From the files of Iceberg-Seven:
Aug 19, 2012 6:56:54 GMT -5
Doc Henry, Speede, and 1 more like this
Post by The Polar Phantasm on Aug 19, 2012 6:56:54 GMT -5
OOC: For those of you who are new to WCF (or newer than I am, at least), this is a 'guide' to the madness that has been... and for the rest of you, there's at least a little something for those who've watched Kid Phantasm grow up here. I figured since I've weaved such a large and meandering tale since coming here in March, the least I could do would be to produce some fucking Cliff's Notes. So... hey. Here's your handy guide to all my Kid P nonsense (with a little bit from Iceberg-Seven's files thrown in).
Thank you, WCF, for giving the Phantasm, Nightmare, Lucien Hicks and all of my other crazy voices a place to scream their heads off. Without you, it would be very loud in here... and by 'here', I mean my head.
-B.
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Meet Kid Phantasm... and his many friends.[/u]
(Brian Bonhagen: WCF Roleplay History as of 8/19/12)
* Kid Phantasm #1 "A Chill Moves In" posted 3/8/12
The promo that started it all...? All I remember about writing my debut was that I thought I should test WCF's sense of humor first, so I wrote Kid P an exercise montage to 'Pump Up The Jam'. I didn't know if anyone liked it or not until two days later, when I caught SLICKIE FUCKING T saying he liked the new guy. (I assumed he meant me; at the time the other 'new guy' was Sarah Twilight, and calling her a 'guy' generally gets you put on the list of people who don't get invited to the AIM chats. Unless you're Logan, of course.)
* Kid Phantasm #2 "Friendly Negotiations" posted 3/10/12
Kid Phantasm has no friends in WCF (at this point anyway), leading him to do two things people probably thought I was crazy for doing in promos; Kid begins talking to his computer, Iceberg-Six(*)... and he spars with a pizza guy for lack of a partner.
(*) ICEBERG-SIX: First of Kid Phantasm's 'friends', and the only one to make the jump to WCF with him. Kid Phantasm's best friend was his netbook computer Iceberg-Six (until he made friends, anyway), purchased for him as a gift by his mother when he graduated high school and programmed to do all its various Eye-Six things by the Kid himself. According to Kid P: "...so I was lonely as hell on the road, roaming the Northeast and East Coast working bingo halls and the like. I figured the computer had to be good for more than porn and Twitter, so a few months later I figured out that I could program it to heuristically interpret match results and news articles and biographies into match preps and strategies... and of course, using a variation on Apple software, I gave Eye-Six a voice. Without him I don't know if I'd have made it to WCF... without his help planning matches, I might not have caught Seth's eye. But beyond that, even... without Eye-Six to talk to over those two years I might have lost my mind. Best damn sidekick a fella could ask for... out of a computer, anyway."
* Kid Phantasm #3 "Requiem For a Rematch" posted 3/13/12
Still waiting on his first WCF match a week after his arrival, Kid gets drunk on the roof of the WCF Arena during Slam. In a stupor, he flashes back to his last match in New Orleans for the Global Extreme Wrestling(*) promotion, where he lost a Loser Leaves Town match against his former arch-rival Reptile(*). Though it would be goodbye for the Kid, he and Reptile end up making friends after the show.
(*) GLOBAL EXTREME WRESTLING (GEW): OOC, this is the 'promotion' I ran twice (1999-2000, 2003) in my younger days. I'll likely never run a 'fed again, but I'd imagined GEW so clearly and thoroughly that it almost immediately became part of the backdrop for Kid Phantasm stories. Global Extreme Wrestling is a struggling independent promotion in the vein of real-world ECW; as of the events of Kid Phantasm #18, it is also partially (majority) owned by Seth Lerch of WCF. GEW has three titles: World, Tag Team, and Deathmatch. All are hotly contested and regularly change hands, with a few notable exceptions. (See 'Reptile' below.) Global Extreme Wrestling operates out of the GEW Arena (real-life 'Alario Center') in Marrero, Louisiana. They have a weekly show on Monday night, but have specials every few weeks. All matches in GEW are held under what big-deal TV wrestling calls 'extreme rules' (and I call 'stipulations that don't suck.')
(*) REPTILE: Kid Phantasm's first 'rival', Reptile was GEW's Deathmatch Champion for almost two years (a fairly amazing feat anywhere, much less in a company that violent... and with that high of a turnover rate) in 2010-2011; Kid Phantasm made two attempts to get the Deathmatch Title from him, failing both times. The second attempt was with the stipulation that if the Kid didn't win the match he'd be 'let go' by the struggling company... unfortunately for the Kid, he lost. (Fortunately for us, though, he didn't give up... he spent two years searching for a home before finding one in Reading.) As for Reptile, he would end up stuck in GEW and struggling to regain 'his belt' while watching Kid Phantasm on WCF Pay-Per-Views. Other notes of interest: Reptile's real name (first name, anyhow) is 'Larry'. He wears the 'Reptile' mask these days mostly to conceal male pattern baldness. His 'Death Lock' finishing hold was appropriated by Kid Phantasm once he left GEW; Reptile taught the Kid the brutal hold as a 'going-away present'. Reptile has also trained a few of GEW's superstars, most notably Cornelius Casanova of GEW's 'Mothership Connection'.
* Kid Phantasm #4 "Alpha Tactics" posted 3/16/12
Though this was the fourth Kid P promo, this was the first one 'for something'. This promo is really only notable for two reasons... it's the first time Iceberg-Six breaks down Kid's opponents for him, and it's the first time Kid Phantasm encounters the Trios Cup Trophy. His obsession with winning it and eating pudding from it would become quite an obsession indeed...
- 3/18/12 Slam: Phantasm d. Atreyu, Slade, Jayway (pin on Kris Slade) [Kid P: 1-0]
Of the four people in my debut match, only Atreyu and I would turn out to be worth a fuck (and only I still remain - miss you, Benji.)
* Kid Phantasm #5 "Time Travel / A Worthy Opponent" posted 3/21/12
YES! The first of the epically-long Kid Phantasm promos you may be accustomed to, this was a ten-plus hour writing binge to celebrate my first WCF PPV appearance. I loved writing this one, especially once I had the idea that Kid would explore the WCF Arena thoroughly... I spent like two hours reading old WCF RPs from years ago while Kid was digging through WCF's past (in the Merchandise closet). Also, most of the ending is me putting my opponent over (also a Kid P technique you may be accustomed to, if you're an avid reader.) What ever happened to Bryan 'Buzz' Worthy, anyhow?
* Meanwhile, in New Orleans... #1 posted 3/22/12
My first non-Kid promo for WCF... this short little page-and-a-halfer is notable for one thing (and one thing only)... this promo is the first appearance in WCF of Nightmare(*). Of course, there'd be a good bit more Nighty... and likely will be even more to come. (Miss you, Nighty. For realsies.)
(*) NIGHTMARE: Finally, one of Kid's 'friends' who isn't a 'thing'! Nightmare (real name: Crystal Laurendt, age 23) originally hails from Los Angeles, California... she was raised in the filmmaking industry by her jobber-turned-stuntman father and her makeup-artist mother. Her background in stage combat, makeup and costume design would prove quite useful to her... she followed film work to New Orleans, and after a run-in with a producer who was all hands she found herself homeless, jobless and broke in a strange part of the country. Somehow or another she found her way into the GEW Arena, co-incidentally moving into the same janitorial closet Kid Phantasm lived in during his stay in GEW two years before. However it ended up happening, living in the Kid's old 'house' gave her a feeling of kinship with a man she hadn't had before, and when Kid and Nightmare eventually met... well, you know the rest. (See Kid Phantasm #7 for details.) Together, Kid Phantasm and Nightmare would be WCF's 'Unstable Elements', a team whose only loss came from a count-out they received in the semi-finals of the Trios Cup Tournament. Nightmare would go on to be a founding member of Pantheon(*), though she would be kidnapped by Nathan von Liebert(*) mere days after the group formed... and upon being freed, would leave Kid Phantasm (and WCF) behind. Kid Phantasm spends at least a little of each day wondering when she'll be back (as to him she's just 'gone', perhaps to the store... and not GONE. His friends are almost afraid to ask him if he knows she might be GONE).
(*) PANTHEON: 'Earth's Mightiest Wrestling Stable'. Forged in battle; galvanized in friendship. Pantheon is what the 'Superfriends' would be if they were cool enough to hang out at the DETHFORT. Members include two hall of famers (founding member Bobby Cairo, Corey 'Creeping Death' Black), two future hall of famers (founding member Jonny Fly, 'The Inveterate Confederate' Johnny Reb) and three rising stars (founding member Jeff Purse, founding member Kid Phantasm, founding member Nightmare).
(*) NATHAN VON LIEBERT: Nicknamed 'The Devil's Right Hand', NvL may well be the sickest son of a bitch Kid Phantasm has ever run across. You know how Kid P made friends with Reptile after he got fired and it was all heartwarming? Well, that's not going to happen with this guy. Kid's never been one to keep 'enemies', per se... but after kidnapping and torturing Nightmare, he seems quite willing to leave Nate von Liebert firmly in the 'enemies' category. (Sadly, all of this drama between the Unstable Elements and NvL stems from an incidental injury to a rodent. One wonders if the Kid's ever just tried to get Nathan a new pet rat...?) It bears noting that aside from being demented and incredibly clever, Nathan von Liebert is a legitimate and talented wrestler... which just makes him that much more dangerous. Thankfully, Kid P and Jeff Purse managed to knock out NvL and get him shipped back off to the asylum (hey, just like Batman does the Joker! Oh, no. The Joker always gets back out, doesn't he? Oh, no.)
* Meanwhile, in New Orleans... #2 posted 3/23/12
So much happens in this one - where do I start? The setting is the first ever 'GEW Monday Madhouse' (filmed at the GEW Arena). Numerous random GEW characters appear, including one Andy (Andrew) Warhawk (see Kid Phantasm #21 for details on ol' Andy Warhawk). Most importantly, though, this would be the first promo to even give Nightmare's name much less show how she handles business in the ring (GEW's Nightmare tended to stab people)... interestingly enough, this would also be when Reptile's near-two-year reign as GEW's Deathmatch Champion would end. (Way to go, Nighty!)
- 3/25/12 Explosion 2012: Phantasm d. Bryan 'Buzz' Worthy (Ice Cap, pin) [Kid P: 2-0]
You never forget your first. My first PPV match... my first singles match in WCF, even. It was a pleasure, 'Buzz'. (Although I do miss the way you wore sunglasses, there's this man in uniform I've been seeing...) [Note: For the four of you that get that joke, I hope me sounding gay was worth it. Yes, I meant gayer than usual... wait, no. No, I didn't. I'm so straight that I'm the only man in WCF Logan hasn't buttraped. Ha! More than four of you got that. Score. And I was kidding about the buttrape; that guy's hard to stop.]
* Meanwhile, in New Orleans... #3 posted 3/28/12
Nightmare defends the GEW Deathmatch Title, but not against Reptile. GEW Owner Ricky Richards(*) tells Reptile if he ever wants a rematch he'll take care of something for him without asking too many questions (to which Reptile agrees, not having any visible choice otherwise.) Meanwhile, in Reading, Kid Phantasm has begun having vivid dreams about a woman with flames for a face... while in New Orleans, Nightmare (now GEW Deathmatch Champion) anxiously awaits the Kid's return to New Orleans.
(*) RICKY RICHARDS: THIS fuckin' guy. Ricky Richards is owner (part-owner, actually - thanks Seth) and operator of Global Extreme Wrestling... as well as being a world-class skeezy douchebag. In 2010 he ran Kid Phantasm out of town rather than pay his wage, then tried eveything he could to get the Kid to come back two years later, once he'd begun winning matches in WCF. Imagine the Comic Book Store Guy from The Simpsons had the voice of Paul Heyman. Is your skin crawling? Well, try working for that guy. Kid P sez: "This narrator guy has a point- why do we fight, Seth? Even when you're trying to kill me you're still way nicer than my old boss. We should hang out or something."
* Kid Phantasm #6 "White Kid, Black Son, Green Monster" posted 3/29/12
This would be about where I really started to find my groove, story-telling wise anyway. Kid Phantasm's regular training sessions in the WCF Arena's ring have begun to attract the attention of the janitorial staff, one of whom introduces the Kid to his son Cornelius(*). Kid and Cornelius go out drinking and end up fighting off muggers; Kid suggests Cornelius train as a wrestler. When they return to the GEW Arena, Reptile is waiting for them - the mission Ricky Richards sent him to carry out was bringing Kid Phantasm back to New Orleans by hook or by crook. All it takes is a vague description of the new Deathmatch Champion to pique the Kid's interest...
(*) CORNELIUS CASANOVA: Nicknamed 'the Funkiest Brother Alive', Cornelius Casanova (real name - Cornelius Charles) was born and raised in Fleetwood, PA... his mother died young and his father took a second job cleaning up the WCF Arena at night to make ends meet. Cornelius' father, 'Ready' Freddy Charles, would someday befriend Kid Phantasm and introduce his son to the Kid... Kid Phantasm would immediately see the athletic ability and good nature of Cornelius, deciding that Cornelius was 'just like him'. On that night, Cornelius Charles was unemployed and directionless in Pennsylvania... the next day he would begin training as a wrestler in New Orleans under the tutelage of Kid's old rival Reptile. As 'Cornelius Casanova' (the Funkiest Brother Alive) he would become quite an impressive talent indeed... at one point, he would hold the Deathmatch Championship as well as half of the Tag Team Championship (with his partner in GEW's 'Mothership Connection', the Emerald Prince. See Unstable Elements #4 for more info on the Prince.) Allegiance-wise, Cornelius is all the way GEW... and his friendship with Kid Phantasm keeps him on Ricky Richards' bad side no matter how well he wrestles.
