusations after he was defeated by Skyler Striker at WAR in Two-Thousand-and-Seven, finishing runner-up in WCF's most prestigious match. With the loss a shot at then WCF World Champion Jack of Blades slipped through Bobby Cairo's hands - a match that Bobby Cairo wanted more than he wanted his next breath. But it wasn't the lost opportunity to compete for the belt that scorched Cairo's soul like the heat of a thousand suns. What truly burned him was the opportunity that he lost to defiantly stamp his name in the record books as one of the few WCF superstars who have seized victory in WAR.
Bobby Cairo is a student of the sport of professional wrestling - and to him it is a sport, not mere "entertainment". Growing up as a young man watching WWE, NWA, WCW, ECW, WCF and all of the other great professional wrestling organizations, Cairo revered such men as "The Nature Boy" Ric Flair and his Four Horsemen, Bret "The Hitman" Hart, "Mr. Perfect" Curt Hennig, "Y2J"-slash-"Lionheart" Chris Jericho, Randy "Macho Man" Savage, Kurt Angle, "The Million Dollar Man" Ted DiBiase, "Stone Cold" Steve Austin, "Ravishing" Rick Rude, and even "The Face of Treachery" Logan. These are men that a teenaged Bobby Cairo desired not only to emulate, but to surpass in their greatness, their achievements, and their impact upon the sport that he loved more than any other. Oh sure, football was grand and basketball had its moments during the Jordan years, but nothing got Bobby's adrenaline pumping like watching his heroes go to war and reign supreme in battle. War, WAR... there's that word again. The word that haunts Cairo, the word that keeps him awake at night even in a king-sized bed filled with beautiful bitches.
In Two-Thousand-and-Six, Bobby Cairo was on the path to realizing his dream of professional wrestling immortality as a rookie in the Wrestling Championship Federation. Cairo arrived on the WCF scene like a bat out of hell, going on a months-long winning streak, claiming victory in a World Title contendership tournament, which included a major upset win over "Creeping Death" Corey Black, and challenging then WCF World Champion "Reckless Jack" Brad Kane in a pay-per-view main event for the strap. Cairo proved victorious in his challenge, albeit by disqualification. Jack would retain the belt that night, but subsequently lost it to number one contender Victor "Outcast" Taylor. Cairo would defeat Jack without controversy in a rematch, earning himself a second crack at the belt, against Outcast. This time Cairo proved himself to be as good as gold, maintaining his poise in a match that would make most rookies shit themselves en route to knocking off his veteran opponent to capture the most lauded championship in all of wrestling. At the tender age of twenty-three Bobby Cairo was on top of the world.
The good times were short lived however. With Bobby's World Title victory came a change in his personality. The humble, All-American, golden boy image that he personified was transformed into the image of a young man who cared mostly about drinking, partying and boinking the groupie bitches who made themselves readily available to the newly crowned champ. Gone were the days of working hard to improve himself as a competitor under the tutelage of manager-slash-trainer Bolts Quackenbush. Cairo went so far as to dump his girlfriend, a Sarah Michelle Gellar-lookalike named Lucy Burke, while alienating himself from his circle of friends. It came as no surprise when the suddenly unfocused and egotistical Cairo dropped the World Title to JJ Biggs one month after winning it. The loss left Cairo feeling numb and more than a bit humbled. His World Title was gone. His undefeated record was gone. His time as the face of WCF was gone. "Shit, shit, shit" was all that the young man could articulate to himself in the locker room after his defeat.
Cairo made one more run at gold during this turbulent period in his career, challenging for the Television Championship a couple of months later and coming up short in a triple threat match for the belt that aired live on pay-per-view. For all intents and purposes this concluded Bobby Cairo's initial stint in WCF. When he parted ways with WCF management, Cairo believed that he was doing so for good, having blown his one chance at the big time. "Whichever way the wind blows, may it carry me home..." Desiring to get as far away from reminders of his failure as possible, Cairo went on a soul-searching expedition that brought him to such southeast Asian hotspots as Bangkok and Hong Kong. While there, Cairo explored fighting styles that were previously foreign to him and even competed in local underground "no holds barred" fights to hone his skills. These experiences rekindled Cairo's love of the fight game and instilled him with a heretofore unseen killer instinct. By year's end Cairo returned to the States and made the decision to reenter the world of pro wrestling, although he had not yet decided which company he wanted to sign with. While flipping through the channels one night at his apartment in Hartford, Cairo caught the tail-end of a television program that was deeply familiar to him. As he watched such WCF superstars as Striker, Logan, Blades and Danny Vice competing on Slam, Bobby's choice became abundantly clear.
Bobby Cairo made his surprise return to WCF during the One pay-per-view broadcast in January of Two-Thousand-and-Seven. Cairo was not scheduled to compete that night, but he did interrupt an interview that Hank Brown was conducting with a superstar by the name of Lawnmower Jones to demand interview time of his own. Jones did not take kindly to Cairo's errant behavior and attacked him. Cairo returned the favor later that evening during Jones's match, and just that quickly Bobby Cairo had immersed himself into the thick of the WCF fray. By the time that WAR rolled around a couple of months later, Cairo was in a masterful groove. having plowed through one opponent after another with relative ease. Bobby Cairo was on fire and wrestling pundits and fans alike proclaimed him as one of the favorites heading into WAR. Cairo lived up to the hype, at least initially, eliminating a near-record number of competitors from the match. By the time that Cairo and Striker were left heads up as the final two men in the match, Cairo had done most of the work to eliminate the rest of the field. However, Striker proved to be a more difficult out than the other superstars in the match. After several tense, action-packed minutes that featured a litany of near-falls for both men, Striker pinned Cairo to win the match.
Once again Cairo was left feeling numb, as he did after dropping the World Title to Biggs, but this time the numbness gave way to heartbreak. For Bobby Cairo, there were no moral victories to be had. Moral victories go out the window once you've been World Champion and competed at the highest levels of the sport. Anything short of victory was a failure in Cairo's eyes. And whereas before Cairo was too immature to fully appreciate what he'd lost, this time around Cairo knew exactly what the stakes were, knew exactly what the cost of his loss was going to be. Cairo had failed to etch his name on the list of WCF immortals, those men who have captured victory in WAR. Though WAR is an annual event, it's nearly impossible to win due to the sheer magnitude of intangibles that come into play. Sure, you might have future opportunities to compete in the match, but will you ever come that close to winning it again? The odds are not in your favor.
