<i>(Cueup: “Panama” by Van Halen)</i>
<i>(Fade in on a wide shot of a casino floor – too nondescript for it to be evident just which casino we're looking at, but the evidence suggests it's one you've probably never heard of)</i>
<b>Copycat:</b> Step riiiiiiight up!
<i>(The camera slowly pans down to show the focus of our segment: Copycat, dressed in his best high roller formal wear, standing behind a poker table. There are cards and chips laid out across the table in front of an apparent five players, including the camera man, though the shot is too tight for us to really see any of them except their hands – the ones on their arms, not the ones in their cards. Copycat finishes shuffling a deck of cards, then looks up at the camera)</i>
<b>Copycat:</b> I'll say this about the three people in my upcoming match who are doomed to lose it badly – they at least offer some variety. Never have I seen three people say so little in such different ways. You've got Omega whacking himself in the face with a chair while telling hilariously terrible lies about his chances of defeating any member of Anthology. You've got Erik Black drawing up promo sets even more elaborate than mine to tell hilariously terrible lies about his chances of defeating any member of Anthology. And you've got Fusenshoff acting like he's too cool for school, but certainly not too cool to tell hilariously terrible lies about his chances of defeating any member of Anthology. Gosh, which one do you put your money on?
<i>(Copycat slowly deals out two cards to each player)</i>
<b>Copycat:</b> If there's a sport more prone to upsets than pro wrestling, I've yet to see it. Every sport's got its upsets, even its jaw-dropping ones, but wrestling takes home the gold. There are so many factors that go into a wrestling match that never go into a boxing match or a football game. As confident as I am in my odds of winning any given match – and anyone who knows me knows just how confident I am about pretty much everything I do – I try not to make any guarantees of victory. I've seen enough matches slip through my grasp for reasons well beyond my control to know the effect the X-factors can have. X-factors like biased officials, vengeful authority figures and unwanted interlopers. And with a five-man, every-man-for-himself match, well, those X-factors just start stacking up.
<i>(With the cards dealt, chips start being tossed into the center of the table as the mostly unseen players place their bets. Copycat continues talking as this goes on)</i>
<b>Copycat:</b> So where do you put your money in this match for an Intercontinental Title shot at Aggression 49? I mean, I know where I'd put <i>my</i> money, but hey, if we were to assume for the sake of my example that gambling on pro wrestling is the new hot thing all of a sudden, I wouldn't be the only guy putting a bet down, right? There's be a crowd of folks wondering, “Which one of these guys is most likely to give me a return on my investment?” Now, I'm not going to tell you whom to bet on. Not only am I prejudiced, but it's a multi-man match, so even if I were to offer you some insider info and say I'm going to take a dive – which I'm not – it wouldn't tell you much. You're not going to listen to me on that one, so why waste my breath? But while I can't tell you <i>where</i> to bet, I can tell you <i>how</i> to bet. The challenge is that, in a game with five players, it's tough to know how to bet. But if you go in with that assumption that this five-player game makes things too random for you to make an informed bet, you're assuming wrong.
<i>(With all the bets on the table, Copycat burns the top card and then lays out the next three: two of clubs, three of clubs, nine of clubs. More bets go down around the table, and Copycat keeps talking through all of it)</i>
<b>Copycat:</b> Oh sure, there's a great deal of randomness to the participants in this one. Start things out with Omega. He went on and on for what seemed like an eternity on his propensity for causing pain to others, hoping that if he said it enough times, I might mistake him for someone wholly different from the last 50 guys who got in the ring with the Cat, all prepped and ready to cause him a world of hurt, only to look like fools when the match was through and the Cat was headed to the back with nary a permanent injury to be seen. Heck, Anarky basically went through the exact same schtick just last Aggression, and when the dust settled, he'd done such a sorry job of following through on his promises that he basically got disqualified for failure. You've got to work pretty hard to get disqualified for being a failure, but what can I say? If there's anything that defines Anarky better than being angry at everything for no discernable reason except that it looks cool, it's failing horribly whenever he steps in the ring with the Cat. I admit Anarky's gotten one or two up on me by sheer force of outside interference in the past, but Omega, simply put, is no Anarky. He's not even Anarky's interior decorator.
