Wednesday, October 04, 2006 – San Jose, California

Lee wriggles in his seat. Comfort is generally a universal concept, but couches like this on are supposed to be very comfortable. In fact, they’re more made for comfort than the one in your lounge is. Lee’s rich remember? Yet for some reason, Lee Stone can’t find the comfort he’s after. Perhaps it’s an external thing though. If comfort is truly universal, then this couch is definitely comfortable. I think a literal interpretation is needed for the phrase “Lee Stone isn’t comfortable”.

He fidgets again. Getting up off the couch in his luxurious hotel room, Lee makes his way out to the balcony. He stood here yesterday as he cut a promo towards BoonDock Saint. At the time, he was hung-over like a motherfucker. Now though, a day later, his headache has evaporated. He stayed in last night. It’s business time. Anarchy is just a day away.

The afternoon sun beats overhead. We’re drawing closer and closer to winter, but California doesn’t feel it as much as say Washington would. Lee looks down at the people so many floors below him. Moving about, they’re like ants. Each one has their own purpose in life, and as long as they aren’t disrupted, they will never question that purpose. But they are very easily disrupted. Placing so much as a leaf in their path will send them off on a completely different road. The wrong road.

Lee Stone isn’t the most religious person in the world. He sees religion as a way for the weak to think that they’re important. The notion of not being in control of one’s own destiny is just plain laughable to Lee Stone. Why create the illusion of choice if we really don’t have it? It seems pointless for God to try to test us, if being our creator he already knows whether or not we’ll past the test. But perhaps that’s just the thoughts of an uneducated man. Lee started reading the bible when he was younger, in order to appease his mother, but never got further than a few sentences into Exodus. However, sometimes even a cynic like Lee has to step back and think about things for a moment.

Take the example of the ants for instance. If humans place a leaf in their path, they lose the trail and don’t know how to get back to their colony. That shows something bigger than them, preventing them from completing their tasks. Now relating that to humans, we always get distracted from our tasks. We always have obstacles in our paths. If we place them there for the ants, who the hell places them there for us?

Lee may not go to church, but a crucifix is always kept on him. I guess he’s one of those people that believes when he needs to believer. Now though, he walks back into the house and sees the crucifix lying on a desk next to the phone. He stops to admire the silver symbol. Whatever the true origins of Christianity are, they sure chose a good symbol for people to rally around. The phone begins to ring as he stands there looking at the crucifix. Picking the receiver up, he presses it to his ear.

“Hello?” he asks, now taking the crucifix into his hand.

“Mr. Stone?” a vaguely recognizable male voice says. “This is Michael from reception. We have a man here to see you.”

“Oh? What’s his name?” Visitors are always good.

“Umm… Steve Sayors.” Or maybe they’re not always good. “Do you know him?” And that’s a good question. Sometimes you just don’t want to know Steve Sayors.

“Yeah, I know him,” Lee admits. Excited would be a monumental overstatement for how Lee feels about seeing Steve Sayors right now, but right now Lee will actually accept the company. Plus he can kill two birds with one stone, as Steve will no doubt be interested in getting an interview with him.

“Okay, I will send him up.” Lee doesn’t even have time to answer to before Michael hangs up. Placing the receiver back down, Lee resumes his study of the crucifix. However his concentration isn’t allowed a chance to take over as it’s interrupted almost immediately. The phone is ringing… again.

“Hello?” Lee asks, perfectly matching the tone he used to answer with previously.

“Hi Mr. Stone, this is Michael again.” Lee begins to think something might be fishy about this Michael guy. I guess that’s the line of thought you get carried onto when you’re in love with yourself. You begin to believe everybody else is as well. “Sorry to bother you once again, but you now have an incoming call from an outside line.”

“Who is it from?” Lee asks, as he begins to search his mind to figure out who it may be.

“A Dr. Geoffrey Connolly? Should I put him through to you?” Ah yes, Dr. Connolly. A psychiatrist based out of Los Angeles who took a special interest in Lee’s case a month or so back as he had a few dealings with Lee in the past. But just as Lee did in the past, he once again severed ties with the good doctor completely unannounced and unexpectedly. I guess Dr. Connolly has finally tracked Lee down.

