AS 41: Barbosa vs. Sam Smith (non title)

[Ty Burna]

Barbosa had an opportunity to cash in his KFAD contract on the last Meltdown, but passed it up while Big Dave was prone in the ring. He may regret the decision not to cash in, but now must focus on his upcoming match with Titus at All or Nothing. Sam Smith meanwhile has suddenly faced the reality of two ruthless enemies gunning for his Elite X title. With the dangerous Barbosa facing him across the ring, can Smith focus on the match at hand, or will he be too busy looking over his shoulder?

Deadline is Tuesday, December 6th at 11:59 PM EST.

 

[Барбоса]

The Smoker: WHAT THE HELL IS THIS?!?

*The Smoker bursts into the poker room where the Depressive sits reading while the Manic plays with his Hunter Kravinoff and Wasabi Toyota action figures. *

Depressive: This? It is Suetonius' Lives of the Twelve Caesars. Tabloid newspapers could learn a thing or two about twisting the facts to besmirch the reputations of seemingly respectable individuals in positions of power and influence. However, he does not go into any detail about the situation in the Teutoburg Walde.

The Smoker: Not that. This.

*The Smoker takes a piece of paper out of his pocket and waves it in front of the face of the Manic, who refuses to answer, instead continuing to play although not without a sheepish look on his face. The Smoker then swats the Pride of Toyota figures across the room, before leaning in close to the face of the Manic.*

Manic: HEY!

The Smoker: What is this?

*Again, the Manic refuses to answer so the Smoker stands back up and begins to read from the piece of paper.*

Dear Pride of Toyota,

They keep saying that neither of you are coming back but we know that that is not true. You are just on holiday. We hope you are really enjoying it wherever you are but we hope that you will be back soon as we need help…

There are so many bad men after us. Big Dave has the big shiny belt despite us beating him a hundred million, bajillion times; Gordito has begun to cheat to win; Baez keeps interfering in our matches and now is not Baez anymore; Titus has taken to stealing and now even guys we have never faced like Sammy Smith are looking to hurt us. Even big scary Ty Burna has gathered some big scary men around him for protection…

Please, please, please come back! We will give you all the sugar you can eat and even our autographed Mila Kunis DVD collection!

Your pals,
Barbosa

Manic: We think it sounds rather nice.

The Smoker: It sounds like the wailings of a scared little girl. Are we a little girl?

Manic: No…

The Smoker: Good, now go back to playing with your little dolls.

Manic: We still think it looks good…

The Smoker: Ww will admit that we were surprised that you could even use a computer… God knows you have trouble even working a light switch. We even found ourselves locked inside a car once…

Manic: How else do we pleasure ourselves during our shift?

The Smoker: Forget we asked…

Manic: The interweb is a great place to watch exciting movies.

The Smoker: Stop right now…

Manic: We would never have been able to follow Mila Kunis' career so closely if we did not have access to the interwebs.

The Smoker: That's… not as bad as we thought… only likely to induce vomiting rather than revulsion...

Manic: Why? What did you think we meant?

The Smoker: Nevermind. Now, go back to playing with yourse... your dolls.

*The Smoker quickly changes the subject by turning to the Depressive with the same kind of outrage with which he burst into the room.*

The Smoker: AND YOU…

Why did we not cash in last week on Meltdown? Ty and his cronies massacred Big Dave, serving him up on a platter for us to beat him for the second time in five minutes… It was the perfect opportunity!

*Unlike the Manic, the Depressive calmly puts his book down on the table and makes direct eye contact with the Smoker.*

Depressive: It is clear to see that over a year of trying to comprehend proper strategy has yet to rub off on all our facets…

The Smoker: We have been questioning our strategy for weeks now…

Depressive: So we really do have to spell it out for ourselves as usual?

The Smoker: It would appear so…

Depressive: The reason why we did not cash in on Big Dave on Meltdown is because there were too many obstacles in the way. Dave himself may have been beaten into oblivion but do we really think the Ty Burna was just going to allow us to march back out there and take advantage of his dirty work? Our alliance ended the second the bell rang to signal our victory. Had we stormed back to the ring to cash in, Ty and his acolytes will have taken great exception to what they would have seen as our interference in his plan; a plan that more than likely sees him retake the World Heavyweight Title from Big Dave, avenging his defeats at the same time. It would not surprise us if the Chaotic Lord planned to prevent Gordito from winning at All or Nothing too.

No, we were better to stay out of that situation for fear of us wasting our hard earned briefcase running into a game with too many players on the opposing side.

