July 1st, 2020
AnteUp Academy
Santa Barbera, CA
If David Helms has been told several years ago that someday he would end up calling Lucas Knight a friend, he wouldn’t have just laughed in the face of whoever made such a ridiculous claim, but would no doubt have had a few choice words on just what that person could do to themselves too. The hatred those two had for one another wasn’t just for show, David and Lucas were true rivals in every sense of the word and that rivalry wasn’t just competitive but hostile with it; during their active years in SCW, the pair had shown no hesitation in making it abundantly clear how they felt on the matter, preferring to kick each other in the face during a show than kick back a couple beers after it. But despite everything that had happened over the years, the rivalries, the brutal matches and backstage attacks. Despite the fact that they had argued over women not once but twice... the fact remained, that despite what the David of two thousand ten would have refuted adamantly, the two men really did have a connection that would end up being stronger than either could have predicted. And in a way, David knew he shouldn’t have been all that surprised by how things turned out, he shouldn’t have been surprised at all that he and Lucas would end up friends, because time had a habit of changing a lot of things, didn’t it? It healed wounds, it changed perspectives. It could paint a picture either more rosy or more damning than reality had ever been… and with the benefit of hindsight, which they say is twenty twenty for a reason, David had to admit that maybe he and Lucas had more in common than either would have dared to admit back in the day. If he and Lucas weren’t two sides of the same coin, then they were both featured on the reverse of extremely similar coinage. A dollar coin and a pound coin maybe… though with the current exchange rate, Dave wouldn’t have liked that analogy, because there was no way in hell he would want to concede that Lucas was worth more than he was, rivals or friends. Ego is a dangerous thing.
The years that followed both men stepping away from the ring had changed things for the better though. The old wars between The Brotherhood and Infamous, they became memories and with that transition, they also became commonalities between the two men. They found it easier to reminisce over what had happened than hold grudges over it, and with all the connections the two shared now, maybe that was only natural? Had it been their competitive edge that kept them at odds for all those years? It was possible. There was no denying that Dave and Lucas had never really seen eye to eye on their approach to the business, with Dave towing a much straighter line than Lucas had ever undertaken, but in another time, in another company, the two could have been on the same side rather than across the ring and that grew more evident the longer that both men spent away from the ring.
It never failed to give David a good chuckle either, how funny life can turn out. Given the hatred these two had had for one another for years, how ironic was it that they ended up family? The pair already joked about the fact that the internet was obsessed with the notion of them being eskimo brothers, but now they were related through marriage too, which caused quite some discussion on twitter and in the dirt sheets when it had first happened, though obviously that was all old news now. Life was just funny like that, it had lots of twists and turns and like to throw people for a loop at the best of times… but in truth, David was good with how things turned out. Lucas may have been his biggest rival once upon a time, but now he was one of the bro’s as New Jersey parlance would describe it, and not only that, they were going to be business partners too. That had been one hell of a weird conversation. The passing of Ricky Octavius had hit David as hard as anyone, harder than most even thanks to the connection the two had shared during Ricky’s training, and when he and Lucas had met at The Black Dahlia for a drink, to just get away from things for a while, David had expected for the two old hands to set the world to rights while probably getting progressively more inebriated as the afternoon passed… what he hadn’t expected was for the pair to end up hatching plans to not just start a business together, taking advantage of his brother’s connections in the industry but many, many other ideas. The rum company was one that had stuck though, even if David thought everything else was drunken rambling, and Jason had already started to make a few calls and put the wheels in motion for the two men, who had discussed names and concepts over the days that followed. David hadn’t been ready for what else was to come though, that was for sure…
It had been a monday like any other, with David’s morning routine of breakfast and a quick run before making the trip out to Santa Barbara for the first class of the day at AnteUp. He was in the smaller of the two rings with a couple of the students when Lucas first walked through the door, a gym bag in hand, and David had noticed the excited chatter of the other students in the room before he had noticed Lucas’ arrival, his back to the door as he helped the two students that were practicing in front of him. “Tighten up the arms bro, you’re giving Daryl too much wriggle room,” David instructed as the slightly taller of the two students locked up the second from behind. It was too late though, because as David predicted, the smaller student - Daryl - managed to wriggle out of the hold and come up behind the bigger of the two, taking him down with a sweep kick to the back of the legs. “Alright, time,” David called, holding out a hand to the kid that was now eating canvas. “You’ve got the fundamentals kiddo, but you need to watch that grip, okay?” he asked as he pulled the kid up to his feet and the kid nodded in return. “Daryl had way too much room then, Todd. You need to make sure there’s zero distance between the two of you as you lock the fingers, or you’re making it way too easy for your opponents to slip out and you know what happens then, you just experienced it. Alright, next two, in you get.” Dave instructed as Daryl and Todd started to climb out of the ring and two women started to enter.
