I wasn't sure what to expect when I accepted this job.

I've done a lot of different things for fan amusement, but I don't recall a time where I've ever put my hands on one of them. 

But a deal's a deal.  They knew what they were getting into.  And there was no going back for me now.

I just hope they're ready. I don't want to hurt them too much.  Who knows what kind of training these guys have had? 

The event was held in a large gym that had a raised balcony from which I watched with several other Defiance officials. It was interesting, to say the least.  Some of it reminded me of the time I tried to open my own school. 

And some of the moments were truly cringe-worthy.

We had capped this at thirty something people, so as to maintain some level of sanity and quality control, but you could have capped it at half that and had a reasonable competition.

I leaned over to Darren Quimbly as a young woman performing a side headlock takeover squealed in pain and went to the mats holding her right ankle and I whispered, "How much screening did we do here?  Half of these people look like they came off of their couch, they're gonna get..."

And before I could finish my thought, I looked up after hearing a dull cracking noise. A portly man with salt and pepper hair wearing a full Under Armour regalia rolled to his feet and ran out of the ring, panic in his eyes and tears coming out of them. His left arm dangled as he ran, and the shoulder was in a very awkward position. The man who had done this was wearing paint on his face like the former Diamond Shazam and smiling from ear to ear.  He was bulky, but it was easy to see that he had the height, agility and joint mobility of your average concrete garden gnome.

"We had them all sign waivers," came Quimbly's reply.  "They know what they're getting into."

I nodded and said.  "I guess."  Pointing to the Diamond Shazam clone, I asked, "Who's the lunatic savage?"

"Dunno.  They'll announce the names of when some of the wheat is separated from the chaff.  But he's one of the more interesting people to show up.” Quimbly pointed out a woman wearing blue boy shorts and a blue sports bra at the other end of the room and said, "That one...she calls herself Feminine Wylde.  She has a diagram of a man's head traced on her lower tights right where it would be if you were...ahem."  With some of our female staffers around, Darren chose to emphasize restraint, but everyone knew what he was getting at.  "She seems intent on showing you her "special head scissors", if you know what I mean."

I shook my head and chuckled slightly.  "Way to set the women's wrestling movement back decades.  Does our waiver cover decapitation?  Because I'd imagine Claira or Heidi would kick her head off on pure principle if they came through."

That got Darren to belly-chuckle. 

We watched the trainees in silence, occasionally pointing out things to one another. It was really a series of one-on-one skill challenges designed to see who was most ready to wrestle me. Some of them would point up at me when they won their round...and for the most part I nodded at them, showing respect. That crazed, bulked up face-painted little injury machine, however, took it too far...he made the universal wrestling sign for "I'm Gonna Break You", and I ignored him outwardly.

Inwardly, I'm wondering if that's how I look to someone like Kai Scott? 

I mean, I'm sitting over everyone, looking at the whole picture, and this man, distinguishable in some form or another, was making all kinds of sounds and motions, threatening to kill me and all that nonsense. Maybe that's who I am to Kai. Maybe that's who I always was to him, from the point where Claira and I were positioned to compete for the top of Heritage league up until the current time.

Just a noisy distraction from the grand scheme.

Maybe I need to stop raging and yelling for Kai to get the point. Maybe I just needed to do my job and pin him in the middle of the ring.

Maybe that's when he'll stop messing with my head and get to the...

Nah. He's not a B movie villian. He's not going to spill his guts because I beat him one-on-one.

Though it seems like he did have a point before. As cool as I thought it would be to have guys like Greer and Walker back to hang with in the back and to have Eric in charge, they seem to be going way out of their way to find stuff to badger me about...

Wait, why the heck am I thinking about all this?  There's no way that he's at all right about this.  Steve was just having a bad day, and Eric...well, he's taking his job seriously from a fairness standpoint, and I can't hate on that at all.

It’s time to stop this train of thought and concentrate on this tournament. 

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