jackb
League Member
(I have not proofread any of this, and I also haven't slept well in a month, so I do not know how accurate/coherent it all is. Bear with it.)
MEMBER INFORMATION:
Name: Matt C.
Email Address: staplewound@aol.com
AIM/Yahoo Messenger: fighting snowman
Preferred Method of Handling: any
Best Way to Contact you: Telepathy. AIM is a close second.
WRESTLER INFORMATION:
Name: Jack Breaker
Nicknames: The Mayor of Ice Cream Island
Height: 6’2”
Weight: 240 lbs.
Handedness: Left-handed.
Looks: His hair is long, messy, and deep crimson. He’s usually unshaven. His nose is just a little too big for his face. Brown eyes, average complexion, and very straight teeth. He is not built like a wrestler; he doesn’t have a crazy muscular physique, and in fact looks kind of like he hasn’t been to the gym in a while.
Hailing From: Long Island, New York.
Disposition: Generally face.
Gimmick: Jack’s a regular guy. Very much unlike most wrestlers, Jack is not an over-the-top, larger-than-life hero, nor is he a cold, remorseless, treacherous, kindless villain (to paraphrase Shakespeare). He’s somewhere in-between; a loveable goofball with an offbeat sense of humor, a strong desire to be friendly, and an odd predilection for nautical themes. His backstage antics, whether he’s raining sardines down on the ring like confetti, arguing with the arena’s vending machines, trick-or-treating in the locker room, or playing hide-and-seek with fans, tend to come off as humorous non-sequiturs, often lulling his would-be opponents into a false sense of security about his intensity in the ring. Once the bell rings, however, he’s all business.
Jack willingly, and frequently, breaks kayfabe. After all, he doesn’t need it – he’s not playing a character. He’s just himself, a regular guy, a perennial underdog, but with the skills and the drive to make it work.
Ring Attire: Jack usually wrestles in whatever clothes he woke up in the night before. He has an extensive collection of t-shirts, gathered over a lifetime of shopping at garage sales, thrift stores, and amusement park gift shops. He wears regular blue jeans, faded, and red PF Flyer sneakers. Sometimes, for special occasions, he will wear a crumpled blue sports jacket during his entrance, and he will hang it up carefully on the ringpost before starting the match.
Theme Music: “Cyclops Rock” by They Might be Giants
Ring Entrance: A flurry of soap bubbles erupt at the entrance. Jack appears amidst the bubbles, arms raised up – half in a gesture of greeting the crowd, and half shielding his eyes from wayward bubbles. He strolls to the ring excitedly, exchanging high-fives with the crowd at ringside. He pushes his manager/wife, Aubrey, in a shopping cart. At ringside, she jumps out of the cart and slides into the ring under the ropes while he flips over the top. The two run around the ring, doing handstands on each of the ring posts in sequence. He then flashes a thumbs-up and a big toothy grin as he approaches his corner, searching for a cheap pop.
Tactics/Style: (Jack used to wrestle with a lot of speed and a lot of high-flying, high-risk spots. He’s mellowed out significantly during his four years of retirement. He’ll still go for high-flying spots, but not nearly as often and only when he has a very high likelihood of landing the move successfully. When he misses too many top-rope leaps in a match, it tends to shake him up and he’ll avoid any high-risk maneuvers for the remainder of the match. Jack is a solid all-rounder, though generally weak on the ground. He doesn’t go for submissions often, and when he is taken to the ground, he’ll very quickly try to get up. He’s much more comfortable fighting from a standing position. His arsenal consists of an astounding array of DDT variations, almost anything with the suffix –breaker (neckbreakers, jawbreakers, and especially backbreakers), and he has a fondness for inverted moves – generally he goes for moves that aren’t commonly used and that have a high likelihood of confusing his opponent and impressing his fans. He’s not much of a brawler by nature, but when he loses his temper, he can swing with the best of `em. He also has a predilection for using creative weaponry, though only when the rules of the match allow it. His trademark weapon in his days with the IWO was a giant trout, which he kept on ice in a cooler under the ring. There’s a certain amount of satisfaction you get when you smack a man with a giant fish, and Jack Breaker happens to like that feeling.
Strengths: Jack is a natural showman, and loves showing off for the crowd. If he gets a good buzz from the crowd, he’ll be more willing to pull off more intricate maneuvers, riskier high spots, and cooler-looking moves. His stamina and momentum in a match are directly proportional to the audience’s reaction to him. The bigger they pop, the better he wrestles. When he’s up on the top rope, calling for a Heartbreaker, if the fans roar in approval, he pretty much can’t miss.