* Kid Phantasm #7 "The Ballad of Fire and Ice" posted 3/31/12
One of my all-time favorite things I've written for anything ever. Absolutely. The inevitable meeting of Kid Phantasm and Nightmare... who gets to keep the GEW Deathmatch Title? Can Kid Phantasm survive a 'date' with the Lady of Rage? Hell, do either of them get to keep their clothes on for this whole promo? Spoiler alert: Kid, yes, hell no. This story - the adversarial relationship between Phantasm and Nightmare that turns into a rather extreme form of love - took me a year to put together as a young man. This promo took me about eight hours to write (another two or three for notes and outline... so roughly half a day) and came out way, way better. If I wasn't already crazy about being in WCF, this was the piece of writing that cemented it... I shed a few legit tears when I posted this. Little did I know what it would begin...
- 4/1/12 Slam: Atreyu d. Archer, Sakazaki, Jayway (pin on Jayway - Phantasm as guest referee)
- 4/1/12 Slam: Following above match, Fly and the Unstable Elements announce Trios Cup team (foundation of Pantheon - see Pantheon #1)
...namely, THIS. My third match in WCF was as a guest referee (what a difference a few months makes - of that match's number, only Kira Sakazaki is still with us. Go 'head Kira. You a bad mofucka). Story-wise, Kid agreed to referee this match in an attempt to scout for a Trios Cup partner... of course, days before Slam 'aired' then World Champion Jonny Fly and I had agreed to enter Trios as the team of Fly, Phantasm and Nightmare... the so-called 'Flying Elements' team. The foundation of what would become the Pantheon began in that segment.
* Unstable Elements #1 "Hello." posted 4/6/12
Kid Phantasm and Nightmare's first cooperative promo effort, and still one of my favorite things I've written for WCF. For their Tag Team debut, Kid and Nighty were booked against Roy Speede and Erin Archer (remember her? or him? or whatever. Who cares). This promo starts with two uncomfortable and shy young lovers awkwardly attempting to express themselves, then ends some ten minutes later with a mixed-tag comedy team smashing punchlines like they were pinatas. That wasn't even necessarily on purpose - I didn't even know how to write them together anymore until about half-way through this thing. Kid P #7 reminded me of how powerful their attraction is... Unstable Elements #1 reminded me that they're also best friends. (Bonus: this promo was so full of character assassination that both opponents quit. Yeah, that's sad and all... but it told me that I still 'got it'. Oh, and again - sorry, Speedy).
- 4/8/12 Slam: Unstable Elements d. Archer/Speede (Nightmare pins Erin Archer) [Kid P: 3-0, Nightmare: 1-0, UE: 1-0]
Tee-fucking-hee. Thankfully, Roy Speede eventually returned. I actually got kinda depressed at having to rail on that dude in UE #1. Archer not so much. I'm pretty sure that dude flamed me once for liking my own promo out loud. On a roleplay feedback board. ...yeah, I might end up feeling like railing on Speedypants more in a few minutes... now that I'm thinking about that guy, anyway. What the heck is your problem, Speedy? You high on the goofballs? I'm not mad, I'm disappointed. You should have shared. Break a brother off some crazy-pills, son.
* Unstable Elements #2 "Tokyo Drifters" posted 4/13/12
Five weeks into my WCF career, I decided it was time to take this shit seriously... this promo came out the week of April 2012's XIII event, and I'd just had my first guest spot ('Kid and Fly walk into a bar', the legendary Jonny Fly(*) two-parter that was too hot for XIII. And technically cost Fly the World Title.) In an attempt to get 'serious', I tried to do two things I wasn't sure I could do - write the Unstable Elements' experiences in Japan and introduce WCF to my (most legitimate) alter-ego, Renegade Reporter Lucien Hicks(*). In retrospect, both came together smashingly... not only would Lucien go on to assume a full-time job as WCF Staff, but this would end up being the first thing I wrote for WCF to earn a 'Roleplay of the Week' award. [Note: I marked out so hard for that I forgot to read the Slam card for roughly two hours. This may have been encouraged by marijuana. Your mileage may vary.]
(*) JONNY FLY: What can you say about three-time WCF World Champion Jonny Fly? He was Kid and Nighty's first friend in WCF... he's still their dearest friend in the company, even. When the Unstable Elements met Fly he was the same in-ring terror he is today, but the influence of the Kid and Nightmare caused Fly to consider the errors of his ways (leading to... well, most of the rest of this file, actually). Like many of our great leaders, Fly is brave to the point of recklessness... like many of our great American heroes, he is simultaneously a kind and generous philanthropist and an accomplished womanizer. Like all of pro wrestling's great champions, he's almost unbeatable when he's on top... and even more dangerous when he's down. Perhaps the greatest contribution Fly made to the lives of the Unstable Elements was purchasing a mansion on the outskirts of Las Vegas, Nevada and giving it to them as a gift - months later, this house would become 'New Antarctica' or 'Pantheon West Coast Headquarters', home of the Phantasm and venue for some of Pantheon's weirder adventures.
(*) LUCIEN HICKS: The reflection in my mirror... a reflection from another world (where I am employable). Lucien is WCF's 'Renegade Reporter' - he does what he wants to, and since April of 2012 he's wanted interviews from WCF's oh-so-talented roster. Lucien's many previous journalism-related jobs include copy editor (for The Times-Picayune New Orleans), blogger, columnist for an 'online adult entertainment publication' (read: porn site), sportswriter, novelist, drug addict. Currently his home is WCF.com, where one can easily find his in-depth interviews with the ring's greatest personalities on his own subsection of the website. (And you may also occasionally find filthy columns that he posts in a stupor and then apologizes for later).
- 4/15/12 Slam: Unstable Elements d. Angels of Death (double-pin of Oblivion) [Kid P: 4-0, Nightmare: 2-0, UE: 2-0]
Perhaps the only thing that could make 'RP of the Week' for UE #2 sweeter would be earning a win over Oblivion(*) in a hardcore match. Which Kid and Nightmare did, in spectacularly violent fashion. I never forgot about it... unfortunately, neither did Oblivion. (Not sure about Kendrik Masters. Does anybody know which Target he works at? We could probably just go and ask him.)
(*) OBLIVION: Nicknamed 'the God of Insanity', Oblivion was once a normal professional wrestler (forgive the oxymoron) until a deep tragedy let loose a side of him he couldn't control. 'Oblivion', as this personality(?) is called, finds itself in command of a talented professional wrestler who outweighs and towers over all but the largest of opponents... and if all that doesn't scare you, just wait until you see his eyes. You know the term 'crazy eyes'? Oblivion could teach classes. Oblivion has had numerous (incredibly dangerous) 'allies', but none of his partnerships were more menacing to Kid P than the 'Monsters Inc.' team (Oblivion, NvL, Famine of the Vile). NvL and Obi's partnership seemed to begin with the kidnapping of Nightmare, a fact the Kid hasn't forgotten even slightly. [Note: It bears mentioning that the only competitor in WCF to pin Kid Phantasm so far has been Oblivion. This happened in the opening round of the 'Monarch Of The Mat' tournament (see XIII below.) It also bears mentioning that as of the events of Kid P #21, Oblivion is considered by some to be... well, a deity. For realsies.]
* Unstable Elements #3 "Desperately Seeking Switches" posted 4/20/12
Kid Phantasm finds himself booked in an eight-man battle royal for WCF People's Title contendership... Kid decides that in such a match, strategy usually gives way to chaos. In preparation, he takes a heroic dose of hallucinogenic mushrooms and tries to commune with the 'gods of wrestling chaos'. They send(?) then People's Champion Switches the Clown(*) to intercede (either that or he just happened to catch Kid at a gullible time). Kid and Switches have one of history's great psychedelic adventures... Nightmare, meanwhile, sits at home (much as in GEW, Kid and Nightmare live in a closet in the WCF Arena) and researches Kid's opponents while getting frustrated about her not being booked.
(*) SWITCHES THE CLOWN: Deceased since 4/29/12 (WCF Explosion). Switches the Clown was one of Kid Phantasm's first 'allies' in WCF, though their meetings were always at least mostly adversarial... in the weeks leading up to their People's Title conflict, Kid had begun to look up to Switches (perhaps believing Switches to be the advocate of the wrestling gods). Fortunately (somewhat, anyway) for Kid Phantasm, his relationship with Switches did not end with the clown's death... perhaps due to the horrible nature of his passing, Switches' ghost haunts the WCF People's Championship Title belt to this very day. According to legend, Switches' ghost only appears before you if you are on a 'Switches' amount of drugs. [Note: Only two members of the WCF roster have ever actually seen the ghost of Switches the Clown... Kid Phantasm, of course, would be the first. Can you guess the second? Strangely enough... Frank Patrick Venable. (See Kid Phantasm #14, 'DSM-IV', for details.)]
* Lucien Hicks Interview: "The Future" Jeff Purse posted 4/20/12
In all fairness, Jeff Purse (see Pantheon #1, 'Anatomy of a Wrestling Stable', for more details on Mr. Purse) was not my first choice for Lucien's first Interview subject... I had contacted a potential subject a week before this was posted, and they strung me along for days (I forget nothing, Speedy). I ran into Jeff Purse on a messenger service one evening, and this was completed the next day. To his credit, Jeff Purse was an EXCELLENT interview considering we'd barely spoken up to that point and I couldn't even explain the format of the interview we were doing that well. I certainly learned an awful lot about the guy. Seriously, go check it out - if you want a cross-section of what makes Jeff Purse so uniquely... well, Jeff Purse... then that'd be your cut-away drawing. [Note: Purse, if you're reading this - dude, I just realized I interviewed you on 4/20! High-five! ... Oh. You guys just realized that Pantheon is mostly stoners. Yeah, sorry. My bad. We're well-meaning stoners, at least.]
- 4/22/12 Slam: People's Title Contendership Battle Royal; Phantasm d. Masters, Valentine, Spector, Sakazaki, Stoned, Elias, Cash (top rope elim. Valentine) [Kid P: 5-0]
Wow... look at that lineup. That's the 'Who's Who' of 'what the fuck' right there. Seth does love his clusterfuckery, but this is just downright artful. Korean mash-up DJs are amazed by this blend. Three people in this 8-man match are still with WCF, and all three hold/held titles (Sakazaki - International Champion, Phantasm - People's Champion, Cash - 'transitional' World Champion). To his credit, one could imagine Bo Stoned(*) would still work for WCF if he wasn't dead. I think I hallucinated Ana Valentine... and I'm still pretty sure Ryan Elias is an urban legend, like toilets flushing backwards in Australia or the female orgasm.
(*) BO STONED: What's the difference between Bo Stoned and Adam Young? Adam Young isn't dead. (I would have mentioned a 'Texas Heavyweight Championship', but neither of them have that.) Corey Black - yes, that one - tried twice to kill Adam Young and failed, which rarely happens ever much less twice in a month. How is Adam Young not as dead as Bo Stoned? Science is baffled, honestly. Rumors fly around the 'net that Adam Young may, in fact, be immortal - though this would be a sad truth, at least we can take solace in one thing. Bo Stoned is totally dead. Thanks, gravity!
* Lucien Hicks Interview: Johnny Reb posted 4/27/12
* Lucien Hicks Interview: Super FPV posted 4/27/12
Once Jeff Purse broke Lucien's cherry (so to speak), the Interviews began to get better and better... thanks in no small part to kickass interview subjects. For the week of WCF's Aftermath, I interviewed both 3-time World Champion Johnny Reb (see Pantheon #2, 'Knights Of The Felt Table', for more details) who was preparing for a 'Loser Leaves Town' match with his arch-nemesis/former tag partner, Doc Henry... and former World, US and Tag Champ Frank Venable (see Breakout Kings Of The Ring #2, 'Fear and Loathing at the Guiliano Hotel, Part One', for more details) who was preparing for a EUTHANASIA CHAMBER MATCH with HIS arch-nemesis/former tag partner, Roy Speede(*). If nothing else, doing these two interviews made me two new friends... and showed me that this 'fed had a really, really deep talent pool. Seriously... you could drown in either of these two. I have a hard time picking which of the interviews I like more; Frank and I made the 'ToT Nightclub' look pretty fuckin' gangster (I think Da Funk owns that club now; no word if the 'Scot has a barback job), but Reb's interview DOES end with Reb and Lucien taking mushrooms with the Unstable Elements. Likely to call that decision a tie.
(*) ROY SPEEDE: This was totally coming - there's been enough mention of Speedy already for him to need an 'entry'. Nicknamed 'The Silver Bullet' like a beer or 'The Silver Lining' like a foreign art-house film (don't Google that, I made that up), this young man will forever be known to me as 'Speedy' or 'Speedypants' or perhaps even 'Lord Speedypants' if i'm feeling particularly insufferable that day. I refer to him as such not because it's a clever play on his character's name, but instead because he's never in one place for very long. I think he's returned to WCF as many times as Brett Favre has unretired. If you're guessing the odds that he got upset at me when he read this... personally, I wouldn't bet against it. All of that said (jokingly, though the page doesn't always reflect it), Speedy is a heck of a wrestler who just... well, never seems to be in the right place at the right time. Honestly, he's not even that important to the Kid's story or anything... I just wanted to point out that while you were reading this paragraph Roy Speede travelled to Africa, ate a grilled cheese sandwich, had sex with a woman, fried a wombat, had sex with a fried wombat, went to the Vatican, won a fistfight with the Pope that the Pope didn't know he was in, wrecked two motorcycles at the same time on his way to his house... then attempted to jump in bed, but somehow missed and landed on his neighbor's roof. Ouch.
