Post by Deleted on May 12, 2011 4:44:17 GMT -5
(A tape recorder is clicked on.)
"Hey, motherfuckers. This is Baines. As you might have guessed, I am not a happy man after the events that transpired on Monday Night Slam in Omaha, Nebraska. That little bastard Chris Avery reinforced an old adage: "The more things change, the more they stay the same". You see, Avery is no longer running around as Torture's personal little fluffer boy in This_Is_WAR, but on Monday night he proved that he's still the same old race-baiting idiot and chicken shit coward that he's always been. Chris Avery cannot win a fair fight. Avery, I'm gonna tell you something right now, asshole: When I get my hands on you I'm going to END your black ass. That's right. There will be no escape from my Halcyon Daze and my State of Emergency, and of course, The Diss That Don't Miss. NOW... fortunately for you I'm already booked for Friday night in Des Moines, but unfortunately for you I don't have a damn thing to do next Monday night in Scranton, PA. My dance card for Slam is empty and so I think I might just pay you a little visit during your match against "The King" Jimmy Dean. Yeah, I think I'm-a pay you back for those chair shots that you levied against me and my boy Bobby Cairo on Slam.
"Don't worry though, I'm not going to sneak attack you or cheap shot you, that's not my game. See? I'm giving you fair warning, Avery. I'm giving you advanced notice that I intend on exacting my revenge upon your irascible and delusional, little cranium. This time though, Avery, don't bring a chair... bring a motherfucking AK-47, homie, because that's the only thing that's gonna save you from this "Young Lion" when you're in the belly of my beast. When I bear my fangs and claws and I rear back and slice your fucking face open, you're going to be a dead man. A motherfucking dead man, Avery! And that... THAT is the truth, bitch."
(Baines clears his throat, knocking some phlegm into next week.)
"Monday sucked and guess what? Tuesday wasn't any better. Y'all remember a couple weeks back when I told you about a Chinese restaurant called Big Tang's? That's the place I used to frequent when I was poor and I lived in Rockville, Connecticut. The owner Mr. Tang used to cut me some slack when I didn't have enough money to pay the full price for my pork fried rice and my egg rolls. He used to help a wigga out because he remembered what it was like when he was an immigrant fresh off the boat from China, living the hard life. Well on Tuesday I learned some harrowing news. I learned that Big Tang's... closed up shop. I'm actually shaking as I speak these words. Goddamn. The feeling of loss is palpable. You can poke my mourning cloak with a stick and mix it around with some rice and combination vegetables. Mr. Tang... that dude was almost like a second father to me. The man fed me when I could not feed myself. Now to be honest I feel pretty guilty about the fact that the restaurant closed. I mean, I don't even live in Rockville anymore... I'm living it up with the rich folk here in Farmington now. I'm living in the same neighborhood as motherfucking 50 Cent and that dude's got more bread than Freihofer's.
"Plus, even before I moved to Farmington I was busy with my WCF commitments. You know how we tour the country doing shows, and even dip our toes down into México, right? Doesn't leave much time to kick it in the old neighborhood. Plus a wigga gotta spend hours in the gym training every day if he want to stay on top of his game. I just... I didn't have the time to hit up Mr. Tang for some of his yum-yum. I wish that I did though. Maybe I couldn't have made a difference all by myself, but maybe I could have. Maybe I could have, y'all, and that's what eats at me most of all. I just wonder why life has to be this way... why do bad things have to happen to good people? There ain't no justice in this world. There ain't no God or no karma. That's all BS that was contrived by clerics and clergymen. There's too much shit that's gone wrong in this world for me to ever be able to believe that there's some guiding force that watches over us. I can't... I just can't believe in any of that."
(Phil sighs like a depressed mofo who sounds like he's about to stick the barrel of a gun down his gullet.)