A part of Bobby Cairo died that night when he lost to Striker. His personality became colder. Gone was the fun-loving Cairo who would sweep bitches off of their feet and into his bed. Bobby Cairo, in no uncertain terms, lost his goddamned mind. He became obsessed with revenge - revenge against Striker, revenge against the WCF locker room that he felt had turned against him while rooting for his opponent to win WAR, and revenge against the world at large, a world that had stacked the deck against him one too many times. Further threatening his fragile grip on reality, or perhaps because of it, Cairo began the practice of speaking in tongues and conjuring the undead while blasting old Megadeth records at full volume, cranked to eleven. During this period, an apparition named Obsidian became Cairo's most trusted confidante. It did not appear that things could get much worse for the mental health of young Bobby Cairo as the status of his wrestling career was thrown into jeopardy.
In a rare moment of clarity, Cairo bullied his arch-rival Lawnmower Jones in the finals of a tournament to capture the recently vacated WCF Television Championship. Unfortunately, the resounding victory over his enemy did little to improve Cairo's state of mind. In fact, his behavior became increasingly unstable and erratic. Cairo's lawless and unpredictable antics came to a head when he kidnapped Jade Striker, the prepubescent daughter of then WCF World Champion Skyler Striker. This led to an all-out blood feud with the World Champion, which Cairo waged while defending his own newly captured Television Title. Despite his mental instability and criminal acts, Cairo managed to carve out an immediate legacy as Television Champion, building a near-record title reign while battling future Hall of Famers such as Striker and Vice and fending off noteworthy championship contenders such as Mike Ragnal.
The grandeur of Cairo's legendary reign would not be approached until Jay Price captured the Television Championship some years later. On a side note, Price would never live up to his full potential as a WCF superstar, no doubt crumbling under the weight of comparisons between himself and Cairo. It is believed by some that this is what led to Jay's tragic alcohol and drug addiction and crippling social anxiety. Cairo was no stranger to pressure himself, and as the stakes grew in his feud with Striker, Cairo knew that he and his nemesis were playing a deadly game of cat-and-mouse. After finally extorting a World Title match from Striker by using Jade as bait, Cairo lost to Striker once again - this time in a one-on-one, champion versus champion, pay-per-view showdown. Although Cairo came up short in his bid to regain the World Championship, he was still Television Champion and it was hotly rumored that another champion versus champion showdown with Striker loomed on the horizon at the following month's pay-per-view.
A Striker versus Cairo rematch presented an intriguing possibility, especially to those in WCF management who were celebrating the boon to WCF's coffers that their first match had provided; however, the rematch that couldn't miss proved to be the rematch that never took place. Striker/Cairo II did not come to fruition, primarily because Cairo chose not to pursue it. It was a decision that baffled the wrestling community at the time, and a decision that Cairo has never publicly addressed, even six years after the fact. What we do know is that shortly after losing the World Title match to Striker, Cairo was booked to defend his Television Championship against rival Mike Ragnal, a man who came up short in previous efforts to dethrone Cairo. Ragnal was no slouch, of course, but Cairo was always able to score the victory against Ragnal, by hook or by crook. This time the results would prove to be different. Cairo appeared to be going through the motions when he faced Ragnal that fateful night on Slam, as if he were disinterested in the match, disinterested in competing, disinterested in being champion any longer. It appeared as though the only reason why Cairo showed up that night was to drop the Television Championship to Mike Ragnal - and that's precisely what Cairo did.
It would prove to be the last time that Cairo would appear on WCF programming for several months. Some say that Cairo threw in the towel against Ragnal and passed on the chance to rematch Striker because his heart was no longer in the game. It was apparent to those few people who kept in close contact with Cairo at this time that Cairo never fully came to grips with his loss at WAR. The bizarre murder-suicide of Chris Benoit, one of Cairo's primary wrestling influences, further disillusioned Cairo. His decision to leave WCF following his abruptly abandoned pursuit of the World Championship, and subsequent dropping of the Television Title to Mike Ragnal, kept Cairo off of television but for a brief period. He would end his hiatus by signing with WCF's then sister promotion, the Global Wrestling Coalition. Cairo's time in GWC was fruitful though fleeting. He captured the GWC Television Championship, ironically by defeating Mike Ragnal's brother Joe. However, GWC failed to hold Cairo's interest. A few months after signing there, Cairo chose to leave GWC, vacating the Television Title in the process.
Cairo made a surprise return to the WCF at the end of Two-Thousand-and-Seven, announcing that he would compete in the inaugural WCF Classic. WCF owner Seth Lerch declared that the winner of the Classic would capture the recently vacated WCF World Championship. Apparently, the opportunity to chase after the gold one more time was more than Bobby Cairo could resist. In the first round of the tournament, Cairo was matched up against the man who had crushed his dreams at WAR, Skyler Striker. Cairo relished the chance to unleash months of pent-up frustration against his rival - and Cairo did just that, defeating Striker for the first time in his career and exacting revenge upon the man who had brought him so much grief. With the win Cairo qualified for the second round of the Classic, where he would face the most recent WCF World Champion Creeping Death. Death had been stripped of the belt by Seth Lerch prior to the Classic for reasons that remain unknown. Cairo and Death fought a brutal, back-and-forth match that ultimately saw Death emerge victorious, eliminating Cairo from the Classic.
Cairo would appear on the following week's Classic broadcast, not as a competitor in the tournament, but rather to issue an open challenge to the locker room. Dr. Love was the first man to respond, and Cairo quickly downed the jobber, nearly ripping his arm off in the process. Marty Jannetty would make a surprise appearance that night, coming to Dr. Love's aid and embarrassing Cairo. Cairo would later challenge Jannetty to a non-sanctioned Tesla Cage of Death match at the Nassau Coliseum. Cairo spent his own money to rent the arena and promote the match, which saw both men leave the cage on stretchers en route to the emergency room. Cairo, recognizing that his wrestling career was in dire straits, decided to take an indefinite leave of absence from the sport that he grew up idolizing. In a move that shocked his supporters, Cairo announced that he would run for president of the United States as a candidate in the upcoming Two-Thousand-and-Eight general election.
