Post by Xavier Reid on Oct 23, 2024 22:07:06 GMT -6
The camera opens on the observation deck of The Empire State Building as Bunny Love pulls away from a set of binoculars…
“It feels like we are on top of the world…”
She looks over and smiles at Xavier Reid but then it sets in… the smile fades as she reaches out for him…
“I’m sorry…”
Xavier looks at her as he takes her hand…
“For what…”
Bunny drops her head for a second before looking back up at Xavier…
“I am the reason you are no longer the EWC Undisputed Champion… JoJo used me to make you quit, to make you hand over the Undisputed Championship to him…”
Xavier presses his lips together and is about to pull away from her…
“We’ve gone over this Bunny…”
But Bunny places her other hand on his… making it harder for him to pull away…
“I know… I know I’ve said I’m sorry but… but… it was supposed to be like this…”
Xavier stops trying to pull away from his girlfriend/manager… he looks at her, matching her empathy…
“You’re right… it wasn’t supposed to be like this… I wasn’t supposed to be a part of the Rumble match…”
Bunny shakes her head…
“No you weren’t…”
“The plan was always to cash in my rematch here… here in New York… in the Bronx… there’s a reason why I picked the Bronx to host the Rumble… The ‘Rumble in the Bronx’ was a staple for the EWC when I signed here, each and every year we would come to the Bronx to have the Rumble and it was here I set my sights on that EWC Undisputed Championship… I told myself back then that if I could win the Rumble then I’d have what it took to win that championship…”
Xavier places his other hand on Bunny’s two hands…
“My first three Rumbles I would go deep into the match, two 9th place finishes and a 5th place finish… I felt like I was right there with the best of the best, The Shadow Man’s, the Ace King’s, the Dominic Sanders… the Rumble is where in 2020 I beat Bosa and Scorpio in the same night to defend the International Championship and then the Undisputed Championship… in 2022 I was RIGHT there, Melody Malone, Narumi Tsutsumi and me… it gutted me when Melody eliminated me and despite your father trying to spin it as ‘the winner eliminated you’ I was GUTTED… I was that close to the Undisputed Championship… then last season I came into the Rumble with ‘scars’... scars from my past failures but your father and I came into the Rumble with a different strategy, to let go of all the personal bullshit, trying to use the Rumble to ‘settle scores’... we came into the Rumble with one plan, win at all cost…”
Bunny smiles…
“We can take that same idea this season…”
But Xavier shakes his head…
“No I can’t… because this season it is personal for me Bunny but that doesn’t have to be a weakness like it was in Rumble’s past… see instead of having a chip on my shoulder and some made up slight I have a legit reason to be pissed…”
Bunny squeezes Xavier’s hand…
“I should have to win this match to get my rematch, I have a the rematch clause and YES, win or lose I will still have that clause to cash in NEXT SEASON but why should I have to wait… seriously, that’s not me bitching and moaning… it’s not sour grapes, why is it I have to wait next season while JoJo gets the rematch against Lad Morales and save the ‘JoJo beat you Xavier’... look at what I have done this season and tell me with a straight face I don’t deserve the opportunity for my rematch THIS SEASON… I won the championship in the Main Event of StrangleMania, our Super Bowl right, I went into Night of Champions and beat the other 7 EWC Champions, becoming only the 2nd Undisputed Champion to retain that Championship inside the Insanity Cage, hell I defended it again 16 days later when I beat Cosmo Goldworthy at Paramount #046 to become the first Undisputed Champion to defend the championship TWICE since 2022… I lost the championship because JoJo Rush was going to burn you alive… and yet after all that I’m what, the odd man out… forced to win the Rumble if I want my shot at the championship that was TAKEN from me… ok then, I’ll play by their rules and shove it down their throats when I go back to back…”
Bunny smiles as she releases his hands…
“And I get, I’m just one of twenty other souls that want nothing more than to win the Rumble and head to WrestleFest for the opportunity of a lifetime, a chance to challenge for the Undisputed Championship… to fulfill their dreams of holding that championship and joining the ranks of the EWC greats… but that’s the thing, for many here, it’s just a dream… they will go their entire career never so much as sniffing that championship, never getting close enough to know the smell of that leather strap… Tommy used to say, you can look at the list of names and cross 75% off the list because they have no chance… it was a harsh statement but an accurate one… and sure that left about seven or eight wrestlers we had to worry about in the 30 person field but this year that field is cut to twenty so…”