"Man, fuck it all. I got a lot on my mind right now. I'm less than forty-eight hours away from a match that will determine not only the future of my career with this company, but, more pertinently, whether I even get to keep on living. I gotta be honest, I haven't been able to sleep or eat much this past week, and it's not just because of Chris Avery's bullshit, or because Big Tang's closed, or because I'm laboring under the weight of gallons upon gallons of whiskey. I ain't been sleeping well cuz I got some hell that's brewing inside of me. I feel like a lion that's been caged and I'm just chomping at the bit to be released so that I can unleash my fury upon my captor. Greenfever is the asshole who did this to me. He put me in a spot where I got my back against the wall. I'm having to fight for my life in a veritable circus sideshow at XIII because Greenfever made the decision that he wanted Baines in a Flatliner match. How is that fair to me? How is that fair to a young man who has overcome so much to achieve so much so early in his career?
"When LeBron James came into the NBA and he was juking and jiving fools out of their sneakers from Day One, they didn't force LeBron into a situation where he had to win a game or his life would end, yet that's exactly the situation that I'm being placed in. They're telling me "Baines, your life could end at XIII, but we're going to sanction this match anyway. Good luck, kid!" Not even a proverbial pat on the back. Not even words of encouragement. They just want to throw me into the fire, but that's fine with me. When I first signed my name on that WCF contract, I didn't think for one second that this job would be about rescuing kittens from trees. I knew that I would be putting my health and well-being on the line everytime that I stepped into the ring. Why shouldn't we take it to the limit? Why shouldn't two grown men decide that if we can't beat the shit out of our opponent to the point that his heart stops beating then we're not worthy of breathing another breath in this world? To me that's poetic. You can look at everybody who's booked at XIII and nobody is laying so much on the line as Baines and Greenfever. I hope the WCF Universe appreciates the spectacle of Roman gladiator-esque violence and gore that they're going to witness on Friday night in Des Moines."
(You hear the sound of Baines taking calm, deep breaths that are no doubt rejuvenating his mind, body and soul.)
"Des Moines, Des Moines, Des Moines... those two words have been bouncing around in my brain, but I cannot connect the name to a city. See, I've never been to Iowa before, but I have been spending a lot of time in Hartford lately, busting my ass and working out like a machine at Crimson House Dojo. I don't know what Greenfever has been up to. I haven't heard from him in awhile, but I've been working with my trainer Bolts Quackenbush and a litany of training partners who have been presenting me with every kind of challenge that one can and cannot expect to face in the most abominable of all wrestling matches, the no holds barred Flatliner match. I've had big, burly dudes coming at me with chainsaws roaring and taser guns burping and flaring up. I mean these dudes want to kill me and these dudes are bigger than Schwarzenegger. Of course I'm also training with the speedsters and the slicksters, the hardcore junkies and extremists and the high flying lunatics, the brawlers and the ballers, the Japanese strong style and the Mexican luchadores, the Canadian technicians and them European pugilists, and I even brought in some escapees from America's highest security prisons and mental health facilities. I've taken beatings a plenty, perhaps more than any man should in training, but I have to attack this match from every angle.
"See, what you folks don't understand is that even though I've faced Greenfever before, I can't just sit back and act like I got the dude figured out. I know that he's going to change up his game and hit me up with some new shit that I haven't seen before. He wouldn't be putting his life on the line in a match of this nature unless he had some tricks up his sleeve. I know that Dr. Heill has been working overtime in his laboratory to cook up some new computer programs for Greenie, programming him to be the most concise and devastating killing machine that the world has ever seen. I know that Heill has been studying tape of the last match between Greenfever and Baines and picking apart any flaws that he can find in my game, programming Greenfever to take advantage. I'm sure that Heill has watched the videos of my matches even more than I've watched them, and I've gone over those videos pain-stakingly and with the utmost attention to detail as if they were high-grade pornography. Heill has a sick fucking mind and when you get right down to it he's the brains behind Greenfever's dark and twisted murder spree.