Although it was speculated that Cairo would contend for the Republican Party's presidential nomination, Cairo declined the invitation from notable conservative groups to compete in the GOP primaries. As if Bobby Cairo's life hadn't become strange enough, going from professional wrestling to presidential politics, he became reliant upon the apparition Obsidian as his campaign adviser. Cairo garnered the support of several third party political groups and chose to run as an alternative to the nominees of the Democratic and Republican parties. Cairo initially funded his campaign out of pocket, using a portion of the substantial funds that he had accumulated through real estate development and construction projects. As his campaign picked up steam and his placement in opinion polls began to rise, Cairo raised additional campaign funding through the support of grassroots activists. When it seemed that Cairo might actually have a shot at winning the presidency, he pulled yet another shocker by marrying CNN news personality Robin Meade in an impromptu Vegas ceremony. A week later their marriage was annulled.
The bizarre union that wasn't was dismissed as a publicity stunt by pundits, though Cairo claimed that his feelings for Meade were true. For her part, Meade dismissed the entire affair as a "drunken fiasco" and the "biggest mistake" of her life. Heartbroken, Cairo soldiered on with his presidential ambitions until his rollercoaster campaign was finally derailed by accusations of sexual assault. Cairo proclaimed his innocence and he was later cleared of any wrongdoing when it was established that his DNA did not match that of the man who had assaulted the young woman in question. Unfortunately, this revelation came too late to salvage Cairo's campaign. Cairo, believing that he had been framed by government operatives who were determined to sabotage his campaign, declared war against the United States federal government.
War. WAR. The word raises its ugly head yet again. Bobby Cairo is no stranger to the word, its meaning, nor the act that it represents. Cairo has competed in WAR. He has also waged war, in a literal sense, against third world dictators as the co-founder and spiritual leader of The Thickness. Cairo finds parallels between the two: Victory is supreme and defeat is not an option. Yet Cairo has tasted defeat. The taste is bitter, gut-wrenching. It makes a man gag. It twists his soul into knots. It makes a man question his purpose for being. More than six years after being defeated by Skyler Striker at WAR, Cairo relives the experience each and every day of his life. Cairo is a decorated competitor, known as being a hard-nosed brawler, a consummate ring technician, and an all-around showman. He's also a trainer and mentor of champions. Cairo's students-slash-proteges include former WCF World Champion and Trios Cup winner Chad Evans and former Hardcore Champion of the Year and WCF Classic winner Phillip Baines, two of the baddest men to ever set foot in a WCF ring.
Additionally, Cairo is a decorated statesman, the incumbent Governor of Poon Guinea, having defeated Republican challenger Sarah Palin in a recent election while taking one-hundred percent of the vote, according to Poon Guinean state media. In many ways, Bobby Cairo is a renaissance man. He has seemingly done it all, experiencing the highest highs and lowest lows that life has to offer. Cairo has evolved from rookie phenomenon to burnt-out headcase to business mogul to global ambassador for change. He's even one of the select few who has been honored with induction into the WCF Hall of Fame. In spite of it all, none of these achievements erases the pain of Cairo's defeat at WAR. While the chance to regain the WCF World Championship that he once held dear certainly holds appeal for Cairo, his primary motivation for entering WAR XII is to rectify the most glaring omission on his resume and finally set his weary soul at ease after six long years.
Bobby Cairo is determined to accomplish the one thing that he has failed to achieve in his WCF career, whether as a fiery newcomer or as a psychotic veteran of the ring. After September Twenty-Ninth, Two-Thousand-and-Thirteen, WAR will no longer be the albatross around Bobby Cairo's neck - it will be his crowning achievement. Don't believe me? Listen to the man himself tell it in his own words.
The screen turns to black, temporarily concluding the History Channel presentation of "The Life and Times of Bobby Cairo: An American Iconoclast", a television program based upon Cairo's best-selling memoir, taped to coincide with the upcoming WAR pay-per-view. Cairo walks onto the stage dressed in an all-black suit and matching loafers, his shoulder-length black hair slicked back. Cairo receives a warm reception from the studio audience. He is handed a microphone from a stagehand while another stagehand provides him with a stool. Cairo sits down and raises the microphone to his lips.
"I look at WCF today and I see a myriad of cowards. I see men and women who lie, whine, cheat, make excuses, backstab, manipulate their coworkers and the fans. I see all of this and it churns my stomach. It churns my stomach primarily because it reminds me of how I used to operate when I was too young and dumb to know any better. I debuted in WCF as a twenty-three-year-old rookie to the sport of professional wrestling. I am now a thirty-year-old man. I've seen some shit through the years. Hell, I've done some shit through the years. I have a little bit of perspective under my belt now. There was a time when I would kidnap a man's daughter if I thought it would bring me closer to a World Title shot. And when I did it I was condemned for it. Of course nowadays that type of conduct would earn me a pat on the back from the Mistress of Mischief, the so-called 'Only One who matters' in professional wrestling. Probably a nice hefty pay raise too."
Cairo chuckles slightly, a sardonic gleam in his bright blue eyes.
"Fortunately I've matured from the destructive, antisocial ways of my youth. Don't get me wrong, I still smash the poon like no other. When you've got thickness like this you've gotta put it to work. It would be a waste of God-given talent and ability if I didn't. The difference between the Bobby Cairo of today and the Bobby Cairo of yesterday is that I appreciate the value of legitimate competition. Sarah Twilight talks about how she's taken measures to weed out weakness in WCF and separate the true competitors from the meek. In truth, Sarah Twilight is simply a bully who enjoys abusing her power. On the outside she looks like a grown woman, but on the inside she's still the emotionally-stunted teenaged girl who blew up her parents' house."