“Maybe I should get in there mate, and we can show them how it’s supposed to be done,” Lucas called out from the doorway, where he was standing watching what was going on in the ring. David turned to look in the direction of the door and spotted Lucas for the first time, and he couldn’t help but roll his eyes at the brash Londonder but he had a grin on his face all the same. “Unless you’re worried about me showing you up in front of your students of course… can’t say I blame you mate, you always was one step behind me when we were still active…” Lucas teased, a smirk sitting on his face as he pushed away from the frame of the door that he had been leaning on to walk towards the students surrounding the ring.
“The last time we went head to head bro, I found myself a wife,” David said, firing shots back at Lucas that he knew were probably below the belt but the best banter usually was. Unfortunately, Lucas was on form too.
The Brit nodded. “Yeah, you did bruv,” he said, still grinning. That wasn’t good, David was now worrying. “Shame I found her first mind, but great job nonetheless…”
David could almost hear the students not ohing and oohing as that one hit home. But he laughed. “Kids, it’s quite fortunate that Lucas is here right now, because it means I can teach a very important lesson,” David said turning back to the students that were gathered around the ring. “Take a good look at this asshole, guys, a very good look… this is everything I want you not to do when you begin to make your way in the business, okay? At every step of the way, whenever you’re faced with a challenge or a problem, I want you to ask one simple question: What Would Lucas Do. Then do the opposite okay?” he said, laughing as Lucas looked thoughtful.
“That’d make a pretty good t-shirt; ‘What Would Lucas Do’ across the front…” Lucas said as Dave stepped through the ropes and dropped down to the floor before he and Lucas slapped hands. “Got a minute?”
“Yeah sure, one sec,” Davd replied, before turning to look around the ring. He finally spotted who he was looking for and raised a hand to his mouth to give his voice a little extra volume. “HEY MATTY!” he called out and the Bostonian, Matty Stone, looked over immediately. “Cover for me a second, yeah?” David asked and Matty simply nodded before making his way toward the ring. “We can use the office… guys, Matty will keep the routine running for a minute while I talk to Lucas here, and then maybe he’ll give you guys a few minutes of his time after for his rude interruption, right bro?” David asked and Lucas shrugged.
“Don’t see why not,” he agreed before Dave led the way to the stairs that would take them onto the upper mezzanine where the circuit training and weight equipment was.
“Surprised to see you up here bro,” David said as they made their way across the landing towards the office and headed inside; normally he would have checked it was empty but he knew Matty was downstairs already and Johnny was out negotiating a deal for some new training equipment to replace some of their older stock and Tommy had taken the day off for reasons known only to himself. “Bit of a trek up from Santa Monica, you know?”
“Tell me about it mate, you two twats could have set up shop a little closer to the city!” Lucas replied as Dave walked around to his chair behind one of the desks and Lucas sat down in the chair that was normally occupied by Tommy when he was in.
“Used to be more convenient when I lived out here,” Dave admitted. “Tommy still does though, and Matty’s in my old place. Only got myself to blame really, for moving up in the hills.”
“Yeah well, I won’t be making it a habit to come out here, I think I can guarantee you that much,” Lucas said with a laugh.
“Ah man, you’re killing me; I thought you’d come looking for a job, we need a new janitor too,” David said with a smirk and Lucas flipped him the v’s, his wittiest level of retort. “So what does bring you up here bro, come to use the facilities?” David had noticed the bag that Lucas had brought with him and had jumped to the most obvious conclusion.
