World's Finest Wrestling: the New opERA
(Fade into Golem, sitting behind a gigantic grand piano. Golem is playing "The Day the World Went Away". He stops rather abruptly and rotates on his seat towards the camera.)
Golem: I am going to tell you a story. It revolves around an eclectic group of characters and the bonds that tie them all together. But before we begin, we need to discuss something. It is probably rather important for you to understand what a "fugue" is. It's a complicated music piece which begins with an original and then cycles through numerous variations, or voices, before eventually circling back to the original piece for the "coda". Understand? Let’s begin.
(Golem rotates back towards the piano and begins playing very softly as he begins speaking.)
Golem: Our story begins with the one they call Golem. He is a truly glorious figure to be sure. Golem manipulated his way back into the WFW, where he has already started playing with his marionettes once again. You see, Golem exists to bring chaos. I am a world ender. I strive to bring suffering to everyone else in this miserable league. I barely even had to break a sweat to crush Jeff Jorgenson's dream of a successful debut. Did Jorgenson’s technical skill save him? Did the fans that slapped him five and booed me save him? No, he stood on the top rope like a idiot while I destroyed his opportunity for a successful debut. I even took it one step farther. I didn’t even give him the satisfaction of knowing that he gave it all and lost. I took the win from him before he even got a chance to really get off the ground. I ruined his debut in the big leagues and there was nothing he could do about. And it's because he, like all of you, is so stupid that he did exactly what I wanted him to do, exactly when I wanted him to do it. In the end, you will find that is very often the case. I succeed at what I plan to accomplish. So when I tell you that RAUCOUS will be just another win for Golem and just another terrible day in the lives of the rest of you, I mean it. There is the reason the show rotates around Golem. The reason is that Golem is true shining star of the WFW and the rest of you are just so much wasted life.
(The music turns sadder now.)
Golem: I suppose that brings us to our next character: Minion. A figure from Golem's past. He is the departure voice. The Golem clone who wishes to "fix" himself. He hopes to repair his battered soul through the use of external sources like pills. Frankly Minion, I just cannot allow that to happen. This league is already overpopulated with these straight-edge "technical" wrestlers. They don't need a crippled shell of a brawler, pretending to be some wrestling virtuoso. I always did respect you, Minion. And do you know why? Because you are so much like me. You're an inferior version, of course, but at least you understood that the most important thing is hurting people. The wins and losses will sort themselves out. Sometimes making somebody lose will crush their soul, and that's always a plus, but the aspect you really have to focus on is the hurting. Like the story goes, the prodigal son only departs from the way of the Master long enough to get burned by his decisions so much that he is forced to come crawling back. So I will torture you, Minion. I will steal your medication. I will ruin your technical battles. I will go after your friends and wife and well-adjusted suburban life and your dog and your 2.5 children. I don't care. What has been done will be undone. You will return to the Golem clone I know and love. The one I loved teaming with all those years ago. The one I loved choking into unconsciousness more recent still. And do you know why, Minion? Do you know why I need you to revert to the old ways? Because, more than anything, it amuses me. When I was slamming you into the exposed steel corner in your first match back from a year off due to injuries, you can trust me when I say I was giddy. But now that you want to steal away my chance to continue you do that to you, that just infuriates me. Luckily, I am calmed by the fact that it took me literally one night to undo what was probably months and months worth of therapy. I don’t know if I have completely shaken the pathetic out of you, but if I need to, I will just keep trying until I do.
(Suddenly, the music becomes louder and more violent.)