- Jack’s biggest strength in the ring is his creativity. He’s awkwardly average in terms of athletic ability – he lacks the power of bigger guys, and doesn’t have the speed of smaller guys – but he makes up for it with his ability to improvise in the ring. He’s especially good at pulling out really tricky reversals.
- Jack performs at his best when he’s an underdog. Despite his experience and his technical prowess, Jack always seems like he’s in just a bit over his head – which is exactly how he likes it.
Weaknessess: - He retired from wrestling after the fall of the IWO in 2003, and has been out of the ring for four years. He’s not in the physical shape he once was, and it definitely becomes an issue in the ring, especially during longer, fast-paced matches with younger, more athletic opponents. Jack used to be known for his stamina, and at times he doesn’t realize that he’s not the fighter he used to be. He’ll exhaust himself trying to muster up the same stamina that he once had. His right knee, in particular, tends to become an issue – the result of one too many bad bumps taken during his younger, high-risk days.
- Jack can become too concerned with working the crowd at times, leaving him vulnerable. When he has a free moment, he’ll run around the ring, handstand on the turnbuckles, hop the crowd barrier to mingle with fans – anything for a cheap pop and a laugh. This often leaves him open for a sneak attack. He likes to be showy – not cocky, more like flashy – and he’ll sometimes attempt a move that looks cool but gets easily reversed.
- His wife/manager, Aubrey, is always at ringside, cheering him on, which can become a liability. He’ll do anything to protect her, even going as far as to sacrifice the match. And if someone does try to go after Aubrey… well, then Jack’s eyes just go blank with fury, and the whole nice-guy act goes out the window. He’ll do what it takes to remind his unfortunate opponent to never try that again.
MATCHWRITING GUIDE:
Jack uses a lot of moves. Really, a lot. He’ll use anything. It’s actually easier to list the things Jack won’t do in the ring:
- Jack doesn’t use cheap shots (unless the guy has it coming.)
- Jack doesn’t like to break rules (that doesn’t mean he won’t, if the need arises.)
- Jack is not much of a brawler.
- Jack doesn’t know too many submission holds.
- Jack will, more often than not, pass out before he taps out.
But most importantly, remember this: Jack likes to smack his opponents with a giant fish.
Literally. He keeps it in a cooler underneath the ring. He prefers trout.
5 Specialty Moves:
Clockwork DDT (Jump Swinging DDT. This move used to be his finisher, but he abandoned it in favor of the spectacle of his high-flying Heartbreaker. He still uses the Clockwork DDT as a sort of ur-finisher, especially in matches where he is either too wary of jumping from the top rope, too injured to pull off the flip, or when he doesn’t have the benefit of a sufficiently dazed opponent.)
Lullaby to Nightmares (Release Spiral Powerbomb. Depending on the size of his opponent and on how much stamina he has, he will really put a lot of energy into the release, sometimes throwing his opponent across the ring. He’ll sometimes spin too fast during the spiral, and will make himself dizzy. He usually has to sit down or brace himself against the ropes afterwards.)
Dark Side of the Moonsault (Borrowed from his former tag partner. It’s a split-legged springboard corkscrew moonsault/knee drop. Rarely used, as his age and the ring rust from his extended hiatus from wrestling have made him wary of high-risk maneuvers. He’ll only pull it out when the momentum of the match is solidly in his favor. Due to an old knee injury, when this move misses, he really feels it.)
Break-Your-****ing-Backbreaker (Really just a backbreaker. Kind of in the tradition of the clothesline from hell – a common move, but the opponent sells it like he’s been broken in half. When he’s looking for a good pop from the crowd, he’ll perform this as a tilt-a-whirl backbreaker.)
A Nervous Tic Motion (Catapult backbreaker, but usually done with enough force to send the opponent sprawling into the corner. This move is so named because of the speed and intensity Jack sells the catapult with, like a sudden, jerky, snap movement. .)
Finisher & Set-Up Moves:
Finisher: The Heartbreaker (Top-rope flipping neckbreaker. It can also be executed off of any raised surface – crowd barricade, the side of the entrance stage, the top of a ladder, from a table, from a ladder stacked on top of a table… really, anywhere where Jack is higher than his opponent and has enough room to execute a full flip, catching the opponent’s neck on the way down.)