* Unstable Elements #4 "Come Back With Cash" posted 4/29/12
Some of my promos took a week to plan and days to write. This one, start to finish, took about eight or nine hours tops. Guess I was just feelin' it. Phantasm and Nightmare left GEW for WCF the day after they met... and when they did so, they brought a trophy with them. A trophy that was still being used by GEW, to be exact... this is the story of how the GEW Deathmatch Title made it back to New Orleans. Bonus - this promo is the first appearance of Waylon Cash(*) in a Kid/UE promo, as well as the first appearance in a WCF promo by my old friends the Mothership Connection(*).
(*) WAYLON CASH: Nicknamed 'The Hellbilly', Waylon Cash is a full-blown man of the land. Literally. He's a farmer. And not just any farmer... he's the damnedest wrestling farmer you've ever seen. And he grows pot. After Jonny Fly, Waylon Cash is the first 'friend' the Unstable Elements made in WCF... and to think they met up almost completely by accident. Cash just happened to be in the right place at the right time to hitch a ride with Kid and Nighty down to GEW, where a crazy ten-man match ended up taking place (Elements/Mothership/Cash vs. Urban Decay) and Waylon's GEW legend began. It would not end there, though... he'd return to the GEW Arena (see Kid P #19) in spectacular fashion. Cash once held the WCF World Title for roughly two weeks; though he may have been deposed in WCF's wild and woolly 'Ultimate Showdown' match, one would expect a bright future awaits Mr. Cash in the company considering his relative youth and powerful in-ring skills.
(*) THE MOTHERSHIP CONNECTION: The tag team of Cornelius Casanova (see above) and the Emerald Prince (Daniel 'Danny' Darwin, raised in Detroit but foisted with an 'African prince' gimmick by GEW Owner Ricky Richards) were an unlikely duo made up of 'the two black guys' in GEW (in a 'stroke of genius') one night by Ricky Richards. They had nothing in common when they started (Prince was a six-year vet, Cornelius had just gotten out of 'basic training'... Cornelius was raised in a mostly white suburb, Prince was raised by Black Panthers) but they made it up as they went, winning fans and titles in their stead. In UE #4, Cornelius Casanova is given the Deathmatch Title by Nightmare, making him a double-champ (as he was then also Tag Team Champion). Not bad for a rookie, right? Only notable GEW employee allies of Kid Phantasm and his ilk (so far). The Mothership Connection are 2-time former GEW Tag Champions (titles 'currently' held by 'The British Invasion').
* Kid Phantasm #8 "The Clowntown Connection, Pt I" posted 4/29/12 (Pt II posted as Switches promo, same date)
After working with the guy for a few weeks, I'd become pretty good friends with Switches the Clown... once Kid P had won the contendership match, we decided to write a big crazy two-parter that was part Fight Club, part Training Day and part Switches & Kid P wackiness. Mission gloriously accomplished.
- 4/29/12 Aftermath: Phantasm d. Switches the Clown (Switches dies in explosion, Kid Phantasm becomes WCF People's Champion) [Kid P: 6-0]
We'll never forget you, Switches. You were a fantastic psychotic drug addicted clown... and a damn good friend.
* Unstable Elements #5 "Scrabble, Gods and Monsters" posted 5/4/12
"Hey, Kid Phantasm - you just won the WCF People's Championship! How are YOU going to celebrate?"
"I'm gonna break my boss out of prison!"
UE #5 is one of the prequels (if I remember correctly, Fly and Franky also wrote prequels... hell, technically Fly's 'Trial of Seth Lerch' was a week-long prequel) to 'Breakout Kings of the Ring', my first attempt at major narrative storytelling with all my new WCF friends. It was spectacularly fun. This particular bit consists of a Scrabble game between the Unstable Elements, Odin Balfore(*) and Zombie McMorris(*). Odin and Zombie agree to join Kid, Nightmare and Jonny Fly in their quest to save Seth Lerch from prison... BUT AT WHAT COST?! (Spoiler alert: drugs and alcohol. Kid P sez: "Fuck, man, it's Zombie and Odin. What else do they even like? I certainly wasn't getting them skanks and Fly was busy. It was drugs and alcohol or snacks from the vending machine".)
(*) ODIN BALFORE: Nicknamed "Bad Motha Fucka" "The Nordic Tank" and "The Maverick Elite", Odin Balfore is a gigantic powerhouse of a man who has earned his many nicknames with a career of in-ring destruction (including multiple title reigns). His enemies and friendly rivals are almost as numerous as his fans. Odin is one of the few I've known to manage to keep a sense of humor throughout a long career of out-and-out trash talk; though often underestimated due to his 'age', he is every bit as dangerous as a younger man (perhaps even one who is armed).
(*) ZOMBIE MCMORRIS: Nicknamed "Honey Badger" and "Lord of the Low Card", Zombie McMorris (Z-Mac for short) is one of WCF's oddest ducks. By traditional standards, Z-Mac has been a 'mid-carder' at best throughout his time in the company... but that's actually sort of an ambitious position for a man who refers to himself as the 'Lord of the Low Card', isn't it? Perhaps his greatest achievement (other than his insane antics in Breakout Kings of the Ring) may have been becoming WCF's first ever Internet Champion... though one must wonder what will become of his recent position in the company, allied with Oblivion's 'Church of Dark Saints' and tag team partners with Andy Warhawk (as 'Reign of Terror' - see Kid Phantasm #21 for details on Warhawk).
* Lucien Hicks Interview: Corey 'Creeping Death' Black posted 5/6/12
Quite possibly my favorite piece of WCF 'canon' ever created - when writing this interview, I asked Creeps where the interview would take place and he insisted he didn't care. So... I made him live in a castle. In Denmark. And it stuck. (We named it 'DETHFORT'.) This castle (an actual castle, by the way) would go on to be staging point for July's XIII event as well as Pantheon Scandinavian Base Camp (during aformentioned XIII event). Note: it is suggested/rumored that Corey Black's castle contains a secret candy factory. I'd say 'I'm not making this up', but that'd be a lie. I'm at least partially responsible for making that up (CD with the assist - thanks, dogg).
* Kid Phantasm #9 "In Her Own Words" posted 5/6/12
TRIOS CUP! By the time Trios Cup started, the Unstable Elements had lived right down the hall from the trophy for so long that it had become almost a member of the 'family'. A forgettable team (NOTE: for info on this team's lone surviving member, see 'Johnny Stylez' below) broke in and stole it... Nightmare, uh, politely asked for it back. I won't say specifically that she had anything to do with the dissolution of said forgettable team, but WCF staff (and the Pennsylvania State Police) have no idea what happened to what's-his-face or that-other-guy. Or Al Envy(*). I only remember his name because of Jonny Fly's catchphrase.
(*) AL ENVY: Who the f-
- 5/6/12 Slam: Jonny Fly and the Unstable Elements d. Waylon Cash, Doc Henry and Nic Daniels (Nightmare pins Daniels) [Kid P: 7-0, Nightmare: 3-0, UE: 3-0]
WHO THE FUCK IS NIC DANIELS? See, it just doesn't sound right. Seriously, though, wasn't he in the Mulisha? Wow. Three of the four of those guys turned out to be awesome and the fourth is the answer to the opening question. Interestingly enough, this was the first teaming of Cash and Doc, 'the Confederate Menace' - much as Pantheon is 'Earth's Mightiest Wrestling Stable', the 'Menace are the Dixieland defenders. You can ask Future Gods Inc. about that (if you can find them.) Also... TRIOS CUP, BITCH! [Note: I really liked the Trios Cup Tournament.]
* Breakout Kings of the Ring #1 "The Best Laid Plans" posted 5/7/12 (posted by editor Bobby Cairo)
*inhales breath* Jonny Fly framed Seth for the murder of a federal agent and had a change of heart and asked the Unstable Elements for help, so Kid Phantasm and Nightmare recruited a crazy guy and a strong guy (the real stars of 'BKotR' ended up being Zombie McMorris and Odin Balfore, if you ask me) and put together plans for a prison break until they realized they might need more help and call Lucien Hicks who's on his way to VEGAS. *gasp* [Note: the story for Breakout Kings of the Ring was dramatically altered by one Frank Venable at this point - if it weren't for Franky, I never would have thought of 'F&L at the Guiliano'. Though this story would end up taking a week longer to tell than I thought it would, it was all worth it if only just to see a poker game between Odin, Fly and Corey Black(*).
(*) COREY BLACK: Legendary member of the WCF Hall of Fame. Five-time World Champion. Perpetrator of XIII events. Pantheon's 'heavy artillery'. Call him what you will... but one thing is inarguably true of Mr. Black. He is damned effective at killing jobbers. Corey Black has killed more jobbers than New Jack. Corey Black is recognized by Guinness' infamous 'record book' under the listing 'Most Jobbers Killed in One Show'. He is also recognized by science as the most likely cause of the eventual extinction of the jobber 'species'.
* Unstable Elements #6 "The Big Dick Anatomy Lesson" posted 5/8/12
In retrospect, it was probably not the best idea to begin 'Breakout Kings' the same week Fly and the 'Elements were facing the Big Dick Superstars (Kira Sakazaki(*), Johnny Reb and Chad Evans)... but more on that topic later (see '5/13/12 Slam' below). This would be the second meeting between Kid P and Kira; this would also be the second 'meeting' between Johnny Reb and the Unstable Elements, though their first fight (see Lucien's interview of Reb, above). Kid and Nighty invite Fly over to join in one of their Iceberg-Six assisted strategy sessions; hilarity ensues. Best part of Trios Cup promos - Kid, Nightmare and Fly are about as close to 'sitcom' as I could stand writing (same goes for Kid P, Kari and Jeff Purse. SITCOM AS FUCK).
(*) KIRA SAKAZAKI: Nicknamed "the Black Rat" and "The Asian Sensation", Kira is the son of a mixed martial-arts legend and the brother of his valet/manager Haruna Sakazaki. He is WCF's International Champion, an almost honorary title (as the belt was retired in the match where Kira won it)... since his big victory in the Trios Cup tournament, Kira's career (and therefore life) have taken a turn for the severely negative. His sister was kidnapped by Monsters Inc, much like Nightmare was... though unlike Nightmare, she did not make it out as anything resembling 'whole'. Though he is one of few who can claim a victory over Kid Phantasm (two, actually, as of 8/2012) he has also sort of become a rogue entity since his mind was warped by that of his sister (who is possibly being controlled by Oblivion... or perhaps something 'worse'?)
* Kid Phantasm #10 "2 AM Wakeup Call" posted 5/9/12
I remember reading Chad Evans' promo and thinking that it was genius... I also remember half a dozen 'talking points' (hold on, strangling myself for using that phrase) ...uh, discussion ideas... that I saw to bring up. Since roleplay wrestling feds don't function as debates, I took matters into my own hands (and keyboard). Then I made Nightmare do it. In KP #10, Chad Evans squares off with Nightmare on his front lawn in the middle of the night; Nightmare gets in a little bit of a rebuttal and somehow gets out of there without having sex with Chad (science is pretty sure he has a tractor beam deployed in his foreskin). Bonus: Brief sexiness at Polar Base(*). Yeah you right.
(*) POLAR BASE: Nickname given to the WCF Arena's first floor utility closet; until the events of Unstable Elements #9, Kid P (and eventually Nighty) lived in this small corner of the WCF kingdom. Rumor has it that since the 'Elements moved out of the closet and into Jonny Fly's home the closet has become storage... specifically Jonny Fly's. (Well played, Fly-guy. Well played.) More on 'Fly Manor' to come (see Unstable Elements #9 for info).
* Breakout Kings of the Ring #2 "Fear and Loathing at the Guiliano Hotel, Pt. 1" posted 5/11/12 (posted by editor Bobby Cairo)
What happens when the Unstable Elements, Jonny Fly, Odin Balfore, Zombie McMorris, Lucien Hicks, Corey Black, FPV(*), Johnny Nova and Da Funk(*) are all in the same hotel at the same time? If your answer was sake drinking, obscene amounts of drug use and prank phone calls, you're right. That's eerily precise, actually. Bonus points: skeet shooting on a roof (New Antarctica's, actually), Wayne Newton, the ghost of Switches the Clown... and Slickie T? Speaking of urban legends... he's my favorite of them. Slickie T is way cooler than the Wolfman. (Fittingly, D-Day is cooler than the movie 'Teen Wolf'.)
(*) FRANK VENABLE (FPV): Of all the friends Kid Phantasm has made in his WCF stay, Frank Venable might be the most 'intriguing'... their alignments conflict, their allies are sworn enemies of each other, and both receive a fairly large amount of stress for being friends with one another. Perhaps their friendship is due to their common stations in life (as 'first lieutenants' to their legendary stable captains)? Perhaps their friendship is due to their shared youth or oddball senses of humor. Whatever the case may be, they've been good friends since their only 'battle' in Breakout Kings of the Ring #2 & #3. One would wonder how they would react to a legitimate sanctioned match against one another? We're likely to find out... someday.
(*) DA FUNK: Frank Venable's friend and cohort Da Funk is a pro-level DJ and music producer, who now owns and operates what was once the 'ToT Nightclub'. Nightmare and Phantasm have a tremendous respect for Funk's particular talents... so much so, in fact, that upon building Iceberg-Seven (see Kid Phantasm #20 for details), the Phantasm decided to give Iceberg-Six to Da Funk as an 'assistant'.