Cairo shakes his had with a look on his face that seems to be saying "But ain't that a goddamned shame."
"Call me crazy, but I long for the days when Seth Lerch was in charge of WCF. At least when he was running the show the worst thing we had to worry about was another half-baked Team of Treachery reunion. Nowadays we've got pregnant women being booked to face steroid-injected freaks in no-DQ matches. What circle of Hell have we endeavored upon, Ms. Twilight? Of course, Twilight's barbarous ways would not be possible if she were not being aided and abetted by veterans of the WCF roster. I am alluding in part to her cronies in Bravado, a group that I co-founded. Believe me, I am not proud of that fact, but in my defense I had no idea of the Pandora's box that I was helping to unearth."
Cairo grimaces, clearly not proud of his role in Bravado's conception.
"I see men, some current champions, some former champions, men such as Nathan von Liebert, Jonathan Jakobs and Steeltoe Joe enabling the reckless and quite frankly deranged whims of Sarah Twilight. I ask myself why? Are you gentlemen that hard-up for a paycheck? Are you that desperate to make a name for yourselves? Nathan, you're a World Champion. You're the greatest wrestler in the world today and that belt that you wear around your waist proves it. Why be a stooge for Sarah Twilight? Steeltoe, you are the People's Pastor. A so-called man of God. What would your higher power say about the immoral, violent and hateful acts that you've committed in aligning yourself with Sarah Twilight? Jonathan Jakobs, a young man that I've respected from the first moment that I saw him in a WCF ring. You're a future World Champion, my man, or at least you can be, if, IF you don't allow Sarah Twilight to lead you astray."
Cairo taps his forehead with the point of his index finger.
"You guys need to start thinking. You need to start asking yourselves why. 'Why is Sarah Twilight ordering me to do her dirty work? Why am I agreeing to do it for her? Why am I not standing up as a man and fighting my own battles instead of fighting Sarah's battles for her?' Perhaps you gentlemen believe that you're advancing your career by aligning yourself with Sarah? After all, she is the owner of WCF. We all know how wrestlers owning wrestling companies lasts forever, right? Jonny Fly and Eric Price are perfect examples of that. And we all know that these super-stables with the million-and-one superstar egos can't fail, right? Let's see, Pantheon, Genesis, Cryogenix..."
Cairo begins counting off on his fingers while he names the names. Sensing the futility of this exercise, he ceases.
"Hell, I could go on and on and on. There's about a hundred different variations of the ToT that I could name alone, including the Team of Torture, but what would be the point? I think I've made myself understood by those with rational, clearly-thinking minds. Now, gentlemen, make no mistake about it - you don't owe Bobby Cairo an explanation for any damn thing that you do in this world. You certainly don't have to clarify your actions for my edification. But maybe, just maybe, you should do it for yourselves. Explain to yourself why you're doing what you're doing. Perhaps you've been able to justify your actions to yourself thus far because you're not thinking about them from an objective standpoint, but say the words aloud and see if they still make sense to you. Ask yourself if you're doing the right thing for you OR if you're allowing yourself to be exploited as a pawn in Sarah Twilight's sick game of control and domination."
Cairo licks his lips and flares his nostrils. He's in a comfortable groove now and the audience is sensing it. Titillation, pure titillation from the ladies in the house.
"The boys in Bravado are not alone in their seemingly clouded judgment. There's a certain WCF Hall of Famer and three-time WAR winner, name of Logan, who has spoken out in favor of Sarah Twilight's actions. Why? Firstly, the man is an idiot. Secondly, he's desperately striving to remain relevant, which is why he's attacked me both verbally and physically. Third, he wants to bone Sarah Twilight despite having gone to war against her. Fourth, WAR. Yes, WAR. Logan wants a powerful ally or should I say powerful allies at WAR. If he can align himself with Sarah Twilight and, by proxy, her Bravado stooges then he increases his chances of an unprecedented fourth victory at WAR. Unfortunately for Logan, Bobby Cairo is here to disrupt all of those neatly conceptualized little plans."
Cairo swipes the feverishly laden spittle from his lips and chin.
"Logan, you've had your moment in the warm limelight of WAR, my friend. Hell, you've had three such moments. I've had none. All I've experienced from this match is heartbreak. The privilege of tasting bitter defeat. This is unacceptable and intolerable. I don't give a shit that you're the most decorated superstar in WCF history. I don't give a shit that you want to add to your unparalleled record of achievement. You're not doing it on my watch, Logan. Not this time, my friend. I didn't come back to WCF to be another disappointed loser who falls short of realizing his dreams at WAR. I didn't come this far to be pinned or submitted by some bum who can't carry my jockstrap. I don't care who I have to go through to win this match, I will not rest until I have captured ultimate victory at WAR."
Cairo emphatically rises to his feet and tosses his jacket onto the stool, unbuttons the top few buttons of his shirt and lights up a Newport despite the objections of the producers.
"At WAR I will defeat you, Logan. I will defeat my friend Jonny Fly. I will defeat Sarah Twilight. I will defeat my best friend and tag team partner Odin Balfore, if that's what it comes down to. This is more than just a wrestling match for me. This is flesh and blood. It is in my DNA, my genetic coding, that I MUST win WAR! I take my hat off to Doc Henry. He gave me a tough match at Slam. Fucked up my knee pretty good too, though it won't stop me from competing at WAR and winning the damn thing. Doc talked a good game and backed it up in the match, but I defeated him just as I will defeat every single entrant in the WAR match. You think you can exploit weakness, Sarah Twilight? You think you can exploit the feelings of regret, guilt and torment that I carry inside of me every damn day? I invite you to do your worst, madam. You and your handsomely compensated stooges. Come WAR, September Twenty-Ninth, Phoenix, Arizona..."
Cairo blows several rings of smoke into the camera lens.
"Your best laid plans are going up in smoke."
Cairo drops the microphone, grabs his jacket and walks off the stage, leaving a hushed studio audience and frantic stagehands in his wake.
