Post by Deleted on Apr 25, 2018 9:34:15 GMT -5
“This ain’t my usual digs.”
Reina stood in front of a punching bag, the sweat pouring down her face evident of the workout she’d been at for quite some time. She’d heard the door in the front being unlocked and opened, heard the person walking through the empty gym before feeling that presence standing in the doorway, looking her up and down as if evaluating her. Reina punched the bag a few more times before she stopped it, putting both her hands on the bag and leaning her head against it. There was a few moments of silence before Reina turned to face the man at the doorway.
Kevin O’Neil answered her call with no questions asked and it was something Reina appreciated. She hated cutting promos by herself, felt the action unnecessary to the end goal of getting into a ring to legally make someone’s brain matter seep to whatever solid surface it happened to bounce off of. Before she’d left for NJA, Kevin told her that maybe over there things were different, but in The States you talked. You flapped your gums hard and conveyed your confidence in words. If that didn’t pan out, you kept doing it. Reina remembered asking Kevin why, why talk if the game you brought to the ring wasn’t gonna back it up? Why talk if the future wasn’t set in stone? Wasn’t it humiliating to talk crap and lose? She remembered Kevin smiling and nodding.
“Yeah, sucks. But you ain’t there to win, are ya?”
Which was entirely true. It had clicked with Reina, back then, that Kevin knew what he was talking about despite the cocky demeanor and cavalier attitude he presented. He was a marketing genius and if Reina needed anyone like that, it was now. She fully turned her body towards the short black man, who in turn gave an impressed whistle. She knew it wasn’t because she was half naked but because of how much…harder she looked than when she left. NJA may have been a waste of time in regards to actual competition but she hadn’t taken it any less seriously. Her muscles were more corded, her mismatched eyes a little more cold, her stance a bit tenser. She watched Kevin take a deep breath and push it out.
“Yeah, I know this ain’t yer usual digs Candypants,” he said, bouncing the small camera he had in his hand up and down before catching it one last time. “But it fits you. Bought this on market, right? After the owner defaulted and couldn’t afford the place. Left everything here, too. Got it dirt cheap, right?”
“Right.”
“Good, Trish taught you well. You wanna do this thing now, here?” Kevin picked up a small three legged stool and stood it upright. He looked around the spacious area before placing it by one of the large windows. The yellowing newspaper made the sunlight that was lancing in through holes an almost golden color. Kevin nodded. “Right there. Just as you are. Lemme know when yer ready.” Kevin glanced at Reina, who was giving him an odd look. He rolled his eyes and faked a huge sigh. “Yeah, yeah, yer always ready. F**kin’ get on it, will ya? Jesus, I need a burger in me.”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
“I was having a hard time with this, if any of you are wondering. Maybe some of you are, now, seeing me as I am. Sweaty, half naked in an abandoned gym that hasn’t seen a human in months before I bought it and made it my own. And you know, that’s fine. I don’t really expect a lot of you to know me as most of the people I know don’t really spend a lot of time watching wrestling from overseas. Don’t speak English, for one, so it’s kinda hard to keep track of what the deal is. So the name Reina Kenshin doesn’t hold a lot of clout, is what I’m saying. The Bebop Samurai, they called me. No crap, I was actually given that name. For months, they just chanted that crap as I walked to the ring and I never really bothered to ask why. And when I finally did, just out of sheer curiosity, a fan told me it’s cause I move like I’m from some kinda anime. An active Japanese wrestling forum had given me that nickname, and you know what…I liked it. So I accepted it, and been using it ever since. And that’s love, you know? I appreciated that. What eventually went wrong there…well, that’s a different story. I’m here now and that’s what matters.”
“Except…except maybe both matter in equal measures. You wanna roll on, head full of steam and make the same mistakes all over again? Naw, you wanna learn from what’s happened in the past. And the truth is I got a little outta control in NJA. I wanted something that I thought I deserved because no one had ever beaten me; respect. And yeah, my mom told me like your moms told all of you when you were growing up; respect isn’t given, it’s earned. And I thought I did! I really did. When I faced any given woman in NJA they had about as much chance as winning as a steamroller versus a kitten but they stood there anyways. And I demolished them. I toyed with them. And they came back, and I put them down. Every time, until I was ending matches on my own terms, stretching out those minutes because something inside of me was just clawing to get out. And before I knew it I was out on my ass and back to America. All because I couldn’t control my own need to break all the pretty things.”
“So, you know…I was having doubts. I really was having a hard time with this, this whole promo shooting thing, because it’s just not my bag. It’s not what I do. And you know, I kinda dove head first into WFWF without looking and that was my bad. They want more from their wrestlers. They wanted entertainers and I can do that, I really can. I know it’s in me but f**k my life does it require just a tad more thinking than simply marching to the ring to make someone my bitch. You hafta…you hafta dig and dig and dig, look for those cracks in your opponents, you gotta take advantage of the kinks in their armor. You hafta verbally abuse them and throw their past disgraces in their face with no remorse and…and you know what? That’s good. I like that. I know if anyone keeps stinging me with stupid crap like how I lost a match way back when that crap would be irritating as f**k. Like, yeah, I lost, what the f**k do you want me to do about it? I’m not a god damned Time Lord, savvy? Can’t change the past.”
“So to say I was having some sorts internal crisis would be putting it mildly. Conflicting thoughts, right? On one hand I really didn’t have the faintest idea on what I was doing. I guess I considered myself more a doer than a crap talker but, ¿por qué no los dos?, am I right? But how to get myself in that mindset? How could I go from someone who simply went to the ring every week to beat someone up to someone who went to the ring every week to beat someone up and threw them in a verbal juicer and hit frappé? It was a conundrum, one I wanted to figure out before I did anything else. And so I did what a lot of people to when a problem vexes them; something to clear your head. I do a number of things but I was in New York at the time of this pondering so I took a walk around dusk. Love it at that time, with the weather feeling a bit chilly and the people were beginning to thin out. About an hour later I was still stuck. Nothing had hit me, no thunder, no light bulbs were turning on, nothing. And just as I was about to give up, BAM!! Upon walking at a nearby park I stepped on a piece of crap.”
“Not usually a good thing but, really, what else could I have done? I didn’t see it but I knew the park was just a landmine for these things. Some irresponsible jackass wouldn’t pick up after their dog and some poor unfortunate soul would step on it and f**k me that’s just annoying as balls, right? But even as I fumed internally, I really couldn’t help but laugh. Because that was exactly what I was going to do, right? I was going to walk into WFWF, step on some pieces of crap, and then keep doing it. That park in New York is no different than what I see now!! I mean, it was so f**king perfect I just about cried. Because, in the end, it’s just that easy. From the men to the women, it’s simply a crap littered park that you can’t avoid. On the other side of that park are your goals and if you can survive the crap, you can claim it. And folks, lemme tell you…I give zero f**ks about stepping on the pieces of crap in this company to get what I need, dong ma?”