* Unstable Elements #7 "A Fistful Of Royalties" posted 5/13/12
This promo is an example of how great of timing Fly and I had by this point - I sent him a vague outline for UE #7... day and a half later (on his way out of town on vacation) he sends me back roughly 2/3 of a promo (about 1/2 of the finished product). I promptly fell asleep for most of a day. I woke up to find it was Sunday at about noon. It took me five hours and change to storyboard this (using looseleaf paper), cut/paste/edit Fly's promo into chunks which had to be fit back together... then, about an hour before the RP deadline I realized I still had to write an intro. I was freaking out like I was about to lose a relay race in the god-damn Olympics. Fly (the poor bastard) is sitting in a toilet stall somewhere hitting refresh on his cellphone trying to see if I posted the damn thing before the deadline; meanwhile in New Orleans I've got Vince Offer (yes, the SlapChop guy) on the brain and I can feel my skin crawling. When I posted the promo I took a victory lap around the house and then passed out on a couch for a couple of hours...
- 5/13/12 Slam: Big Dick Superstars (Evans/Reb/Kira) d. Fly/Unstable Elements (count-out) [Kid P: 7-1, Nightmare: 3-1, UE: 3-1]
...and woke up in the middle of the night to find that we'd lost to the BDS anyway. Damn you, Chad Evans. If you weren't Bobby Cairo(*) I might hate you for being so damn awesome. That said, hating Cairo for being awesome is like hating summertime for being hot. On a similar tangent, missing Bobby Cairo is a lot like masturbation; it feels like something you should be doing, no one worth a fuck would blame you for it, and if you're reading this site you probably do it at least a few times a day (twice that - averaged, anyway - if you're in Pantheon. That's me fucking up our curve. Sorry, guys). Somehow I still love Seth even though he jobbed us after I spent most of my week figuring out how to break him out of prison. As far as I'm concerned, losing to Kira, Reb, and any flavor Bobby Cairo is like striking out at an at bat in the major leagues.
(*) BOBBY FUCKING CAIRO!: His resume is extensive; his influence twice that. My first days in WCF were fairly lonely ones, but about a week in I made friends with Fly and Cairo and finally knew I was at least acceptable. (Humorously enough, my first conversation with Fly was the one where we came up with the 'send Seth to jail' idea.) When 'Breakout Kings...' came to be, the first one to sign on (that wasn't myself or Fly) was Cairo, acting as the project's 'editor'. We loved the bastard so much we asked him to manage Pantheon, and loved him somehow more than that for him agreeing to do so. I miss Cairo a shitload (typing with one hand) and I'm sure I'm not the only one. ...hey, idea! Someone call the State of Connecticut and ask them to get the 'cool guy' on the phone. They'll know who you mean. They'd have to - it's Connecticut. Who the fuck else is up there, Vince McMahon? He hasn't been cool since... uh, ever. Martha Stewart? Hey, maybe that's where Bobby is. Call Connecticut back and ask them if Cairo's fucking Martha Stewart. Hey, she's old... but she's rich. Whatever gets him to stop stripping, I support it.
* Kid Phantasm #11 "...And Justice For All" posted 5/16/12
Eliminated from their quest to get Kid his trophy (and to then eat pudding from said trophy), Jonny Fly and Kid Phantasm returned to defending their singles titles (and Nightmare returned to being bored). Kid's first attempt at defending the People's Title (and its 'prisoner', the ghost of Switches the Clown) would put him up against Eric Price(*), formerly of the Mulisha. This promo's title is somewhat of a misnomer; this is hardly a 'Kid' Phantasm promo. Apparently grown-up Kid P, Lucien Hicks and I all share a tendency to hate Republicans! Huh. Imagine that.
(*) ERIC PRICE: Once upon a time, Eric Price was 'the other Price'. A Tag Team title reign and a TV Title victory later and he's become one of the most dominant competitors in WCF. In his one and only showdown with Kid Phantasm, Price came within a hair of winning the People's Title... he would later go on to defeat Kid's occasional tag partner (and good friend) Jeff Purse for the Television Title after months of back-and-forth via Twitter. Price is an outspoken conservative, making him no friend of the Phantasm's... or Lucien's, for that matter (as evident in Lucien's interview of Eric Price in August). As of 8/19, Price is ranked #3 in the company... a dangerous man, no doubt. If he hadn't made enemies of half the company, one might think he'd be in for a long title reign. That all said, he might still be... WCF is a strange place.
* Breakout Kings of the Ring #3 "Fear and Loathing at the Guiliano Hotel, Pt. 2" posted 5/19/12 (posted by editor Bobby Cairo)
If #5 wasn't so damn great this would EASILY be my favorite piece of 'Breakout Kings'. I actually found a recipe for #3 in a book... let's see. "Take all the madness from #2, shake the hell out of it, throw in a shot of Adrenachrome for Z-Mac and an 8th Wonder cameo for... well, everyone in the whole world, really... garnish with a suplex out of a window into a swimming pool, then arrest that and escort it to the lobby at taser-point. Wait - don't forget your reporter! His face is a shade of pale that can only be caused by auto-erotic asphyxiation or an angry Slickie T, and I don't see any belt marks on his neck. You guys might want to skip town." ...damn, Promo Cookbook. I wonder if they have a recipe for Pantheon #2 in here... oh, ha-ha. 'The last half of the book'? You're a dick, Promo Cookbook.
- 5/20/12 Slam: Phantasm d. Eric Price (Ice Cap, pin on Price, 1st successful title defense) [Kid P: 8-1]
Three weeks after winning the People's Title, Kid finally gets a title defense (much love to Eric Price - this one was pretty close, and it'd probably be even closer these days). It would only get harder from here... fortunately for the Kid, he'd have a few more friends to work on strategy with. Unfortunately for Kid P, he would need them worse than (and sooner than) he'd think.
* Unstable Elements #8 "No One Here Gets Out Alive" posted 5/22/12
This was an awkward week for me, writing-wise, as I knew what was coming - within two weeks NvL's rat will have been kicked, Pantheon will have formed, Nightmare will be kidnapped and Kid will begin teaming with Jeff Purse. I remember writing this and thinking 'Just get it overwith already.' In retrospect, I think I used so much of Kid's 'depression' shit in this week's promos that when Nightmare actually got kidnapped Kid just got really high and plotted a murder. (That's the safest way to plot murder - you inevitably end up wondering if you can stab a guy to death with a frozen banana or something of that sort, then start laughing at the image you just imagined and eventually fall asleep.)
* Kid Phantasm #12 "In The Blood" posted 5/23/12
Kid brings Nightmare to meet his parents. This ended up going better than I thought it would, honestly... though, again, I had no idea what it would stimulate NvL into doing (the next week he sent Kid's parents a gift basket that was made of knotted animal entrails. Hilarious? Yes. Creepy? Oh, hell yes). Amazingly, somehow Kid's parents like Nightmare. (Even I didn't expect that.) Probably the most significant thing for Kid Phantasm was finally getting face-to-face support from his parents regarding his career... I say probably, of course, as it's still unknown how significant their approval of Nightmare is/will be, or even how significant their distaste for Nathan von Liebert might be!
* Breakout Kings of the Ring #4 "The Stakes Is High" posted 5/24/12 (posted by editor Bobby Cairo)
Fleeing Las Vegas for their collective safe zone in Reading, the 'Breakout Kings' crew grows by one more... Kid P tells Frank the whole plan on the plane, and Frank seems to think he can help them by getting someone in to see Seth. Meanwhile, Seth's in prison... poor fucker. The 'Elements send Odin and Z-Mac 'shopping', while across town Franky tells Logan the plan to free Seth. Logan doesn't trust it, as he thinks Fly's up to something... Fly is actually up to New York City at that moment, on a desperate search for a patsy with Lucien Hicks. As they locate one and head to beg him for cooperation in misleading a federal investigation, Frank's brother Vic gets put in Seth's cell and gets Seth hip to the Breakout Kings' plan. Fly returns to Polar Base with good news and bad news; the patsy is in for un-framing Seth, but he will only do so for a specific list of demands. The Elements react with horror as they discover they'll have to ask Sarah Twilight(*) and Ayria Adams(*) for blackmail photos... then they all react with shock as they notice Lucien is missing (with valuable 'evidence'!) Reading this now, by the way, I still mark out for the ToT showing up. YOU KNEW THEY WOULD, RIGHT? What the fuck is wrong with Kid P trusting Franky like that? Fool, you should know he's just gonna holler at Logan(*). Why do I write you to be stupid sometimes? ...oh. Comedy. Got it.
(*) SARAH TWILIGHT: Once upon a time, a lady came to WCF claiming to be a master of witchcraft and a World Champion in waiting. For three months straight she chased Jonny Fly and the World Title... after three months of failure, she disappeared never to return. In a nutshell, that is everything you'd ever need to know about one 'Sarah Twilight'... she refused to be anything but the best, to a point where she now refuses to exist at all.
(*) AYRIA ADAMS: Former student of (and later tag partner of) Sarah Twilight, Ayria Adams was at one point contender to the WCF TV title and WCF Tag Champs (with Twilight). A 100-lb woman, she once scored an impressive pinfall win over Odin Balfore(!!!) in her short stay in the company... almost as if dragged away by Twilight, Ayria Adams disappeared along with her former trainer and sometimes partner, abandoning the WCF Tag Titles sometime in June of 2012. As is the case with Twilight, she has never been heard from again.
(*) LOGAN: Nicknamed "Mr. WCF" and "The Face of Treachery", and for good reasons - Logan's five World Title reigns, five US Title reigns, 92 wins and THREE War victories easily make him WCF's most decorated wrestler of all-time... and his maniacal nature and tendency to plot against friends and enemies alike make him one of the most dangerous figures in sports-entertainment's (if not sports in general's) history. Logan's 'Team of Treachery' (aka ToT) has often been a thorn in Pantheon's side... well, more specifically, Logan and Gravedigger's 'Darkside of Treachery' have been a thorn in Pantheon's side (though the apparent retirements of 'Digger and Logan would lead one to wonder if that would still be the case). Interestingly enough, Kid Phantasm (and to a slightly lesser extent, Johnny Reb) built a robot version of Logan after his recent retirement (see Pantheon #3)... one would wonder why they would build a robotic version of one of their greatest enemies. At least, one would wonder until one has had a real taste of the entertaining madness that is Logan.
* Kid Phantasm #13 "Mind's Playing Tricks On Me" posted 5/26/12
Went on minor vacation to Baton Rouge; got laid, smoked lots of weed. Woke up one morning with this beat stuck in my head and the (then) near future WCF on my mind... and decided I would have to find out if Kid and Nighty can drop a rhyme. Perhaps the Geto Boys give even the whitest of people super-powers? Science has no answers, less than ever since we're short one Beastie Boy now (he was my favorite, too).
* Breakout Kings of the Ring #5 "Rejection to Redemption" posted 5/27/12 ***** (posted by editor Bobby Cairo)
I had actually just recovered from naked time with a lady-person when I saw Cairo had posted this (on my way out of town I'd begged him to finish the last piece and drop it like it were hot)... about a half-hour later I noticed it had been given 'RP of the Week'. And that Pantheon had formed as expected. I'm not sure what sort of celebratory noises I made, but they woke up a cute naked girl and I had to explain e-feds to her while attempting to summon the erection I hoped to put her to sleep with (so that I could read the show). Surprisingly, she got it - the fed, I mean. Well, she got... you know what, fuck it. You people already know a frightening amount about my sex life (my bad). Seriously, though, she even read all of 'Breakout Kings' after I split. Even more surprisingly, that girl is still willing to have sex with me. It can't be because I do the sex-things that well; I'm a chainsmoker, after all. Nobody wants to get cunnilingus from a dude who's wheezing. I think she still fucks me because 'Breakout Kings' was that good. I blame it on like half a dozen of you people; as reward, I owe each of you one (1) high-five and one (1) safety meeting. Double that if you find Cairo for me. ...OH, the story! Well... Seth's out, isn't he? Silly WCF readers.
- 5/27/12 Asesinato De Mayo: Phantasm d. Nathan von Liebert (Ice Cap, pin on NvL, 2nd successful title defense) [Kid P: 9-1]
Half a show from this point, the Unstable Elements would form Pantheon along with a few of their friends... but during this match, Kid P made the mistake that would make him need as much Pantheon as he could get. Kid hurt Nathan's rat (Kid P sez: "ON ACCIDENT! I SWEAR!") and unknowingly made the greatest enemy of his life... in the process, Kid Phantasm scored his second defense of the People's Title (the cool kids call it 'the Switches belt.')
* Pantheon #1 "Anatomy of a Wrestling Stable" posted 5/31/12 *****
Another of my favorite promos to write - I took the 'actual' story of how Pantheon formed and turned it into Fly and the Unstable Elements' journey through two months of life in WCF. Rome wasn't built in a day, right? Well, Pantheon wasn't built in a month, even. Probably the most fun part was the second-to-last scene, with all five of them in the cantina... that was fun. It was my first time writing with/for Cairo and Jeff Purse(*)... wouldn't change a thing if I could. I know that because I edited the living hell out of this thing - this group came together so nicely that I didn't want to fuck up their 'debut promo'. The promo might have been too effective, in retrospect - though it did earn 'RP of the Week' honors, it likely had more to do with WCF's sudden swing into 'stable wars' than anything else. (Kid P sez: "Oops.")
(*) JEFF PURSE: Nicknamed 'The Future', Jeff Purse was once a rising star in the ACW promotion until it folded. When Kid Phantasm arrived in WCF, Purse was one-half of a former Championship tag team (with Night Rider, no longer employed by WCF)... when the Pantheon eventually formed, a newly 'single' (ha! 'cause he's engaged to that hot girl) Purse would join Jonny Fly, Bobby Cairo and the Unstable Elements as a founding member of the group. That same night (WCF's Asesinato De Mayo), Purse would win his first singles title in WCF (United States Championship), which he held for three months (until 'trading up' to the WCF Television Title at Ultimate Showdown 2012). Jeff Purse would also go on to assist Kid Phantasm in his battle with Monsters Inc., leading to the formation of the 'Future Elements' tag team (See Future Elements #1, 'Nate von Liebert Must Die', for details) and, eventually, to freeing Nightmare (as result of a US Title match against Nathan von Liebert, Jeff's hated ACW rival). Kid Phantasm has been quoted numerous times as saying, "Jeff Purse is the best damn tag partner a Phantasm could have asked for." One would assume he doesn't say such things when Nightmare is around.