Depression. Isolation. Regret. The pain of defeat. The dreadful feeling of opportunity squandered, never to be regained. Miscalculation. "Where did it go wrong? What could I have done differently? What could I have done better? Where did it all go wrong? Will I ever get another chance? So close, yet so far away. Why couldn't it have been me getting my hand raised? So close..." The thoughts that raced through Bobby Cairo's mind like scornful accusations after he was defeated by Skyler Striker at WAR in Two-Thousand-and-Seven, finishing runner-up in WCF's most prestigious match. With the loss a shot at then WCF World Champion Jack of Blades slipped through Bobby Cairo's hands - a match that Bobby Cairo wanted more than he wanted his next breath. But it wasn't the lost opportunity to compete for the belt that scorched Cairo's soul like the heat of a thousand suns. What truly burned him was the opportunity that he lost to defiantly stamp his name in the record books as one of the few WCF superstars who have seized victory in WAR.
Bobby Cairo is a student of the sport of professional wrestling - and to him it is a sport, not mere "entertainment". Growing up as a young man watching WWE, NWA, WCW, ECW, WCF and all of the other great professional wrestling organizations, Cairo revered such men as "The Nature Boy" Ric Flair and his Four Horsemen, Bret "The Hitman" Hart, "Mr. Perfect" Curt Hennig, "Y2J"-slash-"Lionheart" Chris Jericho, Randy "Macho Man" Savage, Kurt Angle, "The Million Dollar Man" Ted DiBiase, "Stone Cold" Steve Austin, "Ravishing" Rick Rude, and even "The Face of Treachery" Logan. These are men that a teenaged Bobby Cairo desired not only to emulate, but to surpass in their greatness, their achievements, and their impact upon the sport that he loved more than any other. Oh sure, football was grand and basketball had its moments during the Jordan years, but nothing got Bobby's adrenaline pumping like watching his heroes go to war and reign supreme in battle. War, WAR... there's that word again. The word that haunts Cairo, the word that keeps him awake at night even in a king-sized bed filled with beautiful bitches.
In Two-Thousand-and-Six, Bobby Cairo was on the path to realizing his dream of professional wrestling immortality as a rookie in the Wrestling Championship Federation. Cairo arrived on the WCF scene like a bat out of hell, going on a months-long winning streak, claiming victory in a World Title contendership tournament, which included a major upset win over "Creeping Death" Corey Black, and challenging then WCF World Champion "Reckless Jack" Brad Kane in a pay-per-view main event for the strap. Cairo proved victorious in his challenge, albeit by disqualification. Jack would retain the belt that night, but subsequently lost it to number one contender Victor "Outcast" Taylor. Cairo would defeat Jack without controversy in a rematch, earning himself a second crack at the belt, against Outcast. This time Cairo proved himself to be as good as gold, maintaining his poise in a match that would make most rookies shit themselves en route to knocking off his veteran opponent to capture the most lauded championship in all of wrestling. At the tender age of twenty-three Bobby Cairo was on top of the world.
The good times were short lived however. With Bobby's World Title victory came a change in his personality. The humble, All-American, golden boy image that he personified was transformed into the image of a young man who cared mostly about drinking, partying and boinking the groupie bitches who made themselves readily available to the newly crowned champ. Gone were the days of working hard to improve himself as a competitor under the tutelage of manager-slash-trainer Bolts Quackenbush. Cairo went so far as to dump his girlfriend, a Sarah Michelle Gellar-lookalike named Lucy Burke, while alienating himself from his circle of friends. It came as no surprise when the suddenly unfocused and egotistical Cairo dropped the World Title to JJ Biggs one month after winning it. The loss left Cairo feeling numb and more than a bit humbled. His World Title was gone. His undefeated record was gone. His time as the face of WCF was gone. "Shit, shit, shit" was all that the young man could articulate to himself in the locker room after his defeat.
Cairo made one more run at gold during this turbulent period in his career, challenging for the Television Championship a couple of months later and coming up short in a triple threat match for the belt that aired live on pay-per-view. For all intents and purposes this concluded Bobby Cairo's initial stint in WCF. When he parted ways with WCF management, Cairo believed that he was doing so for good, having blown his one chance at the big time. "Whichever way the wind blows, may it carry me home..." Desiring to get as far away from reminders of his failure as possible, Cairo went on a soul-searching expedition that brought him to such southeast Asian hotspots as Bangkok and Hong Kong. While there, Cairo explored fighting styles that were previously foreign to him and even competed in local underground "no holds barred" fights to hone his skills. These experiences rekindled Cairo's love of the fight game and instilled him with a heretofore unseen killer instinct. By year's end Cairo returned to the States and made the decision to reenter the world of pro wrestling, although he had not yet decided which company he wanted to sign with. While flipping through the channels one night at his apartment in Hartford, Cairo caught the tail-end of a television program that was deeply familiar to him. As he watched such WCF superstars as Striker, Logan, Blades and Danny Vice competing on Slam, Bobby's choice became abundantly clear.
Bobby Cairo made his surprise return to WCF during the One pay-per-view broadcast in January of Two-Thousand-and-Seven. Cairo was not scheduled to compete that night, but he did interrupt an interview that Hank Brown was conducting with a superstar by the name of Lawnmower Jones to demand interview time of his own. Jones did not take kindly to Cairo's errant behavior and attacked him. Cairo returned the favor later that evening during Jones's match, and just that quickly Bobby Cairo had immersed himself into the thick of the WCF fray. By the time that WAR rolled around a couple of months later, Cairo was in a masterful groove. having plowed through one opponent after another with relative ease. Bobby Cairo was on fire and wrestling pundits and fans alike proclaimed him as one of the favorites heading into WAR. Cairo lived up to the hype, at least initially, eliminating a near-record number of competitors from the match. By the time that Cairo and Striker were left heads up as the final two men in the match, Cairo had done most of the work to eliminate the rest of the field. However, Striker proved to be a more difficult out than the other superstars in the match. After several tense, action-packed minutes that featured a litany of near-falls for both men, Striker pinned Cairo to win the match.