“Nah mate, got a place I use a little closer to home for that already,” Lucas said, sitting back in his chair. “Nice to know the offers there, but I’m not looking to work out and I’m not wanting to look for work either… been doing some thinking.”
“You wanna be careful dude, you’ll hurt yourself if you keep that up,” David joked, as he reached under the desk to open the mini fridge, grabbing a bottle of water. He offered it to Lucas and the Londoner took it before David pulled out a second for himself. “Go on then, I’ll bite; been doing some thinking about what?” Dave asked, once he was sat comfortably again.
“About what we were talking about last week. This business and everything. I know we was drunk, but I can’t shake a lot of what we talked about,” Lucas said, twisting the cap from his bottle to remove it. “The more I think about it, the more I wonder if we was onto something.”
“You’ve lost me bro,” David admitted, screwing the cap back onto his bottle after taking a drink. “We talked about a lot of stuff that day, but the only shit I really remember was talking about was us talking to some of those distilleries about making some liquor…”
Lucas chuckled. “I thought you were meant to be a pretty strong drinker bruv,” he said with another laugh. “But I guess I was wrong if that’s all you remember... “
“Okay, what am I missing then?” David asked, now genuinely curious about what it was that Lucas remembered and he didn’t from that day.
“Fucking hell mate, you losing your memmory in your old age?” Lucas asked with a smirk.
David quirked a brow. “You realise you’re only a couple years younger than I am so you’re basically calling yourself old too, right?” he asked with a smirk.
Lucas waved the comment away with a flick of his hand. “I’ve taken less chair shots to the head than you mate. Besides, a couple of years can make all the difference; I’m not the one who turns forty next year, am I?” he explained with a smug grin on his face and this time it was Dave’s turn to flip him the bird, which only drew another laugh from Lucas.
“Alright, so enlighten me then,” David said, as he sat back in his chair and folded his arms behind his head. “What the fuck did we talk about that actually gave you the motivation to rub those last two braincells of yours together and start thinking about things?” he asked, completely without shame at the cheap shot he’d just taken but Lucas let that one slide, instead started to explain what David had apparently missed from a week earlier.
23rd June, 2019
Black Dahlia bar
West Hollywood, CA
“I’m telling you mate, full of cunts,” Lucas said as he grabbed the rum bottle from the table; what was supposed to be a few drinks just to get out of the house and away from the things that were eating away at the pair of them had turned into a full blown drinking session where they had already made their way through one bottle already and were a good third of the way into their second. “I know I did some questionable shit back in the day, but I don’t think my ego was ever as wild as it is with some of these arseholes!”
“I dunno,” David said, holding his tumbler up with one hand while pointing at Lucas with the other, his finger waving wildly around in circles as he tried to concentrate on pointing straight at him. “You did some… questionable shhhhit over the years bro… I should know, a good deal of it was at me…”
Lucas smirked. “Guilty as charged,” Lucas said holding his free hand up defensively before he uncorked the bottle and poured some more of the golden liquid into his own glass. “But you ain’t always been a saint either bruv, you gotta admit that…” he added as he tried his best not to slosh the liquid out of the glass. “We’ve both been pretty fucking arrogant over the years… learned from us mistakes though, didn’t we? Not like some of these crackmonkeys that’re around now…”
David laughed. “I’ve never set a foot wrong in my life Lucas, you know that,” he lied through his back teeth before laughing again. “Okay, maybe one or two… but I know what you mean, we, we didn’t… what we’ve done, none of it compares… fuck ‘em, that’s what I say.”
“Fuck ‘em!” Lucas agreed, holding his glass up now that he’d refilled, and David clinked his own glass against it before they both took another drink. “It’s true though. We’ve done some shit over the years, but the arrogance some of these pricks show these days? The entitlement? It beggars belief, it really does… and every cunt thinks they’re original, that’s what gets my goat; they think they’re the first to do stuff, that no one’s had the same idea until them, it’s all a fucking joke…”
“You know dude, people used to say I swore too much, but when you’ve had a few you make me look like a choir boy,” David joked as he put his glass down and sat back in his seat, chuckling to himself.