Thank you, WCF, for giving the Phantasm, Nightmare, Lucien Hicks and all of my other crazy voices a place to scream their heads off. Without you, it would be very loud in here... and by 'here', I mean my head.
-B.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Meet Kid Phantasm... and his many friends.[/u]
(Brian Bonhagen: WCF Roleplay History as of 8/19/12)
* Kid Phantasm #1 "A Chill Moves In" posted 3/8/12
The promo that started it all...? All I remember about writing my debut was that I thought I should test WCF's sense of humor first, so I wrote Kid P an exercise montage to 'Pump Up The Jam'. I didn't know if anyone liked it or not until two days later, when I caught SLICKIE FUCKING T saying he liked the new guy. (I assumed he meant me; at the time the other 'new guy' was Sarah Twilight, and calling her a 'guy' generally gets you put on the list of people who don't get invited to the AIM chats. Unless you're Logan, of course.)
* Kid Phantasm #2 "Friendly Negotiations" posted 3/10/12
Kid Phantasm has no friends in WCF (at this point anyway), leading him to do two things people probably thought I was crazy for doing in promos; Kid begins talking to his computer, Iceberg-Six(*)... and he spars with a pizza guy for lack of a partner.
(*) ICEBERG-SIX: First of Kid Phantasm's 'friends', and the only one to make the jump to WCF with him. Kid Phantasm's best friend was his netbook computer Iceberg-Six (until he made friends, anyway), purchased for him as a gift by his mother when he graduated high school and programmed to do all its various Eye-Six things by the Kid himself. According to Kid P: "...so I was lonely as hell on the road, roaming the Northeast and East Coast working bingo halls and the like. I figured the computer had to be good for more than porn and Twitter, so a few months later I figured out that I could program it to heuristically interpret match results and news articles and biographies into match preps and strategies... and of course, using a variation on Apple software, I gave Eye-Six a voice. Without him I don't know if I'd have made it to WCF... without his help planning matches, I might not have caught Seth's eye. But beyond that, even... without Eye-Six to talk to over those two years I might have lost my mind. Best damn sidekick a fella could ask for... out of a computer, anyway."
* Kid Phantasm #3 "Requiem For a Rematch" posted 3/13/12
Still waiting on his first WCF match a week after his arrival, Kid gets drunk on the roof of the WCF Arena during Slam. In a stupor, he flashes back to his last match in New Orleans for the Global Extreme Wrestling(*) promotion, where he lost a Loser Leaves Town match against his former arch-rival Reptile(*). Though it would be goodbye for the Kid, he and Reptile end up making friends after the show.
(*) GLOBAL EXTREME WRESTLING (GEW): OOC, this is the 'promotion' I ran twice (1999-2000, 2003) in my younger days. I'll likely never run a 'fed again, but I'd imagined GEW so clearly and thoroughly that it almost immediately became part of the backdrop for Kid Phantasm stories. Global Extreme Wrestling is a struggling independent promotion in the vein of real-world ECW; as of the events of Kid Phantasm #18, it is also partially (majority) owned by Seth Lerch of WCF. GEW has three titles: World, Tag Team, and Deathmatch. All are hotly contested and regularly change hands, with a few notable exceptions. (See 'Reptile' below.) Global Extreme Wrestling operates out of the GEW Arena (real-life 'Alario Center') in Marrero, Louisiana. They have a weekly show on Monday night, but have specials every few weeks. All matches in GEW are held under what big-deal TV wrestling calls 'extreme rules' (and I call 'stipulations that don't suck.')
(*) REPTILE: Kid Phantasm's first 'rival', Reptile was GEW's Deathmatch Champion for almost two years (a fairly amazing feat anywhere, much less in a company that violent... and with that high of a turnover rate) in 2010-2011; Kid Phantasm made two attempts to get the Deathmatch Title from him, failing both times. The second attempt was with the stipulation that if the Kid didn't win the match he'd be 'let go' by the struggling company... unfortunately for the Kid, he lost. (Fortunately for us, though, he didn't give up... he spent two years searching for a home before finding one in Reading.) As for Reptile, he would end up stuck in GEW and struggling to regain 'his belt' while watching Kid Phantasm on WCF Pay-Per-Views. Other notes of interest: Reptile's real name (first name, anyhow) is 'Larry'. He wears the 'Reptile' mask these days mostly to conceal male pattern baldness. His 'Death Lock' finishing hold was appropriated by Kid Phantasm once he left GEW; Reptile taught the Kid the brutal hold as a 'going-away present'. Reptile has also trained a few of GEW's superstars, most notably Cornelius Casanova of GEW's 'Mothership Connection'.
* Kid Phantasm #4 "Alpha Tactics" posted 3/16/12
Though this was the fourth Kid P promo, this was the first one 'for something'. This promo is really only notable for two reasons... it's the first time Iceberg-Six breaks down Kid's opponents for him, and it's the first time Kid Phantasm encounters the Trios Cup Trophy. His obsession with winning it and eating pudding from it would become quite an obsession indeed...
- 3/18/12 Slam: Phantasm d. Atreyu, Slade, Jayway (pin on Kris Slade) [Kid P: 1-0]
Of the four people in my debut match, only Atreyu and I would turn out to be worth a fuck (and only I still remain - miss you, Benji.)
* Kid Phantasm #5 "Time Travel / A Worthy Opponent" posted 3/21/12
YES! The first of the epically-long Kid Phantasm promos you may be accustomed to, this was a ten-plus hour writing binge to celebrate my first WCF PPV appearance. I loved writing this one, especially once I had the idea that Kid would explore the WCF Arena thoroughly... I spent like two hours reading old WCF RPs from years ago while Kid was digging through WCF's past (in the Merchandise closet). Also, most of the ending is me putting my opponent over (also a Kid P technique you may be accustomed to, if you're an avid reader.) What ever happened to Bryan 'Buzz' Worthy, anyhow?
* Meanwhile, in New Orleans... #1 posted 3/22/12
My first non-Kid promo for WCF... this short little page-and-a-halfer is notable for one thing (and one thing only)... this promo is the first appearance in WCF of Nightmare(*). Of course, there'd be a good bit more Nighty... and likely will be even more to come. (Miss you, Nighty. For realsies.)
(*) NIGHTMARE: Finally, one of Kid's 'friends' who isn't a 'thing'! Nightmare (real name: Crystal Laurendt, age 23) originally hails from Los Angeles, California... she was raised in the filmmaking industry by her jobber-turned-stuntman father and her makeup-artist mother. Her background in stage combat, makeup and costume design would prove quite useful to her... she followed film work to New Orleans, and after a run-in with a producer who was all hands she found herself homeless, jobless and broke in a strange part of the country. Somehow or another she found her way into the GEW Arena, co-incidentally moving into the same janitorial closet Kid Phantasm lived in during his stay in GEW two years before. However it ended up happening, living in the Kid's old 'house' gave her a feeling of kinship with a man she hadn't had before, and when Kid and Nightmare eventually met... well, you know the rest. (See Kid Phantasm #7 for details.) Together, Kid Phantasm and Nightmare would be WCF's 'Unstable Elements', a team whose only loss came from a count-out they received in the semi-finals of the Trios Cup Tournament. Nightmare would go on to be a founding member of Pantheon(*), though she would be kidnapped by Nathan von Liebert(*) mere days after the group formed... and upon being freed, would leave Kid Phantasm (and WCF) behind. Kid Phantasm spends at least a little of each day wondering when she'll be back (as to him she's just 'gone', perhaps to the store... and not GONE. His friends are almost afraid to ask him if he knows she might be GONE).
(*) PANTHEON: 'Earth's Mightiest Wrestling Stable'. Forged in battle; galvanized in friendship. Pantheon is what the 'Superfriends' would be if they were cool enough to hang out at the DETHFORT. Members include two hall of famers (founding member Bobby Cairo, Corey 'Creeping Death' Black), two future hall of famers (founding member Jonny Fly, 'The Inveterate Confederate' Johnny Reb) and three rising stars (founding member Jeff Purse, founding member Kid Phantasm, founding member Nightmare).
(*) NATHAN VON LIEBERT: Nicknamed 'The Devil's Right Hand', NvL may well be the sickest son of a bitch Kid Phantasm has ever run across. You know how Kid P made friends with Reptile after he got fired and it was all heartwarming? Well, that's not going to happen with this guy. Kid's never been one to keep 'enemies', per se... but after kidnapping and torturing Nightmare, he seems quite willing to leave Nate von Liebert firmly in the 'enemies' category. (Sadly, all of this drama between the Unstable Elements and NvL stems from an incidental injury to a rodent. One wonders if the Kid's ever just tried to get Nathan a new pet rat...?) It bears noting that aside from being demented and incredibly clever, Nathan von Liebert is a legitimate and talented wrestler... which just makes him that much more dangerous. Thankfully, Kid P and Jeff Purse managed to knock out NvL and get him shipped back off to the asylum (hey, just like Batman does the Joker! Oh, no. The Joker always gets back out, doesn't he? Oh, no.)
* Meanwhile, in New Orleans... #2 posted 3/23/12
So much happens in this one - where do I start? The setting is the first ever 'GEW Monday Madhouse' (filmed at the GEW Arena). Numerous random GEW characters appear, including one Andy (Andrew) Warhawk (see Kid Phantasm #21 for details on ol' Andy Warhawk). Most importantly, though, this would be the first promo to even give Nightmare's name much less show how she handles business in the ring (GEW's Nightmare tended to stab people)... interestingly enough, this would also be when Reptile's near-two-year reign as GEW's Deathmatch Champion would end. (Way to go, Nighty!)
- 3/25/12 Explosion 2012: Phantasm d. Bryan 'Buzz' Worthy (Ice Cap, pin) [Kid P: 2-0]
You never forget your first. My first PPV match... my first singles match in WCF, even. It was a pleasure, 'Buzz'. (Although I do miss the way you wore sunglasses, there's this man in uniform I've been seeing...) [Note: For the four of you that get that joke, I hope me sounding gay was worth it. Yes, I meant gayer than usual... wait, no. No, I didn't. I'm so straight that I'm the only man in WCF Logan hasn't buttraped. Ha! More than four of you got that. Score. And I was kidding about the buttrape; that guy's hard to stop.]
* Meanwhile, in New Orleans... #3 posted 3/28/12
Nightmare defends the GEW Deathmatch Title, but not against Reptile. GEW Owner Ricky Richards(*) tells Reptile if he ever wants a rematch he'll take care of something for him without asking too many questions (to which Reptile agrees, not having any visible choice otherwise.) Meanwhile, in Reading, Kid Phantasm has begun having vivid dreams about a woman with flames for a face... while in New Orleans, Nightmare (now GEW Deathmatch Champion) anxiously awaits the Kid's return to New Orleans.
(*) RICKY RICHARDS: THIS fuckin' guy. Ricky Richards is owner (part-owner, actually - thanks Seth) and operator of Global Extreme Wrestling... as well as being a world-class skeezy douchebag. In 2010 he ran Kid Phantasm out of town rather than pay his wage, then tried eveything he could to get the Kid to come back two years later, once he'd begun winning matches in WCF. Imagine the Comic Book Store Guy from The Simpsons had the voice of Paul Heyman. Is your skin crawling? Well, try working for that guy. Kid P sez: "This narrator guy has a point- why do we fight, Seth? Even when you're trying to kill me you're still way nicer than my old boss. We should hang out or something."
* Kid Phantasm #6 "White Kid, Black Son, Green Monster" posted 3/29/12
This would be about where I really started to find my groove, story-telling wise anyway. Kid Phantasm's regular training sessions in the WCF Arena's ring have begun to attract the attention of the janitorial staff, one of whom introduces the Kid to his son Cornelius(*). Kid and Cornelius go out drinking and end up fighting off muggers; Kid suggests Cornelius train as a wrestler. When they return to the GEW Arena, Reptile is waiting for them - the mission Ricky Richards sent him to carry out was bringing Kid Phantasm back to New Orleans by hook or by crook. All it takes is a vague description of the new Deathmatch Champion to pique the Kid's interest...
(*) CORNELIUS CASANOVA: Nicknamed 'the Funkiest Brother Alive', Cornelius Casanova (real name - Cornelius Charles) was born and raised in Fleetwood, PA... his mother died young and his father took a second job cleaning up the WCF Arena at night to make ends meet. Cornelius' father, 'Ready' Freddy Charles, would someday befriend Kid Phantasm and introduce his son to the Kid... Kid Phantasm would immediately see the athletic ability and good nature of Cornelius, deciding that Cornelius was 'just like him'. On that night, Cornelius Charles was unemployed and directionless in Pennsylvania... the next day he would begin training as a wrestler in New Orleans under the tutelage of Kid's old rival Reptile. As 'Cornelius Casanova' (the Funkiest Brother Alive) he would become quite an impressive talent indeed... at one point, he would hold the Deathmatch Championship as well as half of the Tag Team Championship (with his partner in GEW's 'Mothership Connection', the Emerald Prince. See Unstable Elements #4 for more info on the Prince.) Allegiance-wise, Cornelius is all the way GEW... and his friendship with Kid Phantasm keeps him on Ricky Richards' bad side no matter how well he wrestles.