Once again Cairo was left feeling numb, as he did after dropping the World Title to Biggs, but this time the numbness gave way to heartbreak. For Bobby Cairo, there were no moral victories to be had. Moral victories go out the window once you've been World Champion and competed at the highest levels of the sport. Anything short of victory was a failure in Cairo's eyes. And whereas before Cairo was too immature to fully appreciate what he'd lost, this time around Cairo knew exactly what the stakes were, knew exactly what the cost of his loss was going to be. Cairo had failed to etch his name on the list of WCF immortals, those men who have captured victory in WAR. Though WAR is an annual event, it's nearly impossible to win due to the sheer magnitude of intangibles that come into play. Sure, you might have future opportunities to compete in the match, but will you ever come that close to winning it again? The odds are not in your favor.
A part of Bobby Cairo died that night when he lost to Striker. His personality became colder. Gone was the fun-loving Cairo who would sweep bitches off of their feet and into his bed. Bobby Cairo, in no uncertain terms, lost his goddamned mind. He became obsessed with revenge - revenge against Striker, revenge against the WCF locker room that he felt had turned against him while rooting for his opponent to win WAR, and revenge against the world at large, a world that had stacked the deck against him one too many times. Further threatening his fragile grip on reality, or perhaps because of it, Cairo began the practice of speaking in tongues and conjuring the undead while blasting old Megadeth records at full volume, cranked to eleven. During this period, an apparition named Obsidian became Cairo's most trusted confidante. It did not appear that things could get much worse for the mental health of young Bobby Cairo as the status of his wrestling career was thrown into jeopardy.
In a rare moment of clarity, Cairo bullied his arch-rival Lawnmower Jones in the finals of a tournament to capture the recently vacated WCF Television Championship. Unfortunately, the resounding victory over his enemy did little to improve Cairo's state of mind. In fact, his behavior became increasingly unstable and erratic. Cairo's lawless and unpredictable antics came to a head when he kidnapped Jade Striker, the prepubescent daughter of then WCF World Champion Skyler Striker. This led to an all-out blood feud with the World Champion, which Cairo waged while defending his own newly captured Television Title. Despite his mental instability and criminal acts, Cairo managed to carve out an immediate legacy as Television Champion, building a near-record title reign while battling future Hall of Famers such as Striker and Vice and fending off noteworthy championship contenders such as Mike Ragnal.
The grandeur of Cairo's legendary reign would not be approached until Jay Price captured the Television Championship some years later. On a side note, Price would never live up to his full potential as a WCF superstar, no doubt crumbling under the weight of comparisons between himself and Cairo. It is believed by some that this is what led to Jay's tragic alcohol and drug addiction and crippling social anxiety. Cairo was no stranger to pressure himself, and as the stakes grew in his feud with Striker, Cairo knew that he and his nemesis were playing a deadly game of cat-and-mouse. After finally extorting a World Title match from Striker by using Jade as bait, Cairo lost to Striker once again - this time in a one-on-one, champion versus champion, pay-per-view showdown. Although Cairo came up short in his bid to regain the World Championship, he was still Television Champion and it was hotly rumored that another champion versus champion showdown with Striker loomed on the horizon at the following month's pay-per-view.
A Striker versus Cairo rematch presented an intriguing possibility, especially to those in WCF management who were celebrating the boon to WCF's coffers that their first match had provided; however, the rematch that couldn't miss proved to be the rematch that never took place. Striker/Cairo II did not come to fruition, primarily because Cairo chose not to pursue it. It was a decision that baffled the wrestling community at the time, and a decision that Cairo has never publicly addressed, even six years after the fact. What we do know is that shortly after losing the World Title match to Striker, Cairo was booked to defend his Television Championship against rival Mike Ragnal, a man who came up short in previous efforts to dethrone Cairo. Ragnal was no slouch, of course, but Cairo was always able to score the victory against Ragnal, by hook or by crook. This time the results would prove to be different. Cairo appeared to be going through the motions when he faced Ragnal that fateful night on Slam, as if he were disinterested in the match, disinterested in competing, disinterested in being champion any longer. It appeared as though the only reason why Cairo showed up that night was to drop the Television Championship to Mike Ragnal - and that's precisely what Cairo did.
It would prove to be the last time that Cairo would appear on WCF programming for several months. Some say that Cairo threw in the towel against Ragnal and passed on the chance to rematch Striker because his heart was no longer in the game. It was apparent to those few people who kept in close contact with Cairo at this time that Cairo never fully came to grips with his loss at WAR. The bizarre murder-suicide of Chris Benoit, one of Cairo's primary wrestling influences, further disillusioned Cairo. His decision to leave WCF following his abruptly abandoned pursuit of the World Championship, and subsequent dropping of the Television Title to Mike Ragnal, kept Cairo off of television but for a brief period. He would end his hiatus by signing with WCF's then sister promotion, the Global Wrestling Coalition. Cairo's time in GWC was fruitful though fleeting. He captured the GWC Television Championship, ironically by defeating Mike Ragnal's brother Joe. However, GWC failed to hold Cairo's interest. A few months after signing there, Cairo chose to leave GWC, vacating the Television Title in the process.
Cairo made a surprise return to the WCF at the end of Two-Thousand-and-Seven, announcing that he would compete in the inaugural WCF Classic. WCF owner Seth Lerch declared that the winner of the Classic would capture the recently vacated WCF World Championship. Apparently, the opportunity to chase after the gold one more time was more than Bobby Cairo could resist. In the first round of the tournament, Cairo was matched up against the man who had crushed his dreams at WAR, Skyler Striker. Cairo relished the chance to unleash months of pent-up frustration against his rival - and Cairo did just that, defeating Striker for the first time in his career and exacting revenge upon the man who had brought him so much grief. With the win Cairo qualified for the second round of the Classic, where he would face the most recent WCF World Champion Creeping Death. Death had been stripped of the belt by Seth Lerch prior to the Classic for reasons that remain unknown. Cairo and Death fought a brutal, back-and-forth match that ultimately saw Death emerge victorious, eliminating Cairo from the Classic.