<i>(The bets finish and Copycat burns another card, then turns over the nine of hearts, leaving things again to the betting)</i>
<b>Copycat:</b> You've got “Dopesmoker” Eric Black, who mixed one part being proud of losing to Layne Winters with one part public access TV drug trip to create a big ol' batch of stupid. Those toxins with which he is filling his body allowed him to give a very thorough history lesson on Anthology, full of unwarranted assumptions, blatant lies and an incredible misunderstanding of Anthology's purpose. That Anthology has evolved noticeably from the group it was when it first began warrants mention, yes. But while members have changed, the goal remains the same: to drag this broken-down industry away from the cliff to which jackasses like he, GASP and Lindsay Troy have brought it before the cliff crumbles and sends everything I and the rest of Anthology worked so hard for into the abyss. Heck, Black's cluelessness practically offends my senses; if he had a brain in his head, he wouldn't have allowed Olvir Arsvinnar to be onscreen at the same time as him; it made it too obvious that the Dopesmoker and the Viking porn star, despite their names, haven't accomplished in their entire careers what Jared Wells can accomplish in a single weekend when he's motivated.
<i>(Copycat burns yet another card, then flips over the four of spades, as betting continues)</i>
<b>Copycat:</b> And then there's Fusenshoff, who's taken so many talking points from GASP I was half convinced Layne Winters was being dubbed in over top of him. If only Erik Black had given him some tutoring in history, he might realize that GASP is not a randomly assigned set of letters meant to mock the chumps who fly its banner, but an acronym for the Great Anarky Self-promotion Project, which is basically what GASP is, even if its non-Anarky members haven't realized it yet. Shoot, as much as he sounded like the rest of those wastes of life, you'd think he was the great big screamin' deal of a surprise they say they have lined up for Aggression 49. 'Course, we all know that can't be it, because even the members of GASP aren't stupid enough to think anyone will care if they add Fusenshoff to their ranks – except maybe Winters, who has absolutely no concept of what other people like or dislike – but hey, they might as well blow their metaphorical wad on adding GASP cadet Fusenshoff to their ranks, because nothing they pull will have the impact that Sean Stevens joining ranks with Anthology had.
<i>(Copycat looks around at all the people sitting at the table, staying them from turning over their cards)</i>
<b>Copycat:</b> But the things is, no matter how random its participants, this match isn't all randomness. There may be five competitors, but there aren't five bets to be made. There are really only two ways you can bet – for Anthology or against Anthology. And if you're betting any other way, you're playing the wrong game.
<i>(Copycat grabs one of the poker chips off the table and flips it high in the air. The camera follows the coin on its upward trajectory until it goes off the screen entirely. When it comes back down, Copycat's hand shoots up to catch it, and the camera pans back down. When it finishes its pan, the poker table is gone, and in front of Copycat is a roulette wheel)</i>
<b>Copycat:</b> The smart money isn't going to bet on Fusenshoff, Omega or Erik Black. You put a bet down on one of them, you might as well pick one at random. It doesn't really matter which one. A bet on one of those three is a bet that somehow, some way, one of the three of them might stand a chance against the two members of Anthology – through interference by GASP or Lindsay Troy gaming the odds, because that's the only way it could happen. All three of them seem to think that their secret to winning this match is to take out Sean Edmunds and the Cat first. But whereas the Cat and Sean Edmunds are unquestionably on the same page, it won't be long before our three opponents forget what they were supposed to do and turn against one another – Omega first, probably, and then Black. Bet on them, and you're betting your money on the game with the longest odds in the house.
<i>(Copycat spins the roulette wheel, then tosses the poker chip aloft again. Once again, it goes offscreen, and is caught shortly after coming onscreen again. This time, a blackjack table is in front of Copycat)</i>
<b>Copycat:</b> But throw in with Anthology and you're playing the game you've got the best chance of winning. Even if all three of those numbskulls are able to stay on the same page and they do spend the match targeting Anthology, all it's going to do is make their humiliation all the more complete – when the three of them can't stand up against the two of us. Countless times in the Cat's career, it's taken no fewer than four men to bring him down. What could possibly make anyone think that three men can do the job when the Cat has an ally? That's a sucker's bet.
<i>(Copycat leans forward on the table)</i>
<b>Copycat:</b> The fact is, in a match like this – where the only choices are “Anthology” or “not Anthology” -- Anthology is the house. This is a match that was set up entirely around Anthology – the attempt to turn Sean Edmunds and the Cat against each other, the prize being a shot at Shawn Hart's Intercontinental Title, it's as plain as day. Some games might have better odds than others. But what it all comes down to is this: no matter which game you play, a bet against Anthology is a bet against the house. And although the house is never infallible, in this game, the odds are pretty clear. You bet against the house...
<i>(He cracks a grin)</i>
<b>Copycat:</b> ... and the house takes you.
<i>(Fade out)</i>