Post by Seth on Mar 11, 2015 23:37:11 GMT -5
PART 1: MORNING
03/11/15
"Fuck."
These are the first words that Seth hears in his head as he awakes. Well, not quite; more elongated, drawn out, as he fights the gnawing realization that he's got to wake up. Fuuuuuuuuuuck.
And then the next realization. The realization that his body feels like absolute shit. That no matter what he's got to do, he'd rather lie in bed all day, soaking in depression, consuming hours of Netflix content, and counting down the hours until the time he feels it would be socially acceptable to begin drinking so he could start to feel like a real person again, because god damn it does he feel like shit now.
That's it for the morning realizations that come fast and easy. The remaining realizations come slowly after asking himself a series of questions. What the fuck did I do last night? How late was I up? What was the last thing I remember doing?... No, ugh, no, I had to be up later. God damn it, did I eat an entire pizza that I can't even remember?... And who the fuck did I drunk text now?...
So begins the scrambling for damage control. Send apology texts, skip breakfast because, yeah, whole fucking pizza. Clean up the random trash strewn about.
Notice part of this scenario is not "tell the hot girl that he drunk texted and who came over to fuck him to go home." Funny how that never worked but remained part of Seth's nightly routine. Every so often there was the whole "check wallet to see if drunkenly withdrew money from bank account for a hooker" thing, but that's a whole different story.
Problem is, up until today, Seth could get away with this. All he'd be doing was driving to the WCF offices and getting ready for Slam. A good boss is a boss that doesn't NEED to be there; at this point he's got enough employees that the place can run swimmingly without him. Or with him as a drunken disaster, whichever.
But today, March the Eleventh, Twenty Fifteen... Seth was a mere two days away from Friday the Thirteenth.
The date on which Seth has a motherfucking wrestling match.
He rolled out of bed and stumbled into the bathroom. Normally he tries his best to ignore looking at himself, but this time he decided to check his physique, hoping against hope that he'd somehow drunkenly worked out all night and would magically wake up buff. Nope. His beer belly was bigger than the last time he'd checked, and being that he's naturally a skinny dude, makes it all the more obvious. He's never had any kind of muscle definition.
No matter. Seth's a wily motherfucker. Doesn't need strength or.. to be in shape at all. This is Pennsylvania, home of drunken stunt wrestlers! Seth, for a second, allows himself to be... proud. Proud of the hole of shit he's dug himself in.
After that, he walks back into his bedroom and falls face down on the bed, falling promptly back to sleep.
PART 2: AFTERNOON
03/12/15
So Seth didn't train like he'd meant to yesterday. Big fucking deal. The world is his oyster, whatever THAT means. Even though he didn't train, he DID manage to stop himself from drinking himself silly all night, which meant today.. TO-FUCKING-DAY.. was going to be the day. His depression still stopped him from willing himself out of bed until sometime after 12 PM, but he finally found himself at a local gym training with one of the only men willing to train with him.
Rick Mad.
The two men are in a wrestling ring. Rick is wearing his standard wrestling attire, while Seth is in his standard jeanshorts and black T-shirt.
Rick Mad: You know, you haven't changed your look since you got into this business, Seth.
Seth looks Rick up and down.
Seth Lerch: And you have?
Rick nods.
Rick Mad: Point well taken. Alright, well, you've got one day to train. When was the last time you were in the ring? In an actual match?
Seth shrugs.
Seth Lerch: Fuck if I remember.
Rick Mad: Okay, great. Well seeing as I was here for two hours waiting for you to show up, all I really have time for is to go through the basics. And do you know how to do a lot of training in a short period of time?
Seth and Rick both turn towards the camera.
Seth Lerch and Rick Mad: MONTAGE!
Nothing happens, the two men keep looking towards the camera.
Rick Mad: Hey, cameraman. That's your cue to play the montage music!
The cameraman turns and hits play on a nearby boombox, though he isn't able to do so without swinging the camera around as he does it, somewhat diminishing the effect. Jump by Van Halen begins playing.
Seth Lerch: ...Jump!? This is our montage music!? FUCKING JUMP!?
Rick Mad: I don't have a lot of music that's great for montages, Seth. Let's just get this done.
Unfortunately, there isn't time for video editting, so the "montage" is just Rick and Seth performing actions that SHOULD be repetive, but instead are only performed once or twice.
-THE MONTAGE-
Seth does a pushup! Rick yells "One hundred!" as he struggles to finish it!
Now Seth turns and does a situp! Rick yells "Two hundred!"
Next both men are to their feet. Rick throws Seth to the ropes, Seth reverses it, Rick comes back, Arm Drag!
Rick is tossed some pads for his hands for Seth to hit strikes at. Seth hits several before Rick tosses the pads away.
Seth randomly runs to the ropes just to show that.. he is able to run to the ropes?
After that, Seth is panting.
Seth Lerch: Cut the montage music!
The cameraman stops the music. Seth is panting, Rick pats him on the back and hands him a towel.
Rick Mad: Good work, man. And good acting! You're panting like you've been working out for hours!