Cairo would appear on the following week's Classic broadcast, not as a competitor in the tournament, but rather to issue an open challenge to the locker room. Dr. Love was the first man to respond, and Cairo quickly downed the jobber, nearly ripping his arm off in the process. Marty Jannetty would make a surprise appearance that night, coming to Dr. Love's aid and embarrassing Cairo. Cairo would later challenge Jannetty to a non-sanctioned Tesla Cage of Death match at the Nassau Coliseum. Cairo spent his own money to rent the arena and promote the match, which saw both men leave the cage on stretchers en route to the emergency room. Cairo, recognizing that his wrestling career was in dire straits, decided to take an indefinite leave of absence from the sport that he grew up idolizing. In a move that shocked his supporters, Cairo announced that he would run for president of the United States as a candidate in the upcoming Two-Thousand-and-Eight general election.
Although it was speculated that Cairo would contend for the Republican Party's presidential nomination, Cairo declined the invitation from notable conservative groups to compete in the GOP primaries. As if Bobby Cairo's life hadn't become strange enough, going from professional wrestling to presidential politics, he became reliant upon the apparition Obsidian as his campaign adviser. Cairo garnered the support of several third party political groups and chose to run as an alternative to the nominees of the Democratic and Republican parties. Cairo initially funded his campaign out of pocket, using a portion of the substantial funds that he had accumulated through real estate development and construction projects. As his campaign picked up steam and his placement in opinion polls began to rise, Cairo raised additional campaign funding through the support of grassroots activists. When it seemed that Cairo might actually have a shot at winning the presidency, he pulled yet another shocker by marrying CNN news personality Robin Meade in an impromptu Vegas ceremony. A week later their marriage was annulled.
The bizarre union that wasn't was dismissed as a publicity stunt by pundits, though Cairo claimed that his feelings for Meade were true. For her part, Meade dismissed the entire affair as a "drunken fiasco" and the "biggest mistake" of her life. Heartbroken, Cairo soldiered on with his presidential ambitions until his rollercoaster campaign was finally derailed by accusations of sexual assault. Cairo proclaimed his innocence and he was later cleared of any wrongdoing when it was established that his DNA did not match that of the man who had assaulted the young woman in question. Unfortunately, this revelation came too late to salvage Cairo's campaign. Cairo, believing that he had been framed by government operatives who were determined to sabotage his campaign, declared war against the United States federal government.
War. WAR. The word raises its ugly head yet again. Bobby Cairo is no stranger to the word, its meaning, nor the act that it represents. Cairo has competed in WAR. He has also waged war, in a literal sense, against third world dictators as the co-founder and spiritual leader of The Thickness. Cairo finds parallels between the two: Victory is supreme and defeat is not an option. Yet Cairo has tasted defeat. The taste is bitter, gut-wrenching. It makes a man gag. It twists his soul into knots. It makes a man question his purpose for being. More than six years after being defeated by Skyler Striker at WAR, Cairo relives the experience each and every day of his life. Cairo is a decorated competitor, known as being a hard-nosed brawler, a consummate ring technician, and an all-around showman. He's also a trainer and mentor of champions. Cairo's students-slash-proteges include former WCF World Champion and Trios Cup winner Chad Evans and former Hardcore Champion of the Year and WCF Classic winner Phillip Baines, two of the baddest men to ever set foot in a WCF ring.
Additionally, Cairo is a decorated statesman, the incumbent Governor of Poon Guinea, having defeated Republican challenger Sarah Palin in a recent election while taking one-hundred percent of the vote, according to Poon Guinean state media. In many ways, Bobby Cairo is a renaissance man. He has seemingly done it all, experiencing the highest highs and lowest lows that life has to offer. Cairo has evolved from rookie phenomenon to burnt-out headcase to business mogul to global ambassador for change. He's even one of the select few who has been honored with induction into the WCF Hall of Fame. In spite of it all, none of these achievements erases the pain of Cairo's defeat at WAR. While the chance to regain the WCF World Championship that he once held dear certainly holds appeal for Cairo, his primary motivation for entering WAR XII is to rectify the most glaring omission on his resume and finally set his weary soul at ease after six long years.
Bobby Cairo is determined to accomplish the one thing that he has failed to achieve in his WCF career, whether as a fiery newcomer or as a psychotic veteran of the ring. After September Twenty-Ninth, Two-Thousand-and-Thirteen, WAR will no longer be the albatross around Bobby Cairo's neck - it will be his crowning achievement. Don't believe me? Listen to the man himself tell it in his own words.
The screen turns to black, temporarily concluding the History Channel presentation of "The Life and Times of Bobby Cairo: An American Iconoclast", a television program based upon Cairo's best-selling memoir, taped to coincide with the upcoming WAR pay-per-view. Cairo walks onto the stage dressed in an all-black suit and matching loafers, his shoulder-length black hair slicked back. Cairo receives a warm reception from the studio audience. He is handed a microphone from a stagehand while another stagehand provides him with a stool. Cairo sits down and raises the microphone to his lips.
"I look at WCF today and I see a myriad of cowards. I see men and women who lie, whine, cheat, make excuses, backstab, manipulate their coworkers and the fans. I see all of this and it churns my stomach. It churns my stomach primarily because it reminds me of how I used to operate when I was too young and dumb to know any better. I debuted in WCF as a twenty-three-year-old rookie to the sport of professional wrestling. I am now a thirty-year-old man. I've seen some shit through the years. Hell, I've done some shit through the years. I have a little bit of perspective under my belt now. There was a time when I would kidnap a man's daughter if I thought it would bring me closer to a World Title shot. And when I did it I was condemned for it. Of course nowadays that type of conduct would earn me a pat on the back from the Mistress of Mischief, the so-called 'Only One who matters' in professional wrestling. Probably a nice hefty pay raise too."
Cairo chuckles slightly, a sardonic gleam in his bright blue eyes.
"Fortunately I've matured from the destructive, antisocial ways of my youth. Don't get me wrong, I still smash the poon like no other. When you've got thickness like this you've gotta put it to work. It would be a waste of God-given talent and ability if I didn't. The difference between the Bobby Cairo of today and the Bobby Cairo of yesterday is that I appreciate the value of legitimate competition. Sarah Twilight talks about how she's taken measures to weed out weakness in WCF and separate the true competitors from the meek. In truth, Sarah Twilight is simply a bully who enjoys abusing her power. On the outside she looks like a grown woman, but on the inside she's still the emotionally-stunted teenaged girl who blew up her parents' house."