"I'd like to strangle that Nixon mask wearing weirdo and wring the life right out of his body, but that will have to wait until after I do the very same thing to his demented protégé. The more that I think about it I hope that Heill cooks up his most sinister and misanthropic game plane to date for Greenfever, I really do. When I step into the ring with Greenie I want him to hit me up with that good shit, hit me up with that real shit, the shit that makes a "Young Lion" search deep within himself to see if he has what it takes to prevail in a game of life versus death. I want to feel Greenfever's skin, flesh and blood against mine. I want to find out which man's genetic coding will live to spread for generations to come, and which will become extinct in the blink of an eye. I want to find out what's in that man's mind, heart and soul. After all, what is the soul but soil for dreams and ambitions to grow? I want to dig deep inside of Greenfever's soul. I want to get my hands dirty in his soil, spread that shit all around and uncover the secrets that have long been buried deep within. I want to know once and for all what makes Greenfever tick and then I want to snuff that shit out. Yeah, I want to snuff out Greenfever's life force and erase his very existence. I want to play God with the balance of a so-called God's survival hanging in my hands.
"Is that sick? No more so than anything else that happens in Iowa. You can fuck livestock in an open field in Iowa and no one will say a peep about it, except for the livestock. I ain't into all of that though. I don't do bestiality. Maybe Greenfever does. Maybe that's the deep dark secret that he's been carrying for all of these years. Maybe that's what drives him to kill, the shame of having fucked farm animals when he was a little boy because none of the girls would talk to him. They all thought he was too creepy. Maybe that's Greenie's whole dilemma. Maybe that's his crusade. I'll be damned if I know the truth behind the madness, the man behind the mythos. I'm going to find out on Friday the 13th, that much I know to be true. There will be no more mind games, no more psychological warfare, no more tales of deprivation and depravity. Greenfever loves to obscure reality and distort the perception of his opponents, that's how he gets a leg up on the competition. That's why Omega Greenfever has such a big problem when he steps into the ring with Phillip Baines. I don't buy into the voodoo and the hoodoo. I am a man of logic and reason. I only accept that which I can taste and touch. Greenie's purported cosmic powers do not faze me.
"Phillip Baines cannot be fazed and I damn sure cannot be faded. You want to put me down, Greenie, you better put a bullet in my brain, motherfucker. Put a bullet in the brains of Baines, that's the only way you'll ever beat me. Some men crumble and some men crack when the spotlight hits, but I'm not some men. I'm THE MAN. When the lights are at their brightest and the stage is at its biggest, Baines is at the top of his game. I rise to the occasion like a fully erect penis and I come at ya again, and again, and again. Are you ready for that, Greenfever? I know that you're sitting in your shack right now plotting your attack against me. I know that you're being fed computer chips by Dr. Heill, but it's like I said about Avery: "The more things change, the more they stay the same." You can change the name of the game, call it a Flatliner match instead of a hardcore match, but the game itself does not change, Greenie, and I am better at this game than you are. You've killed before? So what? So nothing... sew buttons. I've said that line at least two times before, Greenie, and I say it because it's true. You've killed people who were either unable or unwilling to defend themselves. Even if they had the means to face you head on, they lacked the courage.
"Maybe I'm a naturally courageous man, and maybe I'm only courageous when I've got my liquid courage, but it matters not which one is the truth. I've never shown fear inside of the squared circle and I never will. I fired the first shots in our unholy war and I'm going to keep on shooting because I've got you outnumbered and outgunned, Greenie. You march to the beat of your own drummer in a one man marching band, but I'm a one man army and I've got you surrounded. You can drop to your knees and wave your white flag, but I don't take any prisoners. When I get you alone on Friday night I'm going to make your body reverberate like it was getting hit with wave after wave of machine gun blasts. These words that I speak? They mean shit. You might as well call me "Guntooth" because I've got guns in my teeth and I'm spitting hot lead at your dome, Greenfever. I can do it all day in lieu of sleeping and eating, but it means nothing. The bigger picture is that I'm a big, strong dude with a whole wide world of talent and I possess an unmatched drive to succeed. Do you think that you're going to stop my life and career dead in their tracks on Friday night, Greenfever?