*The Smoker takes this all in, contemplating the Depressive's evaluation but before he can answer, the Manic butts in.*

Manic: That is why we wrote the letter! We need help from Pride of Toyota!

*The Smoker slams his fist down on the poker table and points an angry finger directly in the cowering Manic's face.*

The Smoker: One more word and we will shove your Wasabi Toyota right up your Munter Havitoff!

*The Smoker turns his attention back to the Depressive.*

The Smoker: Speaking of All or Nothing, why in the name of all that is holy did we accept a match with Titus? We have a cash in to stay fresh for.

Depressive: Aside from the fact that accepting that rematch with Titus was a collective decision, accepted by all?

Manic: Yeah, we said "That is fine by us."

*Remembering that they all had agreed to the match, the Smoker has no come back, even to the Manic's input.*

Depressive: Well, there is more to it than simply a match to tide us over until we cash in. As we said at the time of acceptance, " we will need something to do until the World Title match" and not just to keep us physically fit but also to make it seem less likely to the champion that we will cash in. How would it look to Big Dave or Gordito if the KFAD contract holder did not have a match on the upcoming PPV? They would be more than wary that we would be about to cash in and might take precautions.

The Smoker: What sort of precautions?

Manic: We hear that Saboteur is a mercenary. Maybe they could hire him as protection?

Depressive: As stupid as that sounds, it is the kind of thing we want to avoid happening. As with Ty and the Apostles this passed week, we want as few people as possible on the scene when we cash in all the while giving the champion as little time as possible to prepare.

*Having taken this in, the Smoker thinks to himself and all of a sudden jumps up in a display of positive emotion that he is not used to exhibiting.*

The Smoker: So what about cashing in this week on Meltdown?

Big Dave will still be hurting from the beatdown he received from Ty and, like this nincompoop's ridiculous letter says, we defeated him for what must be the bajillionth time last week…

Manic: Hundred million, bajillionth time.

The Smoker: Better still, we do not wrestle until the next day so we will be fresh and Constantine could easily give Big Dave a long, hard match up.

Depressive: Absolutely not.

*The Smoker looks positively hurt by the abrupt shooting down of what he thought was a masterplan.*

The Smoker: Why not?

Depressive: If we were to win the title next week, we would potentially face three title defences in the space of a week - against Titus, who we are already contracted to face at All Or Nothing; Gordito, who has a guaranteed match against the champion on the same PPV and should we come through that ordeal as champion, Big Dave would no doubt invoke his rematch the very next Meltdown or Ascension all with the looming shadow of Ty Burna hanging ominously above us.

The Smoker: We can beat them both on the same night! And then deal with Big Dave the next night! We have proven time and again that none of them are our equal!

Depressive: If only that bravado was convertible into something tangibly useful when it comes to in-ring performance and stamina… No, we will continue to bide our time and in the meanwhile focus on our rematch with Titus and first our meeting with Sam Smith on Ascension.

The Smoker: What is the point of putting any focus on that moron? Sam Smith only thought he was hearing voices, struggling with inner demons. He only thinks he understands mental and physical torture.

Manic: But his own brother hates him…

The Smoker: Everyone hates everyone. The sooner people come to accept that the better.

Manic: We do not hate Hunt.

The Smoker: We should. What did he ever do for us? Befriend a side of us with promises of fun and games but at the time schemed to supplant us as the rightful challenger and eventual WZCW champion.

Manic: Were we not doing the same scheming?

*This stops the Smoker's tirade in its tracks.*

The Smoker: Err… yes, but that is not the point. He tried to use us. Do you really think that he loved Mila Kunis as much as he said he did?

Manic: Well, he did watch watch Black Swan 347 times over the course of six months and he invited Mila to attend the WZCW ball as his date…

*Seeing as how he is not getting anywhere, the Smoker quickly changes the subject.*

The Smoker: And what about Toyota? He was given the chance to stand by our side as we took control of WZCW. And yet, scared by the potential we would have unleashed in him, he took off never to be seen or heard from again.

Manic: He will be back…

The Smoker: No, he will not and the sooner you accept that and that we cannot trust anyone in WZCW the better. At least that is one thing that Sam Smith has right… trust is a weakness.