“Yeah well, you was a choir boy for most of your career, weren’t ya? Or a saint, or last shadow of fuck knows what,” Lucas said with a smirk. “Mr. Goody Two Shoes you were, all that righteous fury and what not. Used to make me sick back in the day, but now I see people like Sienna and Bree, even Chris and how far he’s fallen since sticking his dick in crazy, and I have to wonder if you didn’t have the right idea all along…”
“It’s easier being an asshole though,” David said, nodding his head. He wished he didn’t, it quickly started to spin. “I remember Pinnacle, how much easier it was being a douche canoe. Doing what you want because you want to it allllllways easier than not doing it because it’s wrong. Not doing stuff makes like sooo much harder!”
“Unless the stuff is going to work, because not going is always gonna be easier than going,” Lucas said, grinning again.
“Well shit, you’ve got me there,” David said. “Makes it harder affording to live though?”
“Fair point well made bruv,” Lucas said, pointing at David and nodding. “Unless you’ve already made your money and don’t need it anymore anyway…”
“Another fair point… but if it’s only about the money then I’d question why you’re doing it anyway,” David told him, sitting forward and grabbing his glass again. “Okay, so making bank is great, won’t deny it. It means we can sit here in our retirement, drinking stuff like this,” he said, giving the glass a small shake, “and talk about past glories and shit… but if you’re just starting out or you’re a few years in and you’re only doing it for the money, then you should be thinking about your priorities in life…”
“When you’re right you’re right,” Lucas said before draining his glass and grabbing the bottle to pour himself another. “Tell you something though mate, I’d love to be starting over again, knowing what I know now…” he went on, reaching over to top David’s glass up too. “Imagine having all this knowledge when we were just getting started. Knowing when to hold ‘em and when to fold ‘em.”
“The thing I’d want to tell myself most is to make the most of every moment…” David confessed, nodding at Lucas in thanks for the top up. “I miss it dude, way more than I ever thought I would… and when I think back on how much I took for granted? I could kick myself.”
“I’ll do it for you if you want, wouldn’t be the first time I’ve kicked you in the face,” Lucas offered, grinning as he winked at the New Jersey native. “I know what you mean though, mate. The business might have put us through the ringer at times, but it’s strange how you miss it when you’ve stepped away…”
“There’s nothing stopping you going back though,” Dave pointed out as Lucas took another sip of his rum. “You’re not the one who did the elaborate retirement tour, who made promises. You just quit. It’s not the same thing. You could call Sasha right now and there’d be a contract ready for you to sign tomorrow.”
“Probably, but I bet the same would be true for you as well, in spite of the retirement run and the whole getting a pay per view named after you and stuff,” Lucas countered.
David thought about it before shrugging. “Probably. Wouldn’t make it right though, would it?” he argued, shaking his head. “I made a promise to people. Not just the fans either, but to family. I can’t break that.”
“Dave, the fans would go mental if you came out of retirement, don’t give me that bollocks,” Lucas told him, clearly not taking any of David’s crap. “You know for a fact that you had those arseholes eating out of your hand… it’s one of the things about you that used to piss me off so much! As for your family, your kid’s growing up, he’s got school. Spends half his time with Kath anyway. Regan is still on the road and I’m sure she’d love having her husband back with her, Jenni has EMERGE and Aaron has his own family… and I dunno the last time your knob of a brother was even this side of the country, he’s busy fucking two birds and not getting in trouble for it, so what you holding out for really?”
David tried to argue back, tried to come up with something witty to throw back at him, but every time he opened his mouth he shit it again before anything came to mind. It happened several times before he finally flipped it around on Lucas. “What’s your excuse then?’ he asked, looking to switch the focus from himself to Lucas. “You might not buy my reasons bro, but at least I have em. You though, you’re just… well, you’re just sitting on your ass instead of getting back in the ring, you lazy fuck!”
Lucas chuckled. “I’ve tried a couple places since leaving SCW mate, you know that,” he said, ignoring the insult. “Nothing clicked though, ‘cause it ain’t SCW I guess? Some places turn into home, you know how it is. And I’m not sure I’d be a good fit in SCW anymore bruv. Place’s moved on ain’t it.”