"I know that you issued the challenge for this match in the first place, but do you really believe that you have what it takes, Greenie? Are you man enough? Can you pull the trigger in the heat of the moment? And even if you can will it make a difference? You pulled the trigger the last time we fought, but you were firing blanks, homie. You couldn't get the job done against a green rookie who had never wrestled an actual match before in his entire life, and yet you think that somehow you're going to show enough improvement this time around to defeat that green rookie now that he's a seasoned veteran? I have five matches, FIVE MATCHES under my belt and I'm already a goddamned veteran of this sport. I've done it all and I'm lapping up the fruits of my labor with a silver spoon. You're not going to be lapping up anything ever again after XIII, Greenie. See, it's hard to eat with a broken jaw, but it's absolutely impossible to breathe when you don't have any life left in your body.
"They say that in space no one can hear you scream, but in death you won't have to worry about that indignity, Greenie. When all of the breath, all of the life, all of the fire and the verve have been sapped from your body on Friday night, your struggle will finally be over. You will rest... for eternity. It's amazing how something so unsettling can end up being so tranquil, isn't it? At the Water Works Park in Des Moines you will walk into the cornucopia of doom that I have created especially for you, but when it's over, when your heart has stopped beating and your stiff, lifeless carcass is sprawled on the mat, then you will finally know peace. You will know peace because your troubled existence will cease. Goddamn... that's beautiful, and poetic too. Now if you'll excuse me it's time for me to settle in and get some peace of my own while I polish off this latest forty ounce."
(A glugging sound can be heard, followed by a silent pause before a vibrant and bustling house track kicks in.)
(After the song ends a loud thump can be heard, possibly a drunken Baines hitting the floor, and the tape recorder is finally clicked off.)
"Hey, motherfuckers. This is Baines. As you might have guessed, I am not a happy man after the events that transpired on Monday Night Slam in Omaha, Nebraska. That little bastard Chris Avery reinforced an old adage: "The more things change, the more they stay the same". You see, Avery is no longer running around as Torture's personal little fluffer boy in This_Is_WAR, but on Monday night he proved that he's still the same old race-baiting idiot and chicken shit coward that he's always been. Chris Avery cannot win a fair fight. Avery, I'm gonna tell you something right now, asshole: When I get my hands on you I'm going to END your black ass. That's right. There will be no escape from my Halcyon Daze and my State of Emergency, and of course, The Diss That Don't Miss. NOW... fortunately for you I'm already booked for Friday night in Des Moines, but unfortunately for you I don't have a damn thing to do next Monday night in Scranton, PA. My dance card for Slam is empty and so I think I might just pay you a little visit during your match against "The King" Jimmy Dean. Yeah, I think I'm-a pay you back for those chair shots that you levied against me and my boy Bobby Cairo on Slam.
"Don't worry though, I'm not going to sneak attack you or cheap shot you, that's not my game. See? I'm giving you fair warning, Avery. I'm giving you advanced notice that I intend on exacting my revenge upon your irascible and delusional, little cranium. This time though, Avery, don't bring a chair... bring a motherfucking AK-47, homie, because that's the only thing that's gonna save you from this "Young Lion" when you're in the belly of my beast. When I bear my fangs and claws and I rear back and slice your fucking face open, you're going to be a dead man. A motherfucking dead man, Avery! And that... THAT is the truth, bitch."
(Baines clears his throat, knocking some phlegm into next week.)