* Kid Phantasm #7 "The Ballad of Fire and Ice" posted 3/31/12
One of my all-time favorite things I've written for anything ever. Absolutely. The inevitable meeting of Kid Phantasm and Nightmare... who gets to keep the GEW Deathmatch Title? Can Kid Phantasm survive a 'date' with the Lady of Rage? Hell, do either of them get to keep their clothes on for this whole promo? Spoiler alert: Kid, yes, hell no. This story - the adversarial relationship between Phantasm and Nightmare that turns into a rather extreme form of love - took me a year to put together as a young man. This promo took me about eight hours to write (another two or three for notes and outline... so roughly half a day) and came out way, way better. If I wasn't already crazy about being in WCF, this was the piece of writing that cemented it... I shed a few legit tears when I posted this. Little did I know what it would begin...
- 4/1/12 Slam: Atreyu d. Archer, Sakazaki, Jayway (pin on Jayway - Phantasm as guest referee)
- 4/1/12 Slam: Following above match, Fly and the Unstable Elements announce Trios Cup team (foundation of Pantheon - see Pantheon #1)
...namely, THIS. My third match in WCF was as a guest referee (what a difference a few months makes - of that match's number, only Kira Sakazaki is still with us. Go 'head Kira. You a bad mofucka). Story-wise, Kid agreed to referee this match in an attempt to scout for a Trios Cup partner... of course, days before Slam 'aired' then World Champion Jonny Fly and I had agreed to enter Trios as the team of Fly, Phantasm and Nightmare... the so-called 'Flying Elements' team. The foundation of what would become the Pantheon began in that segment.
* Unstable Elements #1 "Hello." posted 4/6/12
Kid Phantasm and Nightmare's first cooperative promo effort, and still one of my favorite things I've written for WCF. For their Tag Team debut, Kid and Nighty were booked against Roy Speede and Erin Archer (remember her? or him? or whatever. Who cares). This promo starts with two uncomfortable and shy young lovers awkwardly attempting to express themselves, then ends some ten minutes later with a mixed-tag comedy team smashing punchlines like they were pinatas. That wasn't even necessarily on purpose - I didn't even know how to write them together anymore until about half-way through this thing. Kid P #7 reminded me of how powerful their attraction is... Unstable Elements #1 reminded me that they're also best friends. (Bonus: this promo was so full of character assassination that both opponents quit. Yeah, that's sad and all... but it told me that I still 'got it'. Oh, and again - sorry, Speedy).
- 4/8/12 Slam: Unstable Elements d. Archer/Speede (Nightmare pins Erin Archer) [Kid P: 3-0, Nightmare: 1-0, UE: 1-0]
Tee-fucking-hee. Thankfully, Roy Speede eventually returned. I actually got kinda depressed at having to rail on that dude in UE #1. Archer not so much. I'm pretty sure that dude flamed me once for liking my own promo out loud. On a roleplay feedback board. ...yeah, I might end up feeling like railing on Speedypants more in a few minutes... now that I'm thinking about that guy, anyway. What the heck is your problem, Speedy? You high on the goofballs? I'm not mad, I'm disappointed. You should have shared. Break a brother off some crazy-pills, son.
* Unstable Elements #2 "Tokyo Drifters" posted 4/13/12
Five weeks into my WCF career, I decided it was time to take this shit seriously... this promo came out the week of April 2012's XIII event, and I'd just had my first guest spot ('Kid and Fly walk into a bar', the legendary Jonny Fly(*) two-parter that was too hot for XIII. And technically cost Fly the World Title.) In an attempt to get 'serious', I tried to do two things I wasn't sure I could do - write the Unstable Elements' experiences in Japan and introduce WCF to my (most legitimate) alter-ego, Renegade Reporter Lucien Hicks(*). In retrospect, both came together smashingly... not only would Lucien go on to assume a full-time job as WCF Staff, but this would end up being the first thing I wrote for WCF to earn a 'Roleplay of the Week' award. [Note: I marked out so hard for that I forgot to read the Slam card for roughly two hours. This may have been encouraged by marijuana. Your mileage may vary.]
(*) JONNY FLY: What can you say about three-time WCF World Champion Jonny Fly? He was Kid and Nighty's first friend in WCF... he's still their dearest friend in the company, even. When the Unstable Elements met Fly he was the same in-ring terror he is today, but the influence of the Kid and Nightmare caused Fly to consider the errors of his ways (leading to... well, most of the rest of this file, actually). Like many of our great leaders, Fly is brave to the point of recklessness... like many of our great American heroes, he is simultaneously a kind and generous philanthropist and an accomplished womanizer. Like all of pro wrestling's great champions, he's almost unbeatable when he's on top... and even more dangerous when he's down. Perhaps the greatest contribution Fly made to the lives of the Unstable Elements was purchasing a mansion on the outskirts of Las Vegas, Nevada and giving it to them as a gift - months later, this house would become 'New Antarctica' or 'Pantheon West Coast Headquarters', home of the Phantasm and venue for some of Pantheon's weirder adventures.
(*) LUCIEN HICKS: The reflection in my mirror... a reflection from another world (where I am employable). Lucien is WCF's 'Renegade Reporter' - he does what he wants to, and since April of 2012 he's wanted interviews from WCF's oh-so-talented roster. Lucien's many previous journalism-related jobs include copy editor (for The Times-Picayune New Orleans), blogger, columnist for an 'online adult entertainment publication' (read: porn site), sportswriter, novelist, drug addict. Currently his home is WCF.com, where one can easily find his in-depth interviews with the ring's greatest personalities on his own subsection of the website. (And you may also occasionally find filthy columns that he posts in a stupor and then apologizes for later).
- 4/15/12 Slam: Unstable Elements d. Angels of Death (double-pin of Oblivion) [Kid P: 4-0, Nightmare: 2-0, UE: 2-0]
Perhaps the only thing that could make 'RP of the Week' for UE #2 sweeter would be earning a win over Oblivion(*) in a hardcore match. Which Kid and Nightmare did, in spectacularly violent fashion. I never forgot about it... unfortunately, neither did Oblivion. (Not sure about Kendrik Masters. Does anybody know which Target he works at? We could probably just go and ask him.)
(*) OBLIVION: Nicknamed 'the God of Insanity', Oblivion was once a normal professional wrestler (forgive the oxymoron) until a deep tragedy let loose a side of him he couldn't control. 'Oblivion', as this personality(?) is called, finds itself in command of a talented professional wrestler who outweighs and towers over all but the largest of opponents... and if all that doesn't scare you, just wait until you see his eyes. You know the term 'crazy eyes'? Oblivion could teach classes. Oblivion has had numerous (incredibly dangerous) 'allies', but none of his partnerships were more menacing to Kid P than the 'Monsters Inc.' team (Oblivion, NvL, Famine of the Vile). NvL and Obi's partnership seemed to begin with the kidnapping of Nightmare, a fact the Kid hasn't forgotten even slightly. [Note: It bears mentioning that the only competitor in WCF to pin Kid Phantasm so far has been Oblivion. This happened in the opening round of the 'Monarch Of The Mat' tournament (see XIII below.) It also bears mentioning that as of the events of Kid P #21, Oblivion is considered by some to be... well, a deity. For realsies.]
* Unstable Elements #3 "Desperately Seeking Switches" posted 4/20/12
Kid Phantasm finds himself booked in an eight-man battle royal for WCF People's Title contendership... Kid decides that in such a match, strategy usually gives way to chaos. In preparation, he takes a heroic dose of hallucinogenic mushrooms and tries to commune with the 'gods of wrestling chaos'. They send(?) then People's Champion Switches the Clown(*) to intercede (either that or he just happened to catch Kid at a gullible time). Kid and Switches have one of history's great psychedelic adventures... Nightmare, meanwhile, sits at home (much as in GEW, Kid and Nightmare live in a closet in the WCF Arena) and researches Kid's opponents while getting frustrated about her not being booked.
(*) SWITCHES THE CLOWN: Deceased since 4/29/12 (WCF Explosion). Switches the Clown was one of Kid Phantasm's first 'allies' in WCF, though their meetings were always at least mostly adversarial... in the weeks leading up to their People's Title conflict, Kid had begun to look up to Switches (perhaps believing Switches to be the advocate of the wrestling gods). Fortunately (somewhat, anyway) for Kid Phantasm, his relationship with Switches did not end with the clown's death... perhaps due to the horrible nature of his passing, Switches' ghost haunts the WCF People's Championship Title belt to this very day. According to legend, Switches' ghost only appears before you if you are on a 'Switches' amount of drugs. [Note: Only two members of the WCF roster have ever actually seen the ghost of Switches the Clown... Kid Phantasm, of course, would be the first. Can you guess the second? Strangely enough... Frank Patrick Venable. (See Kid Phantasm #14, 'DSM-IV', for details.)]
* Lucien Hicks Interview: "The Future" Jeff Purse posted 4/20/12
In all fairness, Jeff Purse (see Pantheon #1, 'Anatomy of a Wrestling Stable', for more details on Mr. Purse) was not my first choice for Lucien's first Interview subject... I had contacted a potential subject a week before this was posted, and they strung me along for days (I forget nothing, Speedy). I ran into Jeff Purse on a messenger service one evening, and this was completed the next day. To his credit, Jeff Purse was an EXCELLENT interview considering we'd barely spoken up to that point and I couldn't even explain the format of the interview we were doing that well. I certainly learned an awful lot about the guy. Seriously, go check it out - if you want a cross-section of what makes Jeff Purse so uniquely... well, Jeff Purse... then that'd be your cut-away drawing. [Note: Purse, if you're reading this - dude, I just realized I interviewed you on 4/20! High-five! ... Oh. You guys just realized that Pantheon is mostly stoners. Yeah, sorry. My bad. We're well-meaning stoners, at least.]
- 4/22/12 Slam: People's Title Contendership Battle Royal; Phantasm d. Masters, Valentine, Spector, Sakazaki, Stoned, Elias, Cash (top rope elim. Valentine) [Kid P: 5-0]
Wow... look at that lineup. That's the 'Who's Who' of 'what the fuck' right there. Seth does love his clusterfuckery, but this is just downright artful. Korean mash-up DJs are amazed by this blend. Three people in this 8-man match are still with WCF, and all three hold/held titles (Sakazaki - International Champion, Phantasm - People's Champion, Cash - 'transitional' World Champion). To his credit, one could imagine Bo Stoned(*) would still work for WCF if he wasn't dead. I think I hallucinated Ana Valentine... and I'm still pretty sure Ryan Elias is an urban legend, like toilets flushing backwards in Australia or the female orgasm.
(*) BO STONED: What's the difference between Bo Stoned and Adam Young? Adam Young isn't dead. (I would have mentioned a 'Texas Heavyweight Championship', but neither of them have that.) Corey Black - yes, that one - tried twice to kill Adam Young and failed, which rarely happens ever much less twice in a month. How is Adam Young not as dead as Bo Stoned? Science is baffled, honestly. Rumors fly around the 'net that Adam Young may, in fact, be immortal - though this would be a sad truth, at least we can take solace in one thing. Bo Stoned is totally dead. Thanks, gravity!
* Lucien Hicks Interview: Johnny Reb posted 4/27/12
* Lucien Hicks Interview: Super FPV posted 4/27/12
Once Jeff Purse broke Lucien's cherry (so to speak), the Interviews began to get better and better... thanks in no small part to kickass interview subjects. For the week of WCF's Aftermath, I interviewed both 3-time World Champion Johnny Reb (see Pantheon #2, 'Knights Of The Felt Table', for more details) who was preparing for a 'Loser Leaves Town' match with his arch-nemesis/former tag partner, Doc Henry... and former World, US and Tag Champ Frank Venable (see Breakout Kings Of The Ring #2, 'Fear and Loathing at the Guiliano Hotel, Part One', for more details) who was preparing for a EUTHANASIA CHAMBER MATCH with HIS arch-nemesis/former tag partner, Roy Speede(*). If nothing else, doing these two interviews made me two new friends... and showed me that this 'fed had a really, really deep talent pool. Seriously... you could drown in either of these two. I have a hard time picking which of the interviews I like more; Frank and I made the 'ToT Nightclub' look pretty fuckin' gangster (I think Da Funk owns that club now; no word if the 'Scot has a barback job), but Reb's interview DOES end with Reb and Lucien taking mushrooms with the Unstable Elements. Likely to call that decision a tie.
(*) ROY SPEEDE: This was totally coming - there's been enough mention of Speedy already for him to need an 'entry'. Nicknamed 'The Silver Bullet' like a beer or 'The Silver Lining' like a foreign art-house film (don't Google that, I made that up), this young man will forever be known to me as 'Speedy' or 'Speedypants' or perhaps even 'Lord Speedypants' if i'm feeling particularly insufferable that day. I refer to him as such not because it's a clever play on his character's name, but instead because he's never in one place for very long. I think he's returned to WCF as many times as Brett Favre has unretired. If you're guessing the odds that he got upset at me when he read this... personally, I wouldn't bet against it. All of that said (jokingly, though the page doesn't always reflect it), Speedy is a heck of a wrestler who just... well, never seems to be in the right place at the right time. Honestly, he's not even that important to the Kid's story or anything... I just wanted to point out that while you were reading this paragraph Roy Speede travelled to Africa, ate a grilled cheese sandwich, had sex with a woman, fried a wombat, had sex with a fried wombat, went to the Vatican, won a fistfight with the Pope that the Pope didn't know he was in, wrecked two motorcycles at the same time on his way to his house... then attempted to jump in bed, but somehow missed and landed on his neighbor's roof. Ouch.
* Unstable Elements #4 "Come Back With Cash" posted 4/29/12
Some of my promos took a week to plan and days to write. This one, start to finish, took about eight or nine hours tops. Guess I was just feelin' it. Phantasm and Nightmare left GEW for WCF the day after they met... and when they did so, they brought a trophy with them. A trophy that was still being used by GEW, to be exact... this is the story of how the GEW Deathmatch Title made it back to New Orleans. Bonus - this promo is the first appearance of Waylon Cash(*) in a Kid/UE promo, as well as the first appearance in a WCF promo by my old friends the Mothership Connection(*).
