AS 48: Rush vs. Brad Bomb

[Ty Burna]

The recent tag team of Rush and Brad Bomb will implode on Ascension as the two KFAD competitors have a chance to settle their differences and figure out who has been the factor to their losing streak. This will not be a fan-favourite contest of the night as they will be looking to punish each other, so no technical wrestling should be expected... but who will be able to last the longest, the young gun or the experienced veteran?

Deadline is Tuesday, May 1st at 11:59 PM Central Time​

 

[Ty Burna]

Rush has been granted a 24 hour extension.

 

[newc868]

The sounds of shouting, punching and things being thrown against the wall can be heard from the other side of the WZCW locker room door. As the sounds persist, Rush soon enters the locker room and sees Brad Bomb fuming, punching the wall. Mr Baller’s bag is scattered across the floor, clothes ripped, phone destroyed.

“What the hell are doing in here?!” The low voice of Rush booms through the room.

“That stupid son of a bitch. He just couldn’t be a team player could he? He couldn’t just play along for one night and take the win. No! Instead it was all about him. He cost US that match. Me and you!” Brad’s shouts and screams don’t faze the big man or intimidate him in the slightest.

Rush notices Brad’s hand is bleeding as he paces around the room, still fuming and kicking pieces of Baller’s phone around.

“And? He got what was coming to him in the end didn’t he? Did you see what he went through? We may have lost that match but we can still hold our heads high?”

“It wasn’t enough! He needs to be broken in two. Snapped in half and left as a message as to what happens if you cross me and you!”

“So punching a wall until your hands bleed and possibly breaking a knuckle or two is the right thing to do is it? Causing yourself some harm helps send the message to him how? Screw me over and I’ll injure myself? Look Brad, you’re a good kid but you got a lot to learn. You’re what 6 foot 6, 260 pounds? You’re like me 30 years ago but if you keep this up, you’re never going to achieve a tenth the success I have.”

Brad’s rage is subsiding, no longer pacing around and kicking things. He stands motionless, his hands still clenched into fists, his eyes avert the gaze of Rush though.

The old man is right…

“Now come on, go get that hand cleaned up and get out of here before anyone else comes back.”

As Brad walks towards the sinks to wash his hands and survey the damage done, his face still scrunched up in anger, Rush kicks aside the remains of Baller’s possessions into a little pile for either Baller himself or the cleaner to attend to.

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“Do you know how much it hurts to punch a wall repeatedly?”

“No but that’s because I’m not an idiot.”

“Screw you Matt.”

“What? It’s true. Only an idiot would do that.” Brad glares over at his friend, eyes like piercing daggers.

“Only an idiot would let his friend stay in his Chicago apartment rent free. I mean if he had any common sense, he’d kick his friend out…” Brad’s glare breaks and instead he smiles in victory.

“Point taken. Anyway, I’m heading out to do the shopping. Did you want to come?”

“Nah, I can’t. Waiting on a phone call from Vance. At least I expect it to be Vance. I haven’t been on Meltdown since I declared war on all things Ty Burna so I doubt that will change anytime soon.”

“Ok cool. You want anything? I’ll be back in an hour or two.”

“Just the usual, cheers.”

As Matt leave Brad turns on the television to watch some TV, a bandage is seen wrapped round his fist, a short time later his phone rings, he quickly answers to hear Vance Bateman on the other end of the line.

“Hey Vance, how are things?”

“Hey Bomb. Could be better, could be worse. Anyway you know why I’m calling you, to tell you who you’re facing this week on Ascension.”

“Yeah I know – who is it then? Baller? Drake?”

“You’re on the right lines there Brad.”

“Tastic? Constantine?”

“Once again, you’re on the right lines,” Brad has a confused look on his face. He wonders who it could be but he can’t come up with an answer. He audibly hmms and ahhs down the line to Vance, who soon grows impatient, “It’s Rush, Brad. Your opponent this week is Rush.”

“Rush?! But, but I can’t face Rush!”

“You can and you will. Have a good week. I expect a good performance out of you. Now I gotta go make other phone calls, so bye.”

“But, but…”

Vance has already hung up on the other end of the line and Brad’s cries are met with nothing but dead air on the other side of the phone. He turns his TV off immediately and stands up, his face a mixture of confusion and sadness.

“I can’t, I can’t face Rush. We’ve got this thing going on, this alliance of ours. It’s done well for us so far sending a message to our opponents but it’s not like we’ve won anything, although last week we did gift them the win. Still, we’re a good tandem. I mean who could take us on? The only people we truly have to fear are each other.”

Brad has been pacing around his living room, when he suddenly stops and raises his head. His face shifts from concern to bemusement with himself. He walks over to a mirror and begins poking and observing himself.