"Monday sucked and guess what? Tuesday wasn't any better. Y'all remember a couple weeks back when I told you about a Chinese restaurant called Big Tang's? That's the place I used to frequent when I was poor and I lived in Rockville, Connecticut. The owner Mr. Tang used to cut me some slack when I didn't have enough money to pay the full price for my pork fried rice and my egg rolls. He used to help a wigga out because he remembered what it was like when he was an immigrant fresh off the boat from China, living the hard life. Well on Tuesday I learned some harrowing news. I learned that Big Tang's... closed up shop. I'm actually shaking as I speak these words. Goddamn. The feeling of loss is palpable. You can poke my mourning cloak with a stick and mix it around with some rice and combination vegetables. Mr. Tang... that dude was almost like a second father to me. The man fed me when I could not feed myself. Now to be honest I feel pretty guilty about the fact that the restaurant closed. I mean, I don't even live in Rockville anymore... I'm living it up with the rich folk here in Farmington now. I'm living in the same neighborhood as motherfucking 50 Cent and that dude's got more bread than Freihofer's.
"Plus, even before I moved to Farmington I was busy with my WCF commitments. You know how we tour the country doing shows, and even dip our toes down into México, right? Doesn't leave much time to kick it in the old neighborhood. Plus a wigga gotta spend hours in the gym training every day if he want to stay on top of his game. I just... I didn't have the time to hit up Mr. Tang for some of his yum-yum. I wish that I did though. Maybe I couldn't have made a difference all by myself, but maybe I could have. Maybe I could have, y'all, and that's what eats at me most of all. I just wonder why life has to be this way... why do bad things have to happen to good people? There ain't no justice in this world. There ain't no God or no karma. That's all BS that was contrived by clerics and clergymen. There's too much shit that's gone wrong in this world for me to ever be able to believe that there's some guiding force that watches over us. I can't... I just can't believe in any of that."
(Phil sighs like a depressed mofo who sounds like he's about to stick the barrel of a gun down his gullet.)
"Man, fuck it all. I got a lot on my mind right now. I'm less than forty-eight hours away from a match that will determine not only the future of my career with this company, but, more pertinently, whether I even get to keep on living. I gotta be honest, I haven't been able to sleep or eat much this past week, and it's not just because of Chris Avery's bullshit, or because Big Tang's closed, or because I'm laboring under the weight of gallons upon gallons of whiskey. I ain't been sleeping well cuz I got some hell that's brewing inside of me. I feel like a lion that's been caged and I'm just chomping at the bit to be released so that I can unleash my fury upon my captor. Greenfever is the asshole who did this to me. He put me in a spot where I got my back against the wall. I'm having to fight for my life in a veritable circus sideshow at XIII because Greenfever made the decision that he wanted Baines in a Flatliner match. How is that fair to me? How is that fair to a young man who has overcome so much to achieve so much so early in his career?
"When LeBron James came into the NBA and he was juking and jiving fools out of their sneakers from Day One, they didn't force LeBron into a situation where he had to win a game or his life would end, yet that's exactly the situation that I'm being placed in. They're telling me "Baines, your life could end at XIII, but we're going to sanction this match anyway. Good luck, kid!" Not even a proverbial pat on the back. Not even words of encouragement. They just want to throw me into the fire, but that's fine with me. When I first signed my name on that WCF contract, I didn't think for one second that this job would be about rescuing kittens from trees. I knew that I would be putting my health and well-being on the line everytime that I stepped into the ring. Why shouldn't we take it to the limit? Why shouldn't two grown men decide that if we can't beat the shit out of our opponent to the point that his heart stops beating then we're not worthy of breathing another breath in this world? To me that's poetic. You can look at everybody who's booked at XIII and nobody is laying so much on the line as Baines and Greenfever. I hope the WCF Universe appreciates the spectacle of Roman gladiator-esque violence and gore that they're going to witness on Friday night in Des Moines."
(You hear the sound of Baines taking calm, deep breaths that are no doubt rejuvenating his mind, body and soul.)