Golem: But Minion is not the only Golem clone in this match. Enter Psycho, the masochistic voice. You see, Psycho, I remember a time when I couldn't win a match when I first entered WFW. And do you know why? It's because I was constantly teaming with you, and every time I turned around, your pathetic shoulders were on the mat after your four hundredth failed maneuver. You see, you didn't understand then and you still don't understand now that Golem doesn't need your mediocre masochistic offense to win. Just because it got you a short-lived reign with a now retired championship doesn't mean it's a good idea. And don't think I've forgotten our match together and the payback that I still owe you. Grudges last well longer than three years when you're dealing with Golem. Heck, it seems like I was most successful when you were trying to interfere to HURT me. Now, why do you think that is, Psycho? Why do you think everything you touch falls to pieces? Is it because you're so stupid that you got yourself trapped under a guardrail while Felix Red raped your dreams of becoming WFW champion? Is it because your game plan is so poorly planned out that your finishing move almost breaks your neck every time you try it? It's probably some of each of these, but more than that it's that you aren't even a wrestler in the slightest sense of the word. You're just a pain-loving masochist who doesn't understand that the point of the match is to hurt the other guy, not just yourself. You see, that's where you deviate from Golem. Golem has no desire to kill himself. Golem has much to live for. Specifically, Golem lives for hurting his opponents. Ironically, Psycho, you don't qualify as my opponent in this match. I know I can't count on you to provide any decent offense for the majority of the match, but at least try to not run off and get yourself pinned while I’m busy elsewhere. I know I can’t even expect that much out of you, so maybe it’d be better if you didn’t even bother coming to the ring.
(The music transitions into an allegretto, happier tune.)
Golem: But there are still other intertwined characters in this grandiose play. If you are talking about Psycho, you have to mention LOVE, and that invariably leads us back to their golden boy. No, I am not talking about their real golden boy, Anarky, since he left. I am talking about the guy who replaced Anarky as the leader, approximately 5 seconds before LOVE self-destructed. I am talking about Felix Red, the psychedelic voice. Don't worry, Felix, I don't blame you for blowing up LOVE. I never really got into the whole super group concept to begin with. You got what you needed, which apparently was a scrap of metal, and then you burned the rest to the ground. You even got to piss on the ashes on the first card back and my tag team partner was a proud recipient. But there is a bad part of this tale coming. And that is the fact that now you have to look across the ring at Golem. You see, I am not impressed with much that you do in the ring. Destroying LOVE is well and good, and probably for the best given Psycho’s proclivity to losing team-based matchups, but you sort of remind me of Minion. Not good Minion, either. Puppy dog Minion. You see, you bounce from group to group, going from lackey to lackey to occasionally even sidekick once or twice. You might not even know its happening because you’re so wasted. But, clearly, once you get put into a position of power, you run away. Because you’re not a champion. You might have a piece of metal with your name on it, but you’re still the same “scared of the spotlight” joke that you were when you first got into this business. And so you load yourself with narcotics to hide from the fact that you are a pathetic nobody who will fade into oblivion at the first sign of actual responsibility. Maybe the drugs make you tougher. Maybe the drugs hide the hurting in your heart. I don’t know. I don’t care that much. What I do care about is making you suffer. And while I can’t steal your drugs like I did Minion’s, since you probably have a dozen dealers on speed dial, I can break you to pieces. And when I am done, I will come for your scrap of metal that you value so much. It’s only a matter of time. And then we get to find out if you can live out your little slogan….ecstasy from agony.
(The music suddenly drops into a lacrimoso, painful sound.)