*The Depressive, who has changing his reading material from Suetonius to a book on Operation Barbarossa, interjects in the conversation as it returns to the more pressing issue of Barbosa's next opponent.*

Depressive: Sam Smith may have nothing to do with where we are headed in the future but for right now he is in our direct line of advance and if we were to underestimate someone who has possession of one of WZCW's single titles and defended it against numerous top quality contenders then someone who should be a mere speed bump could turn into a diversion or a complete road block. Mr Smith has proven that he has a lot of pent up anger and such a competitor could easily prove injurious to our cause both strategically and even physically.

With that, we will have no more talk of how many times we have beaten Big Dave or Gordito; how the Man Who Once Was Baez is out to get us; how Titus is using us to get back to the top or how Ty Burna is this big scary man with a bunch of demons doing his dirty work.

The focus is on the Elite X Champion.

The Smoker: But…

Depressive: No "buts."

*The Depressive rises from his chair and walks towards the door.*

Depressive: Now, we have some important planning to do…

 

[The Crock]

Constantine is first to his feet, but is visibly exhausted from his return match so far. Titus sees Johns dazed stare and climbs onto the turnbuckle. He leaps with a Clothesline. Constantine sees this, grabs Titus in mid air, Axis of Evil. It throws them right near Constantine’s corner as Titus rolls out of the ring. Constantine reaches for his partner, but Smith grabs Constantine and turns him around. Smith kicks him in the gut and lifts him up for Final Judgment. As he does Holmes tags the foot. Smith hits the move and goes for the pin. The ref tells him that’s not the legal man. Holmes runs in from behind, hitting a Doublehand Axle to the back of the head of Smith. Holmes stands over top of Smith and continues to punch at the back of the head. The ref counts up, but Holmes stops himself soon after and locks in Aristocracy Reigns! Holmes with a crazed look on his face. Smith is very out of it from the blows to the head and soon moves his hand slightly back and forth tapping.

The screen cuts from that to a much younger Sam Smith. Smith is wrestling at what appears to be a wrestling school. An older man, in early fifties, is critiquing Smith and his training partner as they feverishly roll around on the canvas.

Smith applies a submission, prompting a tap out from his opponent, but the coach is not happy.

What does it mean when your opponent taps out, Sam?

It means you win. It means you got the better of him, that you got the upper hand.

No, Sam. It means that you broke him, that you took what little will he had and claimed it as your own. To tap out is one of the most demeaning things possible, in this business...

The scene cuts again to a modern-day Sam Smith, sitting, with his legs crossed, in the center of a wrestling ring, in the very same wrestling gym from years before.

This is where it all started. This was the most important step of my career, well, up until I joined WZCW.

No wrestler can roll out and be a champion from day one. It takes hard work and dedication -- I learn that here, first hand. One of the first things we learned was the art and the practicality of a submission hold... that's why it pains me so much that I had to tap out last week. Steven Holmes and John Constantine, regardless of the fact that have beaten them both, made me theirs. I was at their mercy. I let a lot of people down, myself included, but especially Titus. The thing is, there is a valuable lesson learned in defeat. I didn't lose, I only learned where my limitations were, so I could push them even farther.

Holmes and Constantine are gunning for my Elite X Championship and there is NOTHING I love more than defending it. When I won this title, I took on the burden of being the best champion anybody had ever seen and as the second-longest reigning Elite X Champion ever, I still have a lot more to gain. I want to get my hands on Holmes and Constantine, but only to make an example of them once more. They'll do more than enough to destroy themselves though.

It's obvious to me that one of them is going to get screwed. What happens when they realize they might have to face each other? What if we have a triple threat? They can try get rid of me, but there has to be a winner and that can't happen unless they go at each other.

I'm more than ready for them, I want all the challenges I can get.

Smith stands up and begins walking around the ring, remembering all the time he spent there.

Now, this week, I have to face Barbosa. Make no bones about it, this will be a huge test... One that I can overcome. Barbosa and I came into WZCW together. I remember our first day well, we debuted at Meltdown 45 in a contract battle royal, both losing to Michael Winters, the man I eventually beat for this Elite X Championship. From there on out, we took two separate paths, with Barbosa even challenging for the World Heavyweight Championship, but eventually we were going to have to face off.

Barbosa, by beating you, I can take a step towards the World Championship, eventually. I've had many a quality win in WZCW, but I would certainly love to add your name to my mantle, but I'm sure you would love to do the same to me. A win over me can propel you up the World Title rankings, but also put you into contention for my Elite X Championship.

I won't let that happen, I won't lose again. I won't allow myself to tap out or to be pinned. You're my opponent, but you just happened to catch me at the worst possible time. I'm going to make an example out of you for Constantine and Holmes to see.

Nothing personal, Barbosa... you're just in my way.