“Oh fuck you!” Dave said, waving the comment away. “You’re telling me you don’t think this version of SCW is in need of an asshole who calls a spade a spade and doesn’t take any shit? People like Bree, like Sienna, Zoe even… you don’t think that what really need it someone who’ll just tell em to shut the fuck up?! You’re insane.”
“Oh yeah, I’m sure that’ll go well, me standing in front of the whole of the Beauty Factory and raising the middle finger at ‘em, all on my own!” He said with much sarcasm dripping from his voice that even an average idiot could pick up the intentions behind the Brit’s words. “You remember what that cunt Aiken had Blitzkrieg do to me, right? Imagine a whole group doing that shit at the same time!”
“Someone should,” David said, sighing.
“What, kick my arse?” Lucas asked, smirking, and David grinned.
“That too,” David agreed, still grinning before it faded and he turned serious. The alcohol wasn’t helping, it was making him act like the conversation was far more serious than it normally would be. “But I mean someone needs to stand up to these fucks and tell em to shut the fuck up. Why not you? I know your bro Ryan is the one who calls himself the gob shit or whatever, but you’re pretty fucking mouthy yourself dude, and we both know that you’ve got what it takes inside a ring. Former world champ, in that period of time too! That’s nothing to sniff at…”
Lucas thought for a moment, wondering if David actually had a point or whether it was the alcohol doing the thinking for him. It was probably both, he eventually decided. “So let’s do it mate,” he finally said. “Let’s make our return and do it together, the most unlikely team in the world, returning to slap a few gobby cunts around a bit and show em that they ain’t as big as they think they are!”
Dave looked at Lucas for a hard couple of seconds before shaking his head. “Yeah right,” David said sarcastically. “The fans may forgive me, but you think the roster is gonna? Bullshit. They’d give me hell after the big song and dance I made about my retirement! Besides, Regan would hate me coming back, you know she would…”
“I don’t think she would,” Lucas argued, but changed tact. “But maybe she doesn’t have to know? I mean, this is pro-wrestling mate, anything’s possible ain’t it?”
David quirked his brow at Lucas, he may as well have been talking another language at this point. “Yeah, we can just call ourselves Dorian Helms and Lionel Knight, I’m sure nobody is gonna figure that ruse out!” he said as he started laughing. “Think you should knock it off with the rum bro, it’s messing with your head…”
Lucas sat forward and slid the tumbler of rum aside, leaning on the edge of the table. “Where there’s a will there’s a way, bruv!” Lucas said in earnest. “I’m being serious Dave, what if we come up with a way where nobody has to know it’s us?”
David looked at Lucas for several seconds before finally bursting out laughing. “Tell you what bro; you come up with a way for me to climb back in the ring without my own wife recognising me and you’ve got a deal,” he said, still chuckling to himself as he stood up. “I need to hit the head… when I come back I think I’d better sort out some coffee for us both,” he added as he stepped away from the table, still chuckling to himself as he headed for the men’s room, shaking his head. Drunk Lucas was entertaining, that much was definitely true.
July 1st, 2020
AnteUp Academy
Santa Barbera, CA
“And so, voila, here I am,” Lucas said as he finished explaining their conversation, hoping that him going over it again would spark something in David’s head and he’d remember the conversation. “You told me to find a way for us to get back in the ring without Regan knowing it was you, and I’ve duly delivered mate!”
David looked at Lucas with a mixture of disbelief and confusion. On the one hand he couldn’t believe that, despite all the rum they had consumed that night, Lucas could remember anything they talked about let alone in so much detail. At the same time, he had no idea what the fuck Lucas was talking about when he made the claim he had duly delivered. “Alright, it’s official; you’re crazy,” David said, sitting up straight again with his hands on the edge of the desk. “We were drunk, bro. It was just drunk guys bullshitting and talking about pipe dreams. How the he’ll do you even remember what we talked about anyway?!”
“May have lost my memories in the past may, but the old head is as good as ever these days,” Lucas told him as he lifted a finger up to tap himself in the temple. “Besides sunshine, you’re the one that said if I found a way of doing it where Regan didn’t have to know, you’d do it. A promise is a promise Dave, wouldn’t want people thinking you went around breaking promises, would you?”