"Des Moines, Des Moines, Des Moines... those two words have been bouncing around in my brain, but I cannot connect the name to a city. See, I've never been to Iowa before, but I have been spending a lot of time in Hartford lately, busting my ass and working out like a machine at Crimson House Dojo. I don't know what Greenfever has been up to. I haven't heard from him in awhile, but I've been working with my trainer Bolts Quackenbush and a litany of training partners who have been presenting me with every kind of challenge that one can and cannot expect to face in the most abominable of all wrestling matches, the no holds barred Flatliner match. I've had big, burly dudes coming at me with chainsaws roaring and taser guns burping and flaring up. I mean these dudes want to kill me and these dudes are bigger than Schwarzenegger. Of course I'm also training with the speedsters and the slicksters, the hardcore junkies and extremists and the high flying lunatics, the brawlers and the ballers, the Japanese strong style and the Mexican luchadores, the Canadian technicians and them European pugilists, and I even brought in some escapees from America's highest security prisons and mental health facilities. I've taken beatings a plenty, perhaps more than any man should in training, but I have to attack this match from every angle.
"See, what you folks don't understand is that even though I've faced Greenfever before, I can't just sit back and act like I got the dude figured out. I know that he's going to change up his game and hit me up with some new shit that I haven't seen before. He wouldn't be putting his life on the line in a match of this nature unless he had some tricks up his sleeve. I know that Dr. Heill has been working overtime in his laboratory to cook up some new computer programs for Greenie, programming him to be the most concise and devastating killing machine that the world has ever seen. I know that Heill has been studying tape of the last match between Greenfever and Baines and picking apart any flaws that he can find in my game, programming Greenfever to take advantage. I'm sure that Heill has watched the videos of my matches even more than I've watched them, and I've gone over those videos pain-stakingly and with the utmost attention to detail as if they were high-grade pornography. Heill has a sick fucking mind and when you get right down to it he's the brains behind Greenfever's dark and twisted murder spree.
"I'd like to strangle that Nixon mask wearing weirdo and wring the life right out of his body, but that will have to wait until after I do the very same thing to his demented protégé. The more that I think about it I hope that Heill cooks up his most sinister and misanthropic game plane to date for Greenfever, I really do. When I step into the ring with Greenie I want him to hit me up with that good shit, hit me up with that real shit, the shit that makes a "Young Lion" search deep within himself to see if he has what it takes to prevail in a game of life versus death. I want to feel Greenfever's skin, flesh and blood against mine. I want to find out which man's genetic coding will live to spread for generations to come, and which will become extinct in the blink of an eye. I want to find out what's in that man's mind, heart and soul. After all, what is the soul but soil for dreams and ambitions to grow? I want to dig deep inside of Greenfever's soul. I want to get my hands dirty in his soil, spread that shit all around and uncover the secrets that have long been buried deep within. I want to know once and for all what makes Greenfever tick and then I want to snuff that shit out. Yeah, I want to snuff out Greenfever's life force and erase his very existence. I want to play God with the balance of a so-called God's survival hanging in my hands.
"Is that sick? No more so than anything else that happens in Iowa. You can fuck livestock in an open field in Iowa and no one will say a peep about it, except for the livestock. I ain't into all of that though. I don't do bestiality. Maybe Greenfever does. Maybe that's the deep dark secret that he's been carrying for all of these years. Maybe that's what drives him to kill, the shame of having fucked farm animals when he was a little boy because none of the girls would talk to him. They all thought he was too creepy. Maybe that's Greenie's whole dilemma. Maybe that's his crusade. I'll be damned if I know the truth behind the madness, the man behind the mythos. I'm going to find out on Friday the 13th, that much I know to be true. There will be no more mind games, no more psychological warfare, no more tales of deprivation and depravity. Greenfever loves to obscure reality and distort the perception of his opponents, that's how he gets a leg up on the competition. That's why Omega Greenfever has such a big problem when he steps into the ring with Phillip Baines. I don't buy into the voodoo and the hoodoo. I am a man of logic and reason. I only accept that which I can taste and touch. Greenie's purported cosmic powers do not faze me.