Seth Lerch: .....yeah......... acting....
Rick Mad: Next up, we should practice your wrestling moves. Judging by your attack on Price, you can still hit your finisher pretty good, somehow. How about you hit me with your second biggest wrestling move?
Seth Lerch: You.... sure?....
Rick Mad: I'm a professional, Seth, you're not gonna hurt me too badly. Give me your worst.
With that, Seth drops and gives Rick a low blow. Rick drops to the mat, holding his balls.
Rick Mad: WHY, SETH. WHY?!
Seth Lerch: I took you down with as little effort as possible! That's my second best wrestling move by far, and I'm in the Nightmare Chamber. Anything is legal, and nothing says nightmare like a shot to the balls.
Rick Mad: I.. hate you... This.. is over. Turn that fucking camera off.
Seth Lerch: But wait, I didn't get to film myself watching a sunset filled with inspiration-
The feed inexplicably cuts. Well, kind of explicably, actually.
PART 3: NIGHT
3/13/15
Seth Lerch: A few short hours from now I will be competing in XIII for the very first time. Why I'm even bothering, I have no fucking idea. I hate Corey Black, I hate XIII, and I hate Jayson Price. I hate everything about this event.
Luckily, I can use that hate to fuel me. For one, I'll be fighting Corey Black. And, for two, standing victorious at an XIII event run by Jayson Price will be the biggest "FUCK YOU" I could ever give to two men that have plagued me for far far FAR too long.
Hate is a strong word though, isn't it? Everyone takes it for granted that I hate Pantheon. And why shouldn't they? I always have. Have I ever really even stopped to explain why that is, though? Stopped to explain MY side of the story? Probably not. I'm comfortable in the role of the evil owner of the company, the trope that is forced upon anyone that dares run a professional wrestling organization. That's fine with me. But today, I tell you exactly why I hate Pantheon and why I seek to destroy it. I tell you why after I buried the ICE Age, I chose to resurrect ICE Beckman instead of letting him die - because as much as I dislike ICE, he's one of the few that can help me end this fucking blight on professional wrestling once and for all.
We've got to go back to the beginning, the founding members. The Unstable Elements of Kid Phantasm and Nightmare. Bobby Cairo. Jeff Purse. And Jonny Fly. These five came together as a unit at Asesinato De Mayo 2012, almost three years ago!, after Jonny Fly defeated Logan.
Why is that significant? Well, for one, it shows that as a stable, these assholes have LONG outlived their welcome. But secondly, they formed by beating the ever living hell out of Logan. THAT is significant. Logan is MY guy, MY star. In the earliest days of WCF, he and I were part of the Team of Treachery, and I made damn sure from then on out that Logan was THE man here in WCF. No matter which Jonny Come Lately came around, Logan was always the star, either as the most treacherous wrestler since the dirtiest player in the game or as the funniest motherfucker on the planet. Logan WAS WCF.
But no. Here comes motherfucking Jonny Fly and motherfucking Pantheon, and on a MAIN EVENT of my newest PPV, they simply decided to make a joke of him. A mockery. A mockery of a man I spent ten years.. TEN YEARS! building up. And in a few short minutes, they CRUSH him.
It didn't seem significant then, but looking back, that was symbolic. Because Pantheon would continue to destroy everything I'd created.
The obvious chief offender there would be Jonny Fly. He did the real work, the hard work. Jonny Fly did the wrestling. He and I fought tooth and nail, but now he's gone, and my words against him are wasted breath. I always thought Jonny Fly was the biggest threat in Pantheon. I was wrong. The biggest threat was the spirit behind Pantheon, and that was a threat I didn't even think to try and stop. Kid Phantasm was that threat.
You see, you can kill a man. Or at least severely injure him. Jonny Fly was taken out of the game on many occasions, and yet, Pantheon rolled on... And it took a stranglehold of WCF. The Phantasm took MY creation - MY Wrestling Championship Federation - and looked to recreate it in an image of his choosing. He tried to turn WCF from a wrestling company to a comic book, filled with time machines, body swaps, supercomputers and fortresses. That trash, that nonsense... That is ultimately the legacy of Pantheon. A legacy of pure ridiculousness. Pure ridiculousness that men like Corey Black and Jayson Price were more than happy to join up with and continue to poison WCF with.
And Pantheon won. Even after their numbers had diminished to next to nothing, Pantheon had won. The WCF had taken a shift in tone from the days of the rebellious Team of Treachery to the wacky shenanigans of Pantheon. Not just that group, but the fed at large. I'd lost my company, for once not in title... but in spirit.
Once I realized that, I'll admit, I thought it was a lost cause. That the WCF Logan and I had built was gone, and there was nothing I could do besides either end it completely or step away, choosing not to give my sanction to what had become a child I no longer wished to claim as my own. But little by little, day by day, the word "Pantheon" was on the lips of the WCF fans less and less. Little by little, with the group looking almost completely irrelevant, I saw an opportunity. An opportunity for rebuilding, rebranding, and a rebirth.