“I WAS DRUNK!” David shouted before realising how loud he was and with a quick glance through the glass of the door to check nobody was out on the mezzanine he turned back to Lucas. “We were wasted. People say and do some dumb shit when wasted! I mean, I slept with Zoe when I was drunk, doesn’t that say everything there is to say?!”
Lucas laughed, a deep belly laugh too, his eyes creasing up at the corners. “Think that’s a mistake we’ve both made mate, can’t argue there,” he told David as the laughing subsided. “But that’s in the past and it led us to where we are now, so worth it ain’t it? This though. This is fresh! And I did what you said, so…”
“The fuck do you mean you did what I said?” David asked, no idea what the hell was going on at this point. “Lucas, we were drunk! If I’d told you to steal a car and drive it into Zoe and Ravyn’s house, would you-... okay, bad example,” he said as he saw the look on Lucas’ face. “The point is, we were bullshitting bro, just fucking around!”
Lucas shook his head. “First of mate, please don’t use me, you and fucking in the same sentence okay? You’re not my type,” he told David and Dave went to speak but Lucas held up a finger to silence him. “Joking aside though, just hear me out okay? You may have been drunk when you said you were in if I could think of a way of doing it without people knowing it was us, but I also heard what you said about how much you missed it every blood day. Meant what I said mate, those fans would cream in their knickers if you made your return, and I’d like to think they would for me too. And aside from that, I’m tired of seeing what a state this fucking business is in. Not just the cunts in SCW talking shite every week but look at Emerge. You can’t be happy that Silas is a shareholder in the place and I’m sure as fuck not happy seeing that pasty bastard Aiken back in the business again! Not much we can do about Emerge, but SCW is a different thing entirely ain’t it?!” he asked, grabbing his gym bag before tossing it on the table.
“Do I even want to know what’s in there?” David asked as he looked at the bag. Lucas simply shrugged.
“Depends if you’re gonna actually listen for a change or just keep telling me that I’m crazy or that it ain’t possible,” Lucas told him, before pushing the bag towards David.
David eyed the bag skeptically, his suspicion doing battle with his curiosity about what could possibly be inside before the killer of cats got the better of him and he pulled the bag towards himself and started to open the zip. “This is your solution?!” he asked as he pulled out what was clearly a mexican lucha libre mask. “Dunno if you paid attention bro, but I did this already at the last End Of Year show, wrestling under a mask…”
“But this is different,” Lucas told him, motioning to the bag for him to continue. David put the mask - a skull motif on the front - to one side and pulled out a second mask, much more elaborate than the first, with what looked like horns attached to it, all scrunched up inside of the bag. “Okay, so let’s hear it…”
“Well, I think the masks are pretty self explanatory to be honest,” Lucas told him as David pulled more items from the bag. Wrestling gear still in clear plastic bags, unopened. A body suit that matched each mask in colour or theme, glothes, kick pads, everything bar boots. “But like I said mate, I’ve done a lot of thinking. Picked these up from a woman who makes gear in Long Beach, through an assumed name obviously. Express service, cash speaks volumes, you know how it is.”
“You went out of your way to get this stuff made just to try and convince me to do something I said I’d do when drunk?!” David asked in astonishment, but Lucas simply shrugged.
“Can’t make a difference if you don’t get involved mate,” Lucas told him. “What good is it sitting back and setting the world to rights over a drink then going back to letting it happen afterwards?”
“I don’t think crime is all that great, bro, but I’m not gonna dress up as Batman and become a vigilante!” David told him, which left Lucas smirking again. “I’m not joking bro!”
“I know mate, that’s why it’s so funny…” Lucas said, trying not to laugh. “But think about it. We come up with some crazy backstory, wrestle under the masks and see what we can do. If it doesn’t take off, then so be it, but we tried, right?”
“And what if neither of us can hang anymore, huh? Have you thought about that?” David asked, looking for the pitfalls and obvious issues.
Lucas waved it away with a hand, like it wasn’t even a concern. “Like I said Dave, if it doesn’t take off then we just give it up as a bad job, but I’m pretty optimistic that neither of us have forgotten how to do what we do best after just