“You just can’t help yourself, can you, Boog?”

[FADE IN: The Downtown Athletic Club in Amarillo, Texas. Dan Ryan is sitting on a bench in a large free weights area, wearing a tank top and sweat pants. He wipes sweat off his forehead…]

“Maybe you just don’t understand how this whole professional wrestling thing works. You’ve been doing this off and on for a really long time, but your many-years-long detour into obscurity belies a certain level of don’t-get-it-itis.”

“After years and years of absolutely no one in the wrestling world clamoring for a Boogie Smallz return, I put you back on television. Shockingly, the last time you were semi-relevant was back in GXW, when I also helped get you on television. You parlayed that into years of nobody noticing that you were missing. So you get a little positive pub in the Ultratitle, and, like I said, I put you on television.”

“Your move?”

“You decide to come after the owner. Why? Who knows? Jealousy? Bitterness? Bad weed? You say that I held you hostage with a years-old contract, but why don’t we just get down to the truth on that one too, eh Boogie? The only reason you were under EPW contract is because you drug your sorry ass into my office years ago, fresh off your latest drug-related legal problem, begging for a job, ANY job, just to get a little cash and get back on your feet. Now, maybe I’m a softie. Maybe I have this spot for people who want a second chance, and despite the fact that you’ve been a bitter, angry, drug addict your whole life, I gave you a job. Then, you did what you always do, Boogie…”

“You flaked out.”

“Let’s be real about all of this, Smallz. You’re the Shawn Kemp of wrestling. You wander around the world, impregnating ring-rats, and when the trail of cooch started to run afoul (and I do mean AFOUL) of respectable, you started reaching out for any hand that had a shot at pulling you out of the self-induced ruts you always end up in. And yet somehow, you punking out on a contract that still had a match left on it, and me holding you to that contract, makes me the bad guy.”

“So you come back in, you put your sights on me, and you decide to play the old standby card of trying to make the owner’s life difficult. You decide to try and come at me, get under my skin and do… what exactly? How far did you really think it through?”

“Not very far, as it turns out, because as soon I fulfilled your contract, I let you go. Ironically, your original bitch was that you were coming back angry because I was holding you to your contract, and that didn’t allow you to work anywhere else. Yet, once you fulfilled it, and I said I was letting you go, you decided you would bitch about being let go. Makes a lot of sense. The truth is, you aren’t interesting enough to keep around, and I’m sorry that hurts, but it’s the truth.”

“Now, you can do whatever you want with that -- attack people on my show, follow me over here, but there’s one thing that you’re going to have to eventually come to terms with, Boogie Smallz.”

“I am, and have forever been, way out of your league.”

“There’s a reason why I’ve had the career I’ve had. No one has handed me anything. I’ve had to bust my ass for a decade to get where I am. I run companies, you beg companies for a job. Do you think you’re gonna walk into DEFIANCE and make some kind of statement? I give you less than a year before you’re back driving a UPS truck, hustlin’ on the weekends selling jailbroken cell phones and blaming somebody else for the way your life turned out.”

“You come here, you show your ugly little syphilitic ass at the conclusion of my match, and you expect what, a look of fear? You’ll never see any trace of fear outta me where you’re concerned, Boogie Smallz, because you are what you’ve always been -- a sad, bitter, lowlife punk. You want to be great, but you don’t wanna put in the work that it takes to make it happen. You want what I have, but you never could put in the hours that I have, you never could make the sacrifices I’ve made, and you never could save yourself…. from you.”

“It’s gonna take exactly one night to show you the difference between one of the best in the sport, and a relic from a time gone bye who depends on other people’s table scraps to survive.”

“You don’t understand how it all works, but I’m a helluva teacher. The Boogie Smallz quest for vengeance is gonna send you from barely relevant back to no-one-gives-a-shit-ville. And I assure ya, BOOG -- no one will miss you.”

“BELIEVE DAT.”

[FADE OUT.]

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