“No, actually.” Lee clutches the crucifix in his right hand so that the edges cause indentations in the palm of his hand. “Tell him I’m unavailable.”

“Whatever you say sir. Your visitor should be up to your room soon.” Steve’s almost up to Lee’s room… great. I don’t know whether or not to be sarcastic with that or not.

“Thank you,” Lee says, and this time hangs up on the man from reception. Heading back out onto the balcony, he looks once more at the people down below him. He hears Steve Sayors knocking on his door. “Be there soon!” He shouts back, before searching the ground for a large amount of trees and bush. Raising his right arm back, he fires the crucifix into the vegetation he found, causing birds to scatter from the near vicinity. He then turns and heads to open the door for Steve Sayors. As he swings the door open, there stands the goofball himself with a grin on his face.

“Hey Lee!” he says ecstatically. Oh Jesus… he even waved to say hi.

“Sayors? What the fuck are you doing here?” Keeping a straight face, he hides how much he’s going to enjoy screwing with Steve’s already minimal confidence and self-esteem.

“The uh… person at reception… said it was fine for me to come up.” Holy crap. I think Lee forgot how easily intimidated Sayors gets. I guess when you get beat up by so many newbies, you get even more frightened by the veterans who let you keep walking.

“I presume you want something then?” Lee crosses his arms and stands staunchly in the doorway.

“An interview, please?” Okay, now it’s just sad. Lee starts laughing and grabs Steve by the collar. He throws him inside.

“Get in there, I’m just fucking with you. I swear you need to go to Wal-Mart or something and buy yourself a set of balls.” The camera crew enters the door as well as Lee heads over to the table where the phone is and the crucifix was. “You want a drink?”

“Can I get a Strawberry Daiquiri?” Lee is stunned into silence for a brief period of time, but soon realizes that he should’ve expected that from Steve. Fortunately, Sayors is very impressionable, so as Lee pours two glasses of whiskey he knows that Sayors will drink it. Handing one glass to Steve, he then sips from his own.

“Sorry, that’s all I’ve got,” he says, giving a quick wink to the camera crew. Sayors takes a tiny taste of it. It’s a little too strong for his liking. Lee grins but quickly changes his face to a more serious one when Sayors looks at him. “Let’s start this baby, eh?”

“Okay, is the camera running?” The cameraman gives a countdown with his fingers, and as it reaches zero, Steve launches into the interview.

Enter Steve Sayors interview mode… “Lee Stone, you returned a few weeks ago, but have only just recently had your first match back. Why did you wait so long to step into the ring?”

“I’ve had a lot on my plate recently, and I needed to clear my mind before getting into the ring. However I also needed to make my presence felt. I’m a big fan of making an impact. That’s why I was ecstatic with how Cyren returned, and with my actions at the Pay Per View.”

“Okay, so let’s talk about Cyren. He’s on Massacre now but do you have any plans to once again go after him like you did before the XWF closed down?”

“Nope. Not a lot of people cottoned on to what happened with Cyren’s return. I knew he was coming. He was the man who would take care of the Hounds, and after what he did to T Money and Sewaside at Rage in the Cage, I no longer see them anywhere near the XWF. I mean, Sewaside was supposed to be only suspended right? He’s gone now though, and we have a combination of mine and Cyren’s efforts to thank for that. The problem is, with Jon going kooky, and this split landing Cyren on Massacre with the majority of the Hounds on Anarchy, they’re no longer as accessible to him as they are to say… me. So I guess now that I’m back in the ring, I’ll have to take care of them on my own. Or maybe with the White Order’s help.”

Lee takes a sip from my whiskey glass, removing about half of it from there. He then notices Steve’s practically full glass still, looks at him disapprovingly. Grudgingly, he takes a big gulp from the glass and screws his face up in a very pathetic manner.

“So are you planning on facing a Blood Hound anytime soon?’

“I don’t know, I still have a few issues of my own to sort out, and may take some more time to do that rather than actively compete. But after everything we’ve seen in the past, I think we all know that I don’t need to have a match against a Hound to destroy them. My target, aside from BoonDock Saint, is Dynamic Dynamite. And I sure as hell have waited before getting in the ring with BoonDock.”

“Let’s talk about that now.”

“No.”