I hate to confess this.
ICE Beckman was that opportunity. When I looked into the eyes of ICE Beckman, I see the old Logan. The crazy balls to the walls son of a bitch that can hold this company on his drunken shoulders.
I'll stop to say yes, critisizing Pantheon for turning WCF into a comic book and then complimenting Beckman may seem a bit hypocritical at first glance, but if you think that, you're missing the point completely and what I'm saying is lost you.
So finally, ICE Beckman was the talk of the town. Naturally he got too big for his britches himself and I was happy to bury him at Slam, but the point was that Pantheon had been extinguished.
Except that apparently that was incorrect.
I never thought in a million years Corey Black would be able to actually get together a worthwhile team. I thought, at best, we'd be getting the returns of some has-beens that would flake out in a month or two. Spoiler alert!, I'm talking about you, Jeff Purse. But I digress. No, Corey Black managed to go out and recruit The Pack and Scarecrow.
I'm not going to spend my time putting The Pack over and saying how great they are - because they're not - but they're formidable. They're dangerous. But they can be saved.
I don't believe that Scarecrow, Chelsea Armstrong, Alex Richards, and Jay Omega have been fully integrated into Pantheon in all of it's ridiculousness yet. Not like Black and Price have. At XIII, this can all end, here and now. The final snuff of Pantheon's flame.
And it will be at the hands of myself, Odin Balfore and Joey "Better Than Jonny Fly" Flash.
Seth pauses after having talked so much.
Seth Lerch: Scarecrow, why you aligned with Pantheon is a mystery enough, but why the FUCK you'd mess with Odin Balfore is something I could never possibly understand. My one disappointment with this match is that it's going to kill one of my top draws for Explosion, because Crow? You're not making it there. Odin Balfore is a beast, and in a Nightmare Chamber no less? He's comin' for you and there's nothing you can do about it.
Jeff Purse. As I alluded to earlier, you are the least important man in this match. I DO like you because you prove my point - once Pantheon was done with you you became a nutjob who's only friends were puppets. Pantheon is, once again, a poison. That said, you're used goods. You've been used by Pantheon and they've already taken all of your usefulness from you. Sure, you might get into the match and hit that Spoke of yours and the fans might cheer and whatever, but you don't have the heart, Purse. One move isn't going to win a match, and you don't have the heart to compete for real. Your greatest days are behind you, and unlike your Pantheon brethren that have proven to be unending pains... You're like a case of herpes that pops up every now and then and isn't even that bad. You're not even a full blown case of herpes, Jeff Purse, you're like.. a herpes sore that can kinda annoy you but goes away before anyone else really even notices it was there. That said, you HAVE been a long standing member of Pantheon and it is fitting that you will be present for their final defeat.
And lastly.
Seth takes a deep breath.
Seth Lerch: Corey Black. If I was talking in a live arena, I'd pause here for the audience to get the pop out of their system. Corey, you have one skill, and one skill only: remaining as relevant as possible via as little work as possible. You are, without a doubt, the laziest motherfucker to be able to make as big of a fuss as you are consistently able to do. It was you, Corey, and you alone that kept Pantheon alive. You weren't a founding member of the group, nor were you ever even a full time wrestler during its run, and yet YOU of all people kept the flame alive. For a while, I couldn't understand that, until it hit me - without Pantheon, you're done. You've had that to keep you relevant and keep you in the spotlight all of these years, but without Pantheon to hold you up? You've got nothing, and you ARE nothing. Which is why you found yourself a Pack.
And what IS a Pack, exactly? A group of mindless animals. You found a group of mindless animals dumb enough to prop you up on their shoulders. And Scarecrow, of course - the whole brainless joke there is played out, but it serves my point here so I'm going to reference it anyway. You got these brainless idiots to lift you up and you called it Pantheon.
You're who I find myself the most disappointed in, Corey. You should have been the defender of WCF - not part of the group to destroy it! You should have fought Pantheon with me. Who was it that took the World Title from you, the last time you will EVER hold a World Title? It was Jonny Fly. And instead of fight him, you tucked your tail between your legs and you joined them. And I should've seen it coming, I suppose - you, the Avenger, taking up their mantra of comic book style ridiculousness. But no. You recognized a gravy train when you saw one, and you kept that train a'rollin all this time.
Corey, you succumbed to Pantheon and let it pervert the company you claimed to love. You, in turn, made Pantheon succumb to you. Pantheon has become your whore, existing solely as a means for your gratification, fame, continued employment and importance, all the while destroying my company from within.
I will stand for it no longer. At XIII, Pantheon will, at long last, die.
Seth pulls a bottle of his trusty 151 from beneath his desk.
Seth Lerch: The time for talking and ideology is over. In a matter of hours, I'm going to be an angry, drunken fuckhead, let loose in the ECW Arena. Pantheon may believe themselves to be the greatest group of wrestlers ever assembled, but against someone like me in the heart of Philadelphia?
I don't fucking think so.
Seth clicks off his desklight and we go to black.