(*) WAYLON CASH: Nicknamed 'The Hellbilly', Waylon Cash is a full-blown man of the land. Literally. He's a farmer. And not just any farmer... he's the damnedest wrestling farmer you've ever seen. And he grows pot. After Jonny Fly, Waylon Cash is the first 'friend' the Unstable Elements made in WCF... and to think they met up almost completely by accident. Cash just happened to be in the right place at the right time to hitch a ride with Kid and Nighty down to GEW, where a crazy ten-man match ended up taking place (Elements/Mothership/Cash vs. Urban Decay) and Waylon's GEW legend began. It would not end there, though... he'd return to the GEW Arena (see Kid P #19) in spectacular fashion. Cash once held the WCF World Title for roughly two weeks; though he may have been deposed in WCF's wild and woolly 'Ultimate Showdown' match, one would expect a bright future awaits Mr. Cash in the company considering his relative youth and powerful in-ring skills.
(*) THE MOTHERSHIP CONNECTION: The tag team of Cornelius Casanova (see above) and the Emerald Prince (Daniel 'Danny' Darwin, raised in Detroit but foisted with an 'African prince' gimmick by GEW Owner Ricky Richards) were an unlikely duo made up of 'the two black guys' in GEW (in a 'stroke of genius') one night by Ricky Richards. They had nothing in common when they started (Prince was a six-year vet, Cornelius had just gotten out of 'basic training'... Cornelius was raised in a mostly white suburb, Prince was raised by Black Panthers) but they made it up as they went, winning fans and titles in their stead. In UE #4, Cornelius Casanova is given the Deathmatch Title by Nightmare, making him a double-champ (as he was then also Tag Team Champion). Not bad for a rookie, right? Only notable GEW employee allies of Kid Phantasm and his ilk (so far). The Mothership Connection are 2-time former GEW Tag Champions (titles 'currently' held by 'The British Invasion').
* Kid Phantasm #8 "The Clowntown Connection, Pt I" posted 4/29/12 (Pt II posted as Switches promo, same date)
After working with the guy for a few weeks, I'd become pretty good friends with Switches the Clown... once Kid P had won the contendership match, we decided to write a big crazy two-parter that was part Fight Club, part Training Day and part Switches & Kid P wackiness. Mission gloriously accomplished.
- 4/29/12 Aftermath: Phantasm d. Switches the Clown (Switches dies in explosion, Kid Phantasm becomes WCF People's Champion) [Kid P: 6-0]
We'll never forget you, Switches. You were a fantastic psychotic drug addicted clown... and a damn good friend.
* Unstable Elements #5 "Scrabble, Gods and Monsters" posted 5/4/12
"Hey, Kid Phantasm - you just won the WCF People's Championship! How are YOU going to celebrate?"
"I'm gonna break my boss out of prison!"
UE #5 is one of the prequels (if I remember correctly, Fly and Franky also wrote prequels... hell, technically Fly's 'Trial of Seth Lerch' was a week-long prequel) to 'Breakout Kings of the Ring', my first attempt at major narrative storytelling with all my new WCF friends. It was spectacularly fun. This particular bit consists of a Scrabble game between the Unstable Elements, Odin Balfore(*) and Zombie McMorris(*). Odin and Zombie agree to join Kid, Nightmare and Jonny Fly in their quest to save Seth Lerch from prison... BUT AT WHAT COST?! (Spoiler alert: drugs and alcohol. Kid P sez: "Fuck, man, it's Zombie and Odin. What else do they even like? I certainly wasn't getting them skanks and Fly was busy. It was drugs and alcohol or snacks from the vending machine".)
(*) ODIN BALFORE: Nicknamed "Bad Motha Fucka" "The Nordic Tank" and "The Maverick Elite", Odin Balfore is a gigantic powerhouse of a man who has earned his many nicknames with a career of in-ring destruction (including multiple title reigns). His enemies and friendly rivals are almost as numerous as his fans. Odin is one of the few I've known to manage to keep a sense of humor throughout a long career of out-and-out trash talk; though often underestimated due to his 'age', he is every bit as dangerous as a younger man (perhaps even one who is armed).
(*) ZOMBIE MCMORRIS: Nicknamed "Honey Badger" and "Lord of the Low Card", Zombie McMorris (Z-Mac for short) is one of WCF's oddest ducks. By traditional standards, Z-Mac has been a 'mid-carder' at best throughout his time in the company... but that's actually sort of an ambitious position for a man who refers to himself as the 'Lord of the Low Card', isn't it? Perhaps his greatest achievement (other than his insane antics in Breakout Kings of the Ring) may have been becoming WCF's first ever Internet Champion... though one must wonder what will become of his recent position in the company, allied with Oblivion's 'Church of Dark Saints' and tag team partners with Andy Warhawk (as 'Reign of Terror' - see Kid Phantasm #21 for details on Warhawk).
* Lucien Hicks Interview: Corey 'Creeping Death' Black posted 5/6/12
Quite possibly my favorite piece of WCF 'canon' ever created - when writing this interview, I asked Creeps where the interview would take place and he insisted he didn't care. So... I made him live in a castle. In Denmark. And it stuck. (We named it 'DETHFORT'.) This castle (an actual castle, by the way) would go on to be staging point for July's XIII event as well as Pantheon Scandinavian Base Camp (during aformentioned XIII event). Note: it is suggested/rumored that Corey Black's castle contains a secret candy factory. I'd say 'I'm not making this up', but that'd be a lie. I'm at least partially responsible for making that up (CD with the assist - thanks, dogg).
* Kid Phantasm #9 "In Her Own Words" posted 5/6/12
TRIOS CUP! By the time Trios Cup started, the Unstable Elements had lived right down the hall from the trophy for so long that it had become almost a member of the 'family'. A forgettable team (NOTE: for info on this team's lone surviving member, see 'Johnny Stylez' below) broke in and stole it... Nightmare, uh, politely asked for it back. I won't say specifically that she had anything to do with the dissolution of said forgettable team, but WCF staff (and the Pennsylvania State Police) have no idea what happened to what's-his-face or that-other-guy. Or Al Envy(*). I only remember his name because of Jonny Fly's catchphrase.
(*) AL ENVY: Who the f-
- 5/6/12 Slam: Jonny Fly and the Unstable Elements d. Waylon Cash, Doc Henry and Nic Daniels (Nightmare pins Daniels) [Kid P: 7-0, Nightmare: 3-0, UE: 3-0]
WHO THE FUCK IS NIC DANIELS? See, it just doesn't sound right. Seriously, though, wasn't he in the Mulisha? Wow. Three of the four of those guys turned out to be awesome and the fourth is the answer to the opening question. Interestingly enough, this was the first teaming of Cash and Doc, 'the Confederate Menace' - much as Pantheon is 'Earth's Mightiest Wrestling Stable', the 'Menace are the Dixieland defenders. You can ask Future Gods Inc. about that (if you can find them.) Also... TRIOS CUP, BITCH! [Note: I really liked the Trios Cup Tournament.]
* Breakout Kings of the Ring #1 "The Best Laid Plans" posted 5/7/12 (posted by editor Bobby Cairo)
*inhales breath* Jonny Fly framed Seth for the murder of a federal agent and had a change of heart and asked the Unstable Elements for help, so Kid Phantasm and Nightmare recruited a crazy guy and a strong guy (the real stars of 'BKotR' ended up being Zombie McMorris and Odin Balfore, if you ask me) and put together plans for a prison break until they realized they might need more help and call Lucien Hicks who's on his way to VEGAS. *gasp* [Note: the story for Breakout Kings of the Ring was dramatically altered by one Frank Venable at this point - if it weren't for Franky, I never would have thought of 'F&L at the Guiliano'. Though this story would end up taking a week longer to tell than I thought it would, it was all worth it if only just to see a poker game between Odin, Fly and Corey Black(*).
(*) COREY BLACK: Legendary member of the WCF Hall of Fame. Five-time World Champion. Perpetrator of XIII events. Pantheon's 'heavy artillery'. Call him what you will... but one thing is inarguably true of Mr. Black. He is damned effective at killing jobbers. Corey Black has killed more jobbers than New Jack. Corey Black is recognized by Guinness' infamous 'record book' under the listing 'Most Jobbers Killed in One Show'. He is also recognized by science as the most likely cause of the eventual extinction of the jobber 'species'.
* Unstable Elements #6 "The Big Dick Anatomy Lesson" posted 5/8/12
In retrospect, it was probably not the best idea to begin 'Breakout Kings' the same week Fly and the 'Elements were facing the Big Dick Superstars (Kira Sakazaki(*), Johnny Reb and Chad Evans)... but more on that topic later (see '5/13/12 Slam' below). This would be the second meeting between Kid P and Kira; this would also be the second 'meeting' between Johnny Reb and the Unstable Elements, though their first fight (see Lucien's interview of Reb, above). Kid and Nighty invite Fly over to join in one of their Iceberg-Six assisted strategy sessions; hilarity ensues. Best part of Trios Cup promos - Kid, Nightmare and Fly are about as close to 'sitcom' as I could stand writing (same goes for Kid P, Kari and Jeff Purse. SITCOM AS FUCK).
(*) KIRA SAKAZAKI: Nicknamed "the Black Rat" and "The Asian Sensation", Kira is the son of a mixed martial-arts legend and the brother of his valet/manager Haruna Sakazaki. He is WCF's International Champion, an almost honorary title (as the belt was retired in the match where Kira won it)... since his big victory in the Trios Cup tournament, Kira's career (and therefore life) have taken a turn for the severely negative. His sister was kidnapped by Monsters Inc, much like Nightmare was... though unlike Nightmare, she did not make it out as anything resembling 'whole'. Though he is one of few who can claim a victory over Kid Phantasm (two, actually, as of 8/2012) he has also sort of become a rogue entity since his mind was warped by that of his sister (who is possibly being controlled by Oblivion... or perhaps something 'worse'?)
* Kid Phantasm #10 "2 AM Wakeup Call" posted 5/9/12
I remember reading Chad Evans' promo and thinking that it was genius... I also remember half a dozen 'talking points' (hold on, strangling myself for using that phrase) ...uh, discussion ideas... that I saw to bring up. Since roleplay wrestling feds don't function as debates, I took matters into my own hands (and keyboard). Then I made Nightmare do it. In KP #10, Chad Evans squares off with Nightmare on his front lawn in the middle of the night; Nightmare gets in a little bit of a rebuttal and somehow gets out of there without having sex with Chad (science is pretty sure he has a tractor beam deployed in his foreskin). Bonus: Brief sexiness at Polar Base(*). Yeah you right.
(*) POLAR BASE: Nickname given to the WCF Arena's first floor utility closet; until the events of Unstable Elements #9, Kid P (and eventually Nighty) lived in this small corner of the WCF kingdom. Rumor has it that since the 'Elements moved out of the closet and into Jonny Fly's home the closet has become storage... specifically Jonny Fly's. (Well played, Fly-guy. Well played.) More on 'Fly Manor' to come (see Unstable Elements #9 for info).
* Breakout Kings of the Ring #2 "Fear and Loathing at the Guiliano Hotel, Pt. 1" posted 5/11/12 (posted by editor Bobby Cairo)
What happens when the Unstable Elements, Jonny Fly, Odin Balfore, Zombie McMorris, Lucien Hicks, Corey Black, FPV(*), Johnny Nova and Da Funk(*) are all in the same hotel at the same time? If your answer was sake drinking, obscene amounts of drug use and prank phone calls, you're right. That's eerily precise, actually. Bonus points: skeet shooting on a roof (New Antarctica's, actually), Wayne Newton, the ghost of Switches the Clown... and Slickie T? Speaking of urban legends... he's my favorite of them. Slickie T is way cooler than the Wolfman. (Fittingly, D-Day is cooler than the movie 'Teen Wolf'.)
(*) FRANK VENABLE (FPV): Of all the friends Kid Phantasm has made in his WCF stay, Frank Venable might be the most 'intriguing'... their alignments conflict, their allies are sworn enemies of each other, and both receive a fairly large amount of stress for being friends with one another. Perhaps their friendship is due to their common stations in life (as 'first lieutenants' to their legendary stable captains)? Perhaps their friendship is due to their shared youth or oddball senses of humor. Whatever the case may be, they've been good friends since their only 'battle' in Breakout Kings of the Ring #2 & #3. One would wonder how they would react to a legitimate sanctioned match against one another? We're likely to find out... someday.
(*) DA FUNK: Frank Venable's friend and cohort Da Funk is a pro-level DJ and music producer, who now owns and operates what was once the 'ToT Nightclub'. Nightmare and Phantasm have a tremendous respect for Funk's particular talents... so much so, in fact, that upon building Iceberg-Seven (see Kid Phantasm #20 for details), the Phantasm decided to give Iceberg-Six to Da Funk as an 'assistant'.
* Unstable Elements #7 "A Fistful Of Royalties" posted 5/13/12
This promo is an example of how great of timing Fly and I had by this point - I sent him a vague outline for UE #7... day and a half later (on his way out of town on vacation) he sends me back roughly 2/3 of a promo (about 1/2 of the finished product). I promptly fell asleep for most of a day. I woke up to find it was Sunday at about noon. It took me five hours and change to storyboard this (using looseleaf paper), cut/paste/edit Fly's promo into chunks which had to be fit back together... then, about an hour before the RP deadline I realized I still had to write an intro. I was freaking out like I was about to lose a relay race in the god-damn Olympics. Fly (the poor bastard) is sitting in a toilet stall somewhere hitting refresh on his cellphone trying to see if I posted the damn thing before the deadline; meanwhile in New Orleans I've got Vince Offer (yes, the SlapChop guy) on the brain and I can feel my skin crawling. When I posted the promo I took a victory lap around the house and then passed out on a couch for a couple of hours...