“It is still me. I’m still the same guy that threw Baller into a ring post. The same guy that crushed Titus’ path back to glory in the King for a Day qualifier. Then why do I sound like a high school teenage girl who has been told to break up with her first boyfriend? This is pathetic. You’re a grown man who currently wears bandages from punching a wall and yet here you stand protesting whose ass you have to kick this week. What is wrong with you? What’s gotten into your head?”

Once again, something in Brad’s mind clicks and his head shoots back up, as if a lightbulb has sparked on above his head. He mutters a single word “Him.” Brad opens up a folder that was on his desk and pulls out a card.

“He has gotten into my head. He’s made me like this. Maybe that was his plan all along. Make me think we have some kind of partnership. Some kind of friendship… how could I be so naïve? Of course it was his plan all along. That rat bastard had me going for a while. Gain himself someone he can rely on to help him the Chamber and then bam! He turns his back on me in an instant to get the jump on me and take it for himself. Oh god, I was almost played for an utter fool. Here I stand screaming for people to appreciate the ways in which I’m trying to achieve my goals, saying how I need to become the man of WZCW and I’m worked over by a 50 year old man who hasn’t achieved a damn thing in his company other than be the first to have a heart attack in WZCW!”

“Maybe it comes with his age. Maybe he realises it’s his last chance to mean something. You said it before, he lacks stamina and he lacks that higher gear. The man is coming back from a heart attack so maybe his best chance came from having someone like me on his side. A young’un with the pace and stamina he lacks and the similar amount of power. I should have realised this sooner. His faking of chest pains to lure Tastic in was the first sign. I said it first – he has to change his ways. He has had to innovate new offense for himself and now deceit is in his repertoire! Oh you almost had me going didn’t you?”

“I was so foolish but now I see the light. I see how you play your games old man. Maybe one day you may truly want to pass down tips and tricks down to me but for now you are an enemy. An enemy that stands before me and my time and just like the five other men, you shall fall before me and beg for mercy as I wreck you.”

Brad rips up the card in two he was holding in his hand and the pieces fall onto his table, revealing it to be a Rush WZCW Trading card. Brad walks out of the living room as the scene fades to black.

 

[Muffin Top Merkley]

Most lives are touched by tragedy. By loss.

So many people feel such pain. Such despair that it makes it hard to hold on.

And quite often, they never see it coming.

Fate taking a blind turn and hitting them in the face.

Or in my case, the heart.

There is so much in life to drag people down and those that are weak don’t stand a chance.

Strength isn’t about size or muscle or looks, it’s about strategy. The long-term plan.

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Looking at Brad Bomb is more than looking into a mirror. It’s like looking into a time machine and seeing myself twenty years ago. He’s stronger than I am today. He’s faster than I am today. He possesses more agility than I am able to muster today. He is full of untapped potential.

Brad Bomb is everything that I was, and on paper, he is better than me.

But I am still the superior wrestler.

Where I lack in strength today, I make up in focus. Where I lack the speed, I make up in intensity. Where I lack in agility, I make up in experience.

Brad Bomb lacks the guidance that I can provide him and while we have never had a verbal conversation where he openly asks for my guidance and approval, his actions in our recent tag-team matches have spoken louder than his voice ever could. When I exposed the facade of the fans which was held together only by a thread and attacked Matt Tastic, I didn’t expect Brad to be behind me sending a similar message to Constantine. When I walked out on Baller’s lackluster performance last week, I didn’t anticipate Brad standing beside me.

The wrestling business is a completely different animal today than it was when I first started. A wrestler like Brad Bomb is a dime a dozen nowadays. The easiest way to be successful in this business is to be six foot, six inches and 261 pounds. Not like it was before, when success was often dictated by a wrestler’s toughness and actual ability inside of a wrestling ring. That is what makes me the best wrestler in WZCW. I never have depended on my looks or body, and I have proven what I am capable time and time again inside the squared circle by actually wrestling and breaking my opponent’s body by stretching them out and then beating them down.

Brad Bomb is smarter than most wrestlers today; he acknowledges the past and learns from it. He tries to benefit from walking down the road that I helped pave for his generation, while most spit on it by treating the ring like a big-top circus. Brad Bomb understands that in order to reach his full potential and peak at the top of WZCW, he needs me. He silently craves my advice and experience to mold him like the ball of clay that he is. If Brad Bomb wants to become a household name, he needs me.

And I need Brad Bomb.

I’m not naïve enough to think that my body is the same as it once was. Mentally, I remain youthful and strong, but my body has been broken. The benefits of having someone like Brad Bomb in my corner are immeasurable. My impediments are his strengths and where I excel, he falters. But together, my mind and experience, when combined with his body and eagerness, are overwhelming. There is no future, without the past. And I will exploit that to the end.

I will continue to craft Brad Bomb and my name will be associated with wrestling’s past, present and future. This week at Ascension, I help Brad reach his full potential with a lesson in humility. When I was Brad Bomb’s age, I was impatient and overzealous and nothing else mattered but the number of wins you had. But now, my experience has taught me that there is no shame in losing the battle, as long as you win the war.