Setup: Bulldog into the turnbuckle. When the opponent hits the mat, Jack hops up onto the top rope and waits, usually signaling to the crowd, until his opponent struggles to his feet and stumbles into range of the Heartbreaker.
Alternate Setup: Sparkle Punch (A straight jab to the face with a handful of glitter. The glitter gets all in his opponent’s face and blinds him. Opponent, in a panic, stumbles into Jack’s waiting arms for a Clockwork DDT, or for a whip into the corner for the Heartbreaker.)
CHARACTER BIOGRAPHY:
Jack Breaker’s mom died when he was sixteen. His father ran off a few weeks later; he hopped into his ice cream truck one morning, turned off the bells, and was never seen in Sandusky, Ohio again. Homeless, orphaned by proxy, and completely alone, Jack did the only thing a sixteen-year-old boy in his position could do.
He joined the circus.
In six month’s time, Jack had become respected as an equal among the circus folk. He shared a deep, personal relationship with Koko, the circus company’s trained African elephant. Jack and Koko quickly became best friends, and the two traveled the country together. Koko was an exquisite creature, with beautiful tusks, curved like samurai swords, and sharper.
One morning, Koko impaled a woman with her mighty tusks, ostensibly during an argument over a bag of peanuts. Koko was taken away by the state, and put to death by electrocution. Jack was alone again.
Jack left the circus, vowing never to return. He found himself in New Orleans, where he would call home for the next decade. Now a young man of seventeen, well-traveled, experienced in all the ways of the world, and with enough life stories to outlast a thousand O Henrys, Jack decided to settle down for a short while, while he collected himself.
He searched high and low for a job to sustain himself, but found nothing but rejection and swearing in fantastic Cajun tongues. Then he found, nestled in the want ads, a small spot, offering $500 in cash – cash on the spot! – with no experience necessary.
Jack marched to a local high school gym, as instructed by the ad. He found a small traveling wrestling circuit setting up a show. They were looking for volunteers to be “manhandled” by their top man, and were offering cash to anyone who would dare step in the ring against him.
After a ten minute demonstration on how to take a fall and how not to crack his skull open, Jack had all the wrestling training he needed – and all he’s ever received, to date. That evening, he stepped into the ring against a large man in a black singlet, face painted like the most terrible circus clown, who called himself “Kaoss.”
Perhaps it was the clown makeup. Perhaps it was Jack’s buried desire to prove himself. He doesn’t remember why, but that night he refused to take the fall outlined for him in the script. Jack fought Kaoss – and was pretty horribly beaten. Jack’s first taste of the real pain in the fake sport was tough to swallow. And to boot, the booking agent refused to pay him, for he had strayed from the script and probably almost got himself killed.
But that agent saw something in Jack that he liked, and when Jack asked for a second chance at the money, he signed him to a contract. Jack traveled with them for years, wrestling under the ridiculous gimmick, “The Jack of Hearts.” (His finisher, The Heartbreaker, is all that now remains of this gimmick.) With no formal training, Jack was forced to learn through experience, through trial-and-error, by studying carefully with those who were better than he. And he learned quickly – the only way to graduate from the school of hard knocks is to get on the accelerated plan.
Jack Breaker has lived a thousand years and seen a thousand things. He outgrew the small-time traveling sideshow circuit, and set his sights on television. He secured himself a tryout with the IWO through a friend of a friend, and rose through those ranks as if his life depended on it. Maybe it did – after all, what else did he have?
OPTIONAL DICE-ROLL STRATEGY INFORMATION
Divide 120 Points between:
POWER: 19
AGILITY: 23
STAMINA: 18
SCIENTIFIC: 24
SPEED: 24
BRAWLING: 12
Provide a 20-set movelist as follows:
1: Armbreaker
2: Drop Toehold
3: Flying Forearm Smash
4: Springboard Dropkick
5: Short-arm Clothesline
6: Double Underhook Suplex
7: Inverted Crucifix Powerbomb
8: Reverse Powerbomb
9: Hangman’s Facebreaker
10: Fisherman Driver
11: Lifting inverted DDT
12: Sitout Chickenwing Facebuster
13: Exploder DDT
14: Double underhook DDT
15: Tilt-a-whirl backbreaker
16: Clockwork DDT (Jump Swinging DDT)
17: Lullaby to Nightmares (Spiral Release Powerbomb)
18: Dark Side of the Moonsault (Split-legged Springboard Corkscrew Moonsault w/ knee drop)
19: Turnbuckle bulldog
20: The Heartbreaker (Top-rope flipping neckbreaker)