Lee keeps his voice very flat and severe as he says that. Steve is so amusing as he shakes his head, practically ignoring Lee. Either he actually understands that Lee’s just playing around with him, or Steve is just plain stupid. My best bet would be on the latter option.

“BoonDock is your opponent this week, and it was you who specifically asked for this match from Crimson Kline, as opposed to him wanting to get revenge on you.”

“I asked for this match for the same reason that I took Dan down at Rage in the Cage. He’s gone plain loopy, and I plan on being the one to literally smack some sense into him.”

“He’s created quite a strong group to support him though.”

“No. He hasn’t. There isn’t a single strong group in the XWF right now. Those who have the potential to be strong aren’t doing anything with the potential, and those who are in the position to be dominant, just don’t have the firepower to back themselves. That’s the problem with The Legacy. Believe it or not, it’s also the problem with The Blood Hounds. And I’ll even say that it’s the problem with The White Order.’

“I don’t understand.”

“That’s because you’re a moron.”

“Are you trying to say that the three groups we saw at war with each other at the end of last Anarchy, aren’t very strong at all?”

“Wow, I guess you do understand. That’s exactly what I’m saying.”

“Care to explain that?”

“This is supposed to be a new era in the XWF right? Well that’s all fine and dandy. We see guys like Scott Young and The Savior over on Massacre becoming contenders for the World Title. Good for them. We see Star going all dominatrix on the little people in the cruiserweight division. Congratulations to her. Maybe I’ll give her a high five next time I see her. But the thing is… they’re on Massacre. On Massacre, there are only two former Universal Champions. On Anarchy there are four. And out of the last five different Universal Champions that there have been, those four are all included while the two on Massacre aren’t. Anarchy has the current top stars, from before the little hiatus and after it. Because it doesn’t matter what the company was like, if we were Universal Champions then we damn sure deserved it. We are the best, but look at the distribution of the Universal Champions. Dynamic Dynamite is in the Blood Hounds, while Trent Gein, Andrew Gibson and myself are keeping to ourselves. We all have our own battles to fight, and that’s why this little faction battle is silly. It’s like watching the Special Olympics. Sure it’s funny, but you know you’re going to hell for letting it continue. And that’s where I come into things.

The battle I want to fight, just happens to involve some of those retards. I always have been and always will be an enemy of The Blood Hounds. I make them insecure because all their star players have failed to beat me. It doesn’t matter what incarnation of them I’m facing. Psyko Stevo: beat him twice. Took down T, Kid and Juggalo in the Helldome, and then T a month later on his own. Christian Connolly even has lost to me four times. And of course there’s their current general Dynamic Dynamite who despite being the only Hound to actually hold a win over me, has also been on the receiving end of a Lee Stone ass-kicking.

And then there’s BoonDock Saint, the other part of my battle. The man who has talked all kinds of shit without backing it up. The man who claims he’s the greatest champion of all time, yet technically he’s already lost a title defense. Why the hell do you think I don’t ramble on about how I’m the greatest Canadian champion of all time? It’s because I know I’m not, and not because my reign was something unspectacular. I mean, I fought off the likes of Steve Jason, 504 Boy and Wannabe for that belt. But it’s because in a match with Ashen Iscariot for that very belt, Shane Carver disqualified me, effectively tarnishing what I was hoping to accomplish in that match and also keeping the belt away from Ashen. I lost that match, so I can’t be the greatest champion. Of course, there is another reason that Dan can’t be the greatest champion. He’s going to lose another match… tomorrow in fact. He’s going to lose to me.”

“Can you be sure of that?”

“I can actually. Dan doesn’t know what the fuck is going on. He knows he has a match with Lee Stone, yet he’s off in La-La Land (not to be confused with Lee-Land). He talks about how he won’t just lay down for me, yet he doesn’t account for what will happen if I put him down by force. He needs to ask himself the question “can I beat Lee Stone?” and then he needs to have answered that with a “yes” before his music hits on Thursday. You can’t come into a match against me without having asked yourself that, and then you can’t come into the match without having answered that. Because otherwise you won’t know what to expect. And unfortunately, despite having failed to beat me twice before, he will once again be unprepared for me. Peace…”

“Uh… we haven’t finished yet.”

“Yes we have.”

And the scene fades to black?