Golem: Following this trip down memory lane, we get to the next Golem clone and final member of the LOVE wreckage triumvirate, Jared Wells. Is it still “Rage ‘o’ Fire”? Or is it “Bastard Son” now? It’s probably the latter, considering the combination of tongue lashing and physical lashing Felix Red gave you before and during your last match. I mean, at this point you are little more than Jared Wells, the fallen voice. You have so little going for that I don’t even know what it is that I can take from you. You’ve lost your title, a belt so irrelevant that even after I won a shot for it against you, I turned it down. You’ve lost your friends, which are probably the only group of friends who would have a failure like you to begin with. You’re just a recycled spare tire who exists so that groups like LOVE can have an even number of people. Unlike Felix Red, who fell apart when he was asked to lead, people knew perfectly well that no one was EVER going to ask you to lead. So you will have to latch onto the teat of GAMMA-O and hope to suckle your way to another victory you don’t deserve. Your best bet is that Psycho will lay down for you, in a move that is combination of stupidity, pity, and his own love of losing. I can see why you held the BAD title, the belt of a ragged company, swallowed by the better, stronger company. You think you’re some hardcore talent? You think guys like Tact dodge you? They don’t. They avoid you because you aren’t worth their time. You really aren’t even worth my time, either. You called out Maelstrom, who knocked you completely unconscious and you treated it like a win. You’re a spare body who I would have nothing to do with if I didn’t practically qualify as a member of LOVE by proxy at this point. But no matter. You’re an easy one to crush Jared. Do you know why? It’s because you’re already dying inside. You claim to be tired of the WFW making stars on your behalf, but you can’t do anything to stop it, can you? How does it feel to see the BAD World title around Steve Johnson’s waist? Does it hurt? Does it sting knowing you cannot do anything to stop it? Does it sting knowing that your best days are so far behind you that a mediocre hack took your title, a title that nobody of any importance ever cared about in the first place? I know it does. And that is just delicious. I just hope that after I drive my claw down your throat and knock you unconscious, you won’t pretend like it was a win, either.
(Golem then turns the sound into a misterioso sound.)
Golem: So we come to GAMMA-O, the mysterious voice. The unknown. Sure, your finisher is awkwardly similar to Manson, but that could be designed to throw people off. Or maybe you trained for years under Michael Manson. Or it could be your own horrific lack of ingenuity. Or you could just be Manson. Any of these choices are acceptable. I was happy to see you take advantage of Minion and I was happy to see you drive him further and further towards insanity by causing him to attack the referee and inevitably beating him, which sent him into the ensuing rage which afforded me such an easy win. So in that way, you got to assist in slow destruction of both Minion AND Jeff Jorgenson. Kudos. Admittedly, I don’t know that much about you or what makes you tick, so it’s awfully difficult for me to say with absolute certainty what kind of emotional pain I could hope to cause you. Luckily, there is always the good old fashioned fallback: Physical pain. Everybody hurts, GAMMA-O. And usually the person doesn’t enjoy it, unless you’re actually Psycho under your mask and you’re a masochist, but that would make me very confused, since Psycho would have to be in two places at once. I know, it’s a conundrum, but you go ahead and let me tackle that one. You’re not really an X-factor in this match, since I frankly wasn’t too impressed by your performance against a guy I had already blasted in the head with a steel chair, which you still almost found a way to lose. But if and when you do get into Golem’s way, trust me when I say that there is no mystery as to what will happen. I’ll hurt you…just like I am going to hurt everybody else.
(Golem then begins playing the original piece once again.)
Golem: And finally, the coda. We’ve cycled through all the various imitations of Golem, before eventually the fugue comes back to the subject for resolution. You see, I don’t play favorites. That includes worthless worms that WFW decides should be my partner. I don’t need Psycho’s help to hurt the rest of you and I won’t need the rest of your help to hurt Psycho. It’s about time that Golem begins to flex his muscle in the WFW and it’s time again for his claw to taste sweet salvation. This isn’t a reunion tour. It’s not a retirement match. It’s a rebirthing. If it makes you feel better, you can all share your sorrows with each other after the match. I hear misery loves company. Let’s test that theory. It’s time for the imitations to fade away and the original to return to its rightful place atop this vermin-infested league. And whether it’s emotional, physical, or psychological, Golem is going to bend you all further into his own image. You see, imitation is a funny thing….
(The music keeps playing, but the camera suddenly cuts to a clip from Felix Red's promo from Almost Live 6/26 against Psycho and Jared Wells.)
FELIX: It’s like nothing ever really ends. Tattoos fade, civilizations collapse, TV shows get canceled, people die…but it all gets repeated in memories of various forms, both of plastic and of flesh, until it becomes a distorted, possibly more idyllic, possibly less idyllic version of the thing that was…
(The camera cuts back to Golem.)
Golem: Couldn’t have said it better myself.
(Golem hits a crescendo on the piano and the camera fades to black.)