“It should lower the number of people we truly have to worry about…”
Xavier nods…
“Ace King is back and he’s always a threat no matter the match… I’ll admit, I fucked him over last year, I won’t deny it or apologize for it… if he thought I wouldn’t go low to win a match then I reminded him of just how low I will go at Paramount #052, there is no line I won’t cross to get what I want…”
“Nor should you… being a ‘good guy’ and doing things right got you passed over… no, you have to blur the lines around here to get ahead…”
“I admire Ace for trying to do things the right way but we are just two different people… he wondered if I could ‘rise to the challenge’ in Detroit and I guess he found out I was the ‘same old Xavier Reid’, the guy that will go to any underhanded lengths to get that win…”
Bunny smiles…
“There are three who, if everything was equal, would be a sure fire threat to win the Rumble but things won’t be equal will they… no, see three of the twenty will be in action before the Rumble Match…”
“Candy, El Pablo and Narumi…”
Xavier nods his head slowly…
“They each will have to empty the tank earlier in the night if they hope to enter the Rumble as champions… see Candy is facing two others that are only focused on the Indy Championship match while she’s preparing to defend her championship while also trying to win her chance to win the Rumble and make up for her Parabellum loss to JoJo… El Pablo will try and win back the Tag Team Championships with our brother Vertigo just days after losing his North American Championship at Paramount #052 and while I know he wants nothing more than to become the Undisputed Champion it makes me question his commitment to that task by not making the Rumble his top priority… while Narumi… well she’ll be coming off a violent Hardcore Championship match and one has to wonder what will be left of her…”
Bunny shrugs her shoulders…
“I would say that someone like Marcu$ $t. John would normally be a huge threat to win a match like this but there are two things working against him… his two less than stellar finishes in his past Rumble’s and…”
“The fact he’s entering in the #1 spot…”
Xavier nods…
“I’ve been in his shoes, in the 2022 Rumble, I know what it’s like to enter #1 and watch as every 90 seconds someone fresher comes out, someone with more energy and more fire… I outlasted 27 others that night but in the end ran out of gas… the best I’ve ever seen someone coming in at #1 do was Eddie Crank in 2017 but even he couldn’t pull it off… I wouldn’t put my money on MJ$...”
Xavier shrugs at Bunny…
“Then their are the champions in this match, Amis Shelton, the TV Champion, yes he knows how to win but best he’s been able to muster in two Rumble’s was a eighth, Mercenary on paper should be a favorite each and every time he enters a Rumble but in five Rumble’s the best he’s been able to do was eleventh place, the norm with him is in the bottom half of the Rumble, he’s lived in the twenty spots… plus we have seen how he performs in the biggest moments, he had his shot at the Undisputed Championship to kick off the season and he struck out… now Ibuki, he’s the only champion in this match that’s actually won a Rumble, sure he shared that win with two others. He knows how to be there at the end and is one of the few I do have to keep my eye on in this match… and then there’s Cosmo…”
Bunny’s eyebrows raise at the mention of the US Champions name…
“The man who everyone believes will walk out of the Rumble with the win… the same way many thought he was a shoe in at Night of Champions and again at Paramount #046 but how did that go for him…”
Bunny smirks…
“Disappointing…”
Xavier nods his head…
“I listened to him talk about how he couldn’t fail and yet that’s all he’s done in the biggest moments, yes he chalks up wins on Rampage and Brawl but in the biggest moments, when the biggest prize is on the line he does nothing but fail… the Insanity Cage was supposed to be his moment, it was mine… Paramount #046 he claimed to be a monster and yet I’m the one that haunts his nightmares… he said ‘If I lose… strike me down cause I’d rather DIE than watch you run this company…’ he promised to KILL me and yet here I still stand he’s he still in the company I was ‘killing’...”