"Phillip Baines cannot be fazed and I damn sure cannot be faded. You want to put me down, Greenie, you better put a bullet in my brain, motherfucker. Put a bullet in the brains of Baines, that's the only way you'll ever beat me. Some men crumble and some men crack when the spotlight hits, but I'm not some men. I'm THE MAN. When the lights are at their brightest and the stage is at its biggest, Baines is at the top of his game. I rise to the occasion like a fully erect penis and I come at ya again, and again, and again. Are you ready for that, Greenfever? I know that you're sitting in your shack right now plotting your attack against me. I know that you're being fed computer chips by Dr. Heill, but it's like I said about Avery: "The more things change, the more they stay the same." You can change the name of the game, call it a Flatliner match instead of a hardcore match, but the game itself does not change, Greenie, and I am better at this game than you are. You've killed before? So what? So nothing... sew buttons. I've said that line at least two times before, Greenie, and I say it because it's true. You've killed people who were either unable or unwilling to defend themselves. Even if they had the means to face you head on, they lacked the courage.
"Maybe I'm a naturally courageous man, and maybe I'm only courageous when I've got my liquid courage, but it matters not which one is the truth. I've never shown fear inside of the squared circle and I never will. I fired the first shots in our unholy war and I'm going to keep on shooting because I've got you outnumbered and outgunned, Greenie. You march to the beat of your own drummer in a one man marching band, but I'm a one man army and I've got you surrounded. You can drop to your knees and wave your white flag, but I don't take any prisoners. When I get you alone on Friday night I'm going to make your body reverberate like it was getting hit with wave after wave of machine gun blasts. These words that I speak? They mean shit. You might as well call me "Guntooth" because I've got guns in my teeth and I'm spitting hot lead at your dome, Greenfever. I can do it all day in lieu of sleeping and eating, but it means nothing. The bigger picture is that I'm a big, strong dude with a whole wide world of talent and I possess an unmatched drive to succeed. Do you think that you're going to stop my life and career dead in their tracks on Friday night, Greenfever?
"I know that you issued the challenge for this match in the first place, but do you really believe that you have what it takes, Greenie? Are you man enough? Can you pull the trigger in the heat of the moment? And even if you can will it make a difference? You pulled the trigger the last time we fought, but you were firing blanks, homie. You couldn't get the job done against a green rookie who had never wrestled an actual match before in his entire life, and yet you think that somehow you're going to show enough improvement this time around to defeat that green rookie now that he's a seasoned veteran? I have five matches, FIVE MATCHES under my belt and I'm already a goddamned veteran of this sport. I've done it all and I'm lapping up the fruits of my labor with a silver spoon. You're not going to be lapping up anything ever again after XIII, Greenie. See, it's hard to eat with a broken jaw, but it's absolutely impossible to breathe when you don't have any life left in your body.
"They say that in space no one can hear you scream, but in death you won't have to worry about that indignity, Greenie. When all of the breath, all of the life, all of the fire and the verve have been sapped from your body on Friday night, your struggle will finally be over. You will rest... for eternity. It's amazing how something so unsettling can end up being so tranquil, isn't it? At the Water Works Park in Des Moines you will walk into the cornucopia of doom that I have created especially for you, but when it's over, when your heart has stopped beating and your stiff, lifeless carcass is sprawled on the mat, then you will finally know peace. You will know peace because your troubled existence will cease. Goddamn... that's beautiful, and poetic too. Now if you'll excuse me it's time for me to settle in and get some peace of my own while I polish off this latest forty ounce."
(A glugging sound can be heard, followed by a silent pause before a vibrant and bustling house track kicks in.)
(After the song ends a loud thump can be heard, possibly a drunken Baines hitting the floor, and the tape recorder is finally clicked off.)