- 5/13/12 Slam: Big Dick Superstars (Evans/Reb/Kira) d. Fly/Unstable Elements (count-out) [Kid P: 7-1, Nightmare: 3-1, UE: 3-1]
...and woke up in the middle of the night to find that we'd lost to the BDS anyway. Damn you, Chad Evans. If you weren't Bobby Cairo(*) I might hate you for being so damn awesome. That said, hating Cairo for being awesome is like hating summertime for being hot. On a similar tangent, missing Bobby Cairo is a lot like masturbation; it feels like something you should be doing, no one worth a fuck would blame you for it, and if you're reading this site you probably do it at least a few times a day (twice that - averaged, anyway - if you're in Pantheon. That's me fucking up our curve. Sorry, guys). Somehow I still love Seth even though he jobbed us after I spent most of my week figuring out how to break him out of prison. As far as I'm concerned, losing to Kira, Reb, and any flavor Bobby Cairo is like striking out at an at bat in the major leagues.
(*) BOBBY FUCKING CAIRO!: His resume is extensive; his influence twice that. My first days in WCF were fairly lonely ones, but about a week in I made friends with Fly and Cairo and finally knew I was at least acceptable. (Humorously enough, my first conversation with Fly was the one where we came up with the 'send Seth to jail' idea.) When 'Breakout Kings...' came to be, the first one to sign on (that wasn't myself or Fly) was Cairo, acting as the project's 'editor'. We loved the bastard so much we asked him to manage Pantheon, and loved him somehow more than that for him agreeing to do so. I miss Cairo a shitload (typing with one hand) and I'm sure I'm not the only one. ...hey, idea! Someone call the State of Connecticut and ask them to get the 'cool guy' on the phone. They'll know who you mean. They'd have to - it's Connecticut. Who the fuck else is up there, Vince McMahon? He hasn't been cool since... uh, ever. Martha Stewart? Hey, maybe that's where Bobby is. Call Connecticut back and ask them if Cairo's fucking Martha Stewart. Hey, she's old... but she's rich. Whatever gets him to stop stripping, I support it.
* Kid Phantasm #11 "...And Justice For All" posted 5/16/12
Eliminated from their quest to get Kid his trophy (and to then eat pudding from said trophy), Jonny Fly and Kid Phantasm returned to defending their singles titles (and Nightmare returned to being bored). Kid's first attempt at defending the People's Title (and its 'prisoner', the ghost of Switches the Clown) would put him up against Eric Price(*), formerly of the Mulisha. This promo's title is somewhat of a misnomer; this is hardly a 'Kid' Phantasm promo. Apparently grown-up Kid P, Lucien Hicks and I all share a tendency to hate Republicans! Huh. Imagine that.
(*) ERIC PRICE: Once upon a time, Eric Price was 'the other Price'. A Tag Team title reign and a TV Title victory later and he's become one of the most dominant competitors in WCF. In his one and only showdown with Kid Phantasm, Price came within a hair of winning the People's Title... he would later go on to defeat Kid's occasional tag partner (and good friend) Jeff Purse for the Television Title after months of back-and-forth via Twitter. Price is an outspoken conservative, making him no friend of the Phantasm's... or Lucien's, for that matter (as evident in Lucien's interview of Eric Price in August). As of 8/19, Price is ranked #3 in the company... a dangerous man, no doubt. If he hadn't made enemies of half the company, one might think he'd be in for a long title reign. That all said, he might still be... WCF is a strange place.
* Breakout Kings of the Ring #3 "Fear and Loathing at the Guiliano Hotel, Pt. 2" posted 5/19/12 (posted by editor Bobby Cairo)
If #5 wasn't so damn great this would EASILY be my favorite piece of 'Breakout Kings'. I actually found a recipe for #3 in a book... let's see. "Take all the madness from #2, shake the hell out of it, throw in a shot of Adrenachrome for Z-Mac and an 8th Wonder cameo for... well, everyone in the whole world, really... garnish with a suplex out of a window into a swimming pool, then arrest that and escort it to the lobby at taser-point. Wait - don't forget your reporter! His face is a shade of pale that can only be caused by auto-erotic asphyxiation or an angry Slickie T, and I don't see any belt marks on his neck. You guys might want to skip town." ...damn, Promo Cookbook. I wonder if they have a recipe for Pantheon #2 in here... oh, ha-ha. 'The last half of the book'? You're a dick, Promo Cookbook.
- 5/20/12 Slam: Phantasm d. Eric Price (Ice Cap, pin on Price, 1st successful title defense) [Kid P: 8-1]
Three weeks after winning the People's Title, Kid finally gets a title defense (much love to Eric Price - this one was pretty close, and it'd probably be even closer these days). It would only get harder from here... fortunately for the Kid, he'd have a few more friends to work on strategy with. Unfortunately for Kid P, he would need them worse than (and sooner than) he'd think.
* Unstable Elements #8 "No One Here Gets Out Alive" posted 5/22/12
This was an awkward week for me, writing-wise, as I knew what was coming - within two weeks NvL's rat will have been kicked, Pantheon will have formed, Nightmare will be kidnapped and Kid will begin teaming with Jeff Purse. I remember writing this and thinking 'Just get it overwith already.' In retrospect, I think I used so much of Kid's 'depression' shit in this week's promos that when Nightmare actually got kidnapped Kid just got really high and plotted a murder. (That's the safest way to plot murder - you inevitably end up wondering if you can stab a guy to death with a frozen banana or something of that sort, then start laughing at the image you just imagined and eventually fall asleep.)
* Kid Phantasm #12 "In The Blood" posted 5/23/12
Kid brings Nightmare to meet his parents. This ended up going better than I thought it would, honestly... though, again, I had no idea what it would stimulate NvL into doing (the next week he sent Kid's parents a gift basket that was made of knotted animal entrails. Hilarious? Yes. Creepy? Oh, hell yes). Amazingly, somehow Kid's parents like Nightmare. (Even I didn't expect that.) Probably the most significant thing for Kid Phantasm was finally getting face-to-face support from his parents regarding his career... I say probably, of course, as it's still unknown how significant their approval of Nightmare is/will be, or even how significant their distaste for Nathan von Liebert might be!
* Breakout Kings of the Ring #4 "The Stakes Is High" posted 5/24/12 (posted by editor Bobby Cairo)
Fleeing Las Vegas for their collective safe zone in Reading, the 'Breakout Kings' crew grows by one more... Kid P tells Frank the whole plan on the plane, and Frank seems to think he can help them by getting someone in to see Seth. Meanwhile, Seth's in prison... poor fucker. The 'Elements send Odin and Z-Mac 'shopping', while across town Franky tells Logan the plan to free Seth. Logan doesn't trust it, as he thinks Fly's up to something... Fly is actually up to New York City at that moment, on a desperate search for a patsy with Lucien Hicks. As they locate one and head to beg him for cooperation in misleading a federal investigation, Frank's brother Vic gets put in Seth's cell and gets Seth hip to the Breakout Kings' plan. Fly returns to Polar Base with good news and bad news; the patsy is in for un-framing Seth, but he will only do so for a specific list of demands. The Elements react with horror as they discover they'll have to ask Sarah Twilight(*) and Ayria Adams(*) for blackmail photos... then they all react with shock as they notice Lucien is missing (with valuable 'evidence'!) Reading this now, by the way, I still mark out for the ToT showing up. YOU KNEW THEY WOULD, RIGHT? What the fuck is wrong with Kid P trusting Franky like that? Fool, you should know he's just gonna holler at Logan(*). Why do I write you to be stupid sometimes? ...oh. Comedy. Got it.
(*) SARAH TWILIGHT: Once upon a time, a lady came to WCF claiming to be a master of witchcraft and a World Champion in waiting. For three months straight she chased Jonny Fly and the World Title... after three months of failure, she disappeared never to return. In a nutshell, that is everything you'd ever need to know about one 'Sarah Twilight'... she refused to be anything but the best, to a point where she now refuses to exist at all.
(*) AYRIA ADAMS: Former student of (and later tag partner of) Sarah Twilight, Ayria Adams was at one point contender to the WCF TV title and WCF Tag Champs (with Twilight). A 100-lb woman, she once scored an impressive pinfall win over Odin Balfore(!!!) in her short stay in the company... almost as if dragged away by Twilight, Ayria Adams disappeared along with her former trainer and sometimes partner, abandoning the WCF Tag Titles sometime in June of 2012. As is the case with Twilight, she has never been heard from again.
(*) LOGAN: Nicknamed "Mr. WCF" and "The Face of Treachery", and for good reasons - Logan's five World Title reigns, five US Title reigns, 92 wins and THREE War victories easily make him WCF's most decorated wrestler of all-time... and his maniacal nature and tendency to plot against friends and enemies alike make him one of the most dangerous figures in sports-entertainment's (if not sports in general's) history. Logan's 'Team of Treachery' (aka ToT) has often been a thorn in Pantheon's side... well, more specifically, Logan and Gravedigger's 'Darkside of Treachery' have been a thorn in Pantheon's side (though the apparent retirements of 'Digger and Logan would lead one to wonder if that would still be the case). Interestingly enough, Kid Phantasm (and to a slightly lesser extent, Johnny Reb) built a robot version of Logan after his recent retirement (see Pantheon #3)... one would wonder why they would build a robotic version of one of their greatest enemies. At least, one would wonder until one has had a real taste of the entertaining madness that is Logan.
* Kid Phantasm #13 "Mind's Playing Tricks On Me" posted 5/26/12
Went on minor vacation to Baton Rouge; got laid, smoked lots of weed. Woke up one morning with this beat stuck in my head and the (then) near future WCF on my mind... and decided I would have to find out if Kid and Nighty can drop a rhyme. Perhaps the Geto Boys give even the whitest of people super-powers? Science has no answers, less than ever since we're short one Beastie Boy now (he was my favorite, too).
* Breakout Kings of the Ring #5 "Rejection to Redemption" posted 5/27/12 ***** (posted by editor Bobby Cairo)
I had actually just recovered from naked time with a lady-person when I saw Cairo had posted this (on my way out of town I'd begged him to finish the last piece and drop it like it were hot)... about a half-hour later I noticed it had been given 'RP of the Week'. And that Pantheon had formed as expected. I'm not sure what sort of celebratory noises I made, but they woke up a cute naked girl and I had to explain e-feds to her while attempting to summon the erection I hoped to put her to sleep with (so that I could read the show). Surprisingly, she got it - the fed, I mean. Well, she got... you know what, fuck it. You people already know a frightening amount about my sex life (my bad). Seriously, though, she even read all of 'Breakout Kings' after I split. Even more surprisingly, that girl is still willing to have sex with me. It can't be because I do the sex-things that well; I'm a chainsmoker, after all. Nobody wants to get cunnilingus from a dude who's wheezing. I think she still fucks me because 'Breakout Kings' was that good. I blame it on like half a dozen of you people; as reward, I owe each of you one (1) high-five and one (1) safety meeting. Double that if you find Cairo for me. ...OH, the story! Well... Seth's out, isn't he? Silly WCF readers.
- 5/27/12 Asesinato De Mayo: Phantasm d. Nathan von Liebert (Ice Cap, pin on NvL, 2nd successful title defense) [Kid P: 9-1]
Half a show from this point, the Unstable Elements would form Pantheon along with a few of their friends... but during this match, Kid P made the mistake that would make him need as much Pantheon as he could get. Kid hurt Nathan's rat (Kid P sez: "ON ACCIDENT! I SWEAR!") and unknowingly made the greatest enemy of his life... in the process, Kid Phantasm scored his second defense of the People's Title (the cool kids call it 'the Switches belt.')
* Pantheon #1 "Anatomy of a Wrestling Stable" posted 5/31/12 *****
Another of my favorite promos to write - I took the 'actual' story of how Pantheon formed and turned it into Fly and the Unstable Elements' journey through two months of life in WCF. Rome wasn't built in a day, right? Well, Pantheon wasn't built in a month, even. Probably the most fun part was the second-to-last scene, with all five of them in the cantina... that was fun. It was my first time writing with/for Cairo and Jeff Purse(*)... wouldn't change a thing if I could. I know that because I edited the living hell out of this thing - this group came together so nicely that I didn't want to fuck up their 'debut promo'. The promo might have been too effective, in retrospect - though it did earn 'RP of the Week' honors, it likely had more to do with WCF's sudden swing into 'stable wars' than anything else. (Kid P sez: "Oops.")
(*) JEFF PURSE: Nicknamed 'The Future', Jeff Purse was once a rising star in the ACW promotion until it folded. When Kid Phantasm arrived in WCF, Purse was one-half of a former Championship tag team (with Night Rider, no longer employed by WCF)... when the Pantheon eventually formed, a newly 'single' (ha! 'cause he's engaged to that hot girl) Purse would join Jonny Fly, Bobby Cairo and the Unstable Elements as a founding member of the group. That same night (WCF's Asesinato De Mayo), Purse would win his first singles title in WCF (United States Championship), which he held for three months (until 'trading up' to the WCF Television Title at Ultimate Showdown 2012). Jeff Purse would also go on to assist Kid Phantasm in his battle with Monsters Inc., leading to the formation of the 'Future Elements' tag team (See Future Elements #1, 'Nate von Liebert Must Die', for details) and, eventually, to freeing Nightmare (as result of a US Title match against Nathan von Liebert, Jeff's hated ACW rival). Kid Phantasm has been quoted numerous times as saying, "Jeff Purse is the best damn tag partner a Phantasm could have asked for." One would assume he doesn't say such things when Nightmare is around.
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