Cairo shakes his had with a look on his face that seems to be saying "But ain't that a goddamned shame."
"Call me crazy, but I long for the days when Seth Lerch was in charge of WCF. At least when he was running the show the worst thing we had to worry about was another half-baked Team of Treachery reunion. Nowadays we've got pregnant women being booked to face steroid-injected freaks in no-DQ matches. What circle of Hell have we endeavored upon, Ms. Twilight? Of course, Twilight's barbarous ways would not be possible if she were not being aided and abetted by veterans of the WCF roster. I am alluding in part to her cronies in Bravado, a group that I co-founded. Believe me, I am not proud of that fact, but in my defense I had no idea of the Pandora's box that I was helping to unearth."
Cairo grimaces, clearly not proud of his role in Bravado's conception.
"I see men, some current champions, some former champions, men such as Nathan von Liebert, Jonathan Jakobs and Steeltoe Joe enabling the reckless and quite frankly deranged whims of Sarah Twilight. I ask myself why? Are you gentlemen that hard-up for a paycheck? Are you that desperate to make a name for yourselves? Nathan, you're a World Champion. You're the greatest wrestler in the world today and that belt that you wear around your waist proves it. Why be a stooge for Sarah Twilight? Steeltoe, you are the People's Pastor. A so-called man of God. What would your higher power say about the immoral, violent and hateful acts that you've committed in aligning yourself with Sarah Twilight? Jonathan Jakobs, a young man that I've respected from the first moment that I saw him in a WCF ring. You're a future World Champion, my man, or at least you can be, if, IF you don't allow Sarah Twilight to lead you astray."
Cairo taps his forehead with the point of his index finger.
"You guys need to start thinking. You need to start asking yourselves why. 'Why is Sarah Twilight ordering me to do her dirty work? Why am I agreeing to do it for her? Why am I not standing up as a man and fighting my own battles instead of fighting Sarah's battles for her?' Perhaps you gentlemen believe that you're advancing your career by aligning yourself with Sarah? After all, she is the owner of WCF. We all know how wrestlers owning wrestling companies lasts forever, right? Jonny Fly and Eric Price are perfect examples of that. And we all know that these super-stables with the million-and-one superstar egos can't fail, right? Let's see, Pantheon, Genesis, Cryogenix..."
Cairo begins counting off on his fingers while he names the names. Sensing the futility of this exercise, he ceases.
"Hell, I could go on and on and on. There's about a hundred different variations of the ToT that I could name alone, including the Team of Torture, but what would be the point? I think I've made myself understood by those with rational, clearly-thinking minds. Now, gentlemen, make no mistake about it - you don't owe Bobby Cairo an explanation for any damn thing that you do in this world. You certainly don't have to clarify your actions for my edification. But maybe, just maybe, you should do it for yourselves. Explain to yourself why you're doing what you're doing. Perhaps you've been able to justify your actions to yourself thus far because you're not thinking about them from an objective standpoint, but say the words aloud and see if they still make sense to you. Ask yourself if you're doing the right thing for you OR if you're allowing yourself to be exploited as a pawn in Sarah Twilight's sick game of control and domination."
Cairo licks his lips and flares his nostrils. He's in a comfortable groove now and the audience is sensing it. Titillation, pure titillation from the ladies in the house.
"The boys in Bravado are not alone in their seemingly clouded judgment. There's a certain WCF Hall of Famer and three-time WAR winner, name of Logan, who has spoken out in favor of Sarah Twilight's actions. Why? Firstly, the man is an idiot. Secondly, he's desperately striving to remain relevant, which is why he's attacked me both verbally and physically. Third, he wants to bone Sarah Twilight despite having gone to war against her. Fourth, WAR. Yes, WAR. Logan wants a powerful ally or should I say powerful allies at WAR. If he can align himself with Sarah Twilight and, by proxy, her Bravado stooges then he increases his chances of an unprecedented fourth victory at WAR. Unfortunately for Logan, Bobby Cairo is here to disrupt all of those neatly conceptualized little plans."
Cairo swipes the feverishly laden spittle from his lips and chin.
"Logan, you've had your moment in the warm limelight of WAR, my friend. Hell, you've had three such moments. I've had none. All I've experienced from this match is heartbreak. The privilege of tasting bitter defeat. This is unacceptable and intolerable. I don't give a shit that you're the most decorated superstar in WCF history. I don't give a shit that you want to add to your unparalleled record of achievement. You're not doing it on my watch, Logan. Not this time, my friend. I didn't come back to WCF to be another disappointed loser who falls short of realizing his dreams at WAR. I didn't come this far to be pinned or submitted by some bum who can't carry my jockstrap. I don't care who I have to go through to win this match, I will not rest until I have captured ultimate victory at WAR."
Cairo emphatically rises to his feet and tosses his jacket onto the stool, unbuttons the top few buttons of his shirt and lights up a Newport despite the objections of the producers.
"At WAR I will defeat you, Logan. I will defeat my friend Jonny Fly. I will defeat Sarah Twilight. I will defeat my best friend and tag team partner Odin Balfore, if that's what it comes down to. This is more than just a wrestling match for me. This is flesh and blood. It is in my DNA, my genetic coding, that I MUST win WAR! I take my hat off to Doc Henry. He gave me a tough match at Slam. Fucked up my knee pretty good too, though it won't stop me from competing at WAR and winning the damn thing. Doc talked a good game and backed it up in the match, but I defeated him just as I will defeat every single entrant in the WAR match. You think you can exploit weakness, Sarah Twilight? You think you can exploit the feelings of regret, guilt and torment that I carry inside of me every damn day? I invite you to do your worst, madam. You and your handsomely compensated stooges. Come WAR, September Twenty-Ninth, Phoenix, Arizona..."
Cairo blows several rings of smoke into the camera lens.
"Your best laid plans are going up in smoke."
Cairo drops the microphone, grabs his jacket and walks off the stage, leaving a hushed studio audience and frantic stagehands in his wake.