[The click kachunk of a switch being thrown harbors the blinding fluorescent lights overhead flickering on with the subtlety of a sword through the face. We’re in the same nondescript warehouse environment we’ve seen a hundred times in wrestling promos. The lights go through their usual struggle to live, flashes of a familiar figure appear center screen... finally the lights settle in the on position and our host comes into stark white terrifying view.]

 

Voice from the flickering madness:

Hello, lads.

 

[Dark maroon pinstripe three piece. Sheared head and freshly waxed deep handlebar.]

 

[The ORIGINAL DEFIANT. Bronson Box.]

 

Bronson Box:

You want my full and undivided attention, Captain Sickbed? You’re feeling a wee bit unloved with me spouting off about our brave World Heavyweight champion between the numerous tirades callin’ you a tacky shallow ponce with not an ounce of manhood in the entirety of that leathery bleached insult to athetic endeavors everywhere you call a body... so sorry about that, boy’o. 

 

[Boxer runs his tongue over his teeth causing his mustache to twitch as he gives all that a second to sink in.]

 

Bronson Box:

Honestly, boy. The damn sunglasses? [an astonished shake of the head] That. That right there is the problem I have with you, Jiles. The yellow stains you call promos are the same jibber jabber over and over. The same tired gags. The same sad references to your bloody hair and your damned clothes and your asinine moveset. That chop? Never has one man talked so much and said so little. If something of actual substance passed over your quite surely infested lips and tongue the world would stop stunned into complete silence, lad.

 

[Boxer adjusts the tiny white rosebud pinned to his lapel. A subtle hello to his new business partner, surely.]

 

Bronson Box:

I’m short, I’m a goon, I’m a coward. Go on lad. Please God do go on. Tell me all about it. Curse to the high heavens scream obscenities until yer’ bloody narrator covers his ears and starts to bloody CRY, boy’o because it changes NOTHING you flippant little nuisance.

 

[Boxer reaches into his front jacket pocket.]

 

[And out comes something Cancer knows quite well.]

 

 

[The Spike.]

 

 

Bronson Box:

Remember this, lad? The five way ladder war where I unified the Defiance Crown and the WfWA World Heavyweight title. You remember that night, don’t ye’ Jiles? That was the night I ACTUALLY stabbed you, laddy. Ye’ see, Cancer. I don’t say things I won’t actually do. I don’t run my mouth for just anything. Whilst you live in an echo chamber of your own braggadocious lies and ego enhancing nonsense I stand firmly on truth. Honesty. Straightforwardness.

 

When I say something like “I’m going to stab you in the face” I actually bloody DO it.

 

[Eyes like spikes.]

 

Bronson Box:

Win or lose. Cancer Jiles, you’re not WALKIN’ out of that arena. I will paint a bloody PORTRAIT in the pints of blood I squeeze from your lifeless husk. A portrait Dan Ryan and Castor Strife can enjoy as they try desperately to top the spectacle I’m going to put on at your expense, boy. You’ve squeaked by in some incredible wrestling matches in your time, Cancer. Some tight scrapes. It’s a bloody shame we won’t be seein’ any of that classic Jiles resilience when we stand toe to toe in that ring in Texas.

 

Ye’ see... I’m not lookin’ to wrestle you, Cancer. This truly will be a spectacle.

 

It’ll be a bloody SACRIFICE.

 

[Box looks at the spike, still clutched in his hands. The rough coppery metal still stained with flecks of dried blood from past use.]

 

Bronson Box:

Because I am a goon, Cancer. Of the highest bloody degree. I’m a mean judgmental thug with my own ideas of right and wrong and YOU, CANCER JILES ARE GOD DAMNED WRONG!

 

[Mustache quiveringly intense.]

 

Bronson Box:

I judge you. You joke. You gimmick. Come at me, boy'o. Like a man. I DARE you. Open your mouth and TELL ME WHAT YOU’RE GOING TO DO LIKE A MAN! BLOODY SHOW ME SOMETHING!

 

No jokes, no rapid fire delivery. For once... [balling his fists, grabbing at nothing] for once stand up like a PROPER man. Because if you don’t? If you prance into our match as though you have not a care in the bloody world OTHER than what cute new way you’re going to spout that insipid word of yours?

 

 

I’m going to bloody kill you.

 

[No smile.]

 

Bronson Box:

And that’s not hyperbole, lad.

 

 

That’s the God honest truth.

 

 

 

 

[Fade.]

 

 

Bronson Box: v/o

Try and sleep on that.

 

Amen.