Bunny laughs…
“Talk about dramatic…”
“That’s who Comso Goldworthy is, he’s the guy that will promise the world and then fail to follow up on each and every word and yet will act like I’m the whiny bitch because I have the career he stays up late at night praying for… but I’m happy he’s in the match…”
Bunny gives Xavier a side-eye look…
“I am, seriously, under normal circumstances the defending Rumble champion would have a target on their back but look down the list of names in the Rumble and hand to God each and every person in this match would love nothing more than being the one that eliminates Cosmo Goldworthy which gives me the advantage… I can blend in, allow the others to get their pound of flesh because I don’t need to bested Cosmo, I’ve already done that in the biggest moments and when it mattered the most… let the masses have him…”
Bunny gives a smirk…
“Now I can’t just roll out of the ring like last year, that would draw too many eyes on me but…”
Xavier leans in and whispers something in Bunny’s ear that causes her to smile…
“That’s diabolical and it did work for Bobby Rose…”
She smirks as Xavier continues…
“There are going to be those in this Rumble that are going to want to make their mark, try to be that dominant force that racks up the eliminations… they will be driven by ego, ZERO strikes me as one of these types but the thing is Bunny, I don’t give a fuck… I’d be happy to have ONE elimination… the final one because it’s the only one that matters… until it’s down to the final two nothing matters, it’s all window dressing… I showed at Paramount #052 that I’m perfectly content staying out of the fray and picking my spots and I’ll happily do the same inside Yankee Stadium… I don’t need to be Aaron Judge and get all the oohs and ahhs, I don’t need to prove anything to anyone… the only thing that matters is winning, nobody cares how you did it…”
“True… nobody called you a cheater or a coward last year when you won… all they called you was the Undisputed Champion…”
Xavier nods at her…
“Exactly, the people entering this match might think they can win this Rumble… they will tell themselves they deserve this chance but the truth is only ONE OF US TRULY DOES and that’s me… nobody in this match has had bigger wins this season than me, NOBODY and yet they will look into that camera and tell the wrestling world otherwise so… I will have to do what I’ve been doing all season and that’s beat the odds once again… I’ll have to be that guy that nobody wants to win, the guy some wish would just go away and die… the guy that ruins the storybook ending or the dream match up because that’s who I am… I’m that BASTARD that just won’t go away and somehow finds a way to win…”
“By hook or by crook…”
“This is my last chance to right the wrong Bunny, to cap off what could go down as the greatest year in the EWC ever by adding a back to back Rumble to an Insanity Cage win, a StrangleMania Undisputed Champions match win… to book my spot in a Night 4 Reservation at WrestleFest and win back what was taken from me…”
Xavier walks over to the fence and looks out over New York…
“This was supposed to be my moment to bring the house down here in New York, to once again become a champion in the greatest city on Earth, the city I now call home… and I guess in a way it still can be… I can walk into this year's Rumble and shake up the EWC one more time and remind everyone that there’s still life in Xavier Reid… I have more experience in this match than any other competitor, this will be my eighth Rumble and I will use every bit of knowledge I’ve gained in those seven previous Rumble’s to make sure I’m standing in that ring at the very end…”
Xavier turns back to Bunny…
“Because a Bastard isn’t handed nothing in life… no, A BASTARD TAKES EVERYTHING HE HAS BECAUSE HE HAS NO OTHER OPTIONS!!!”
And with that the camera holds on Xavier and Bunny for a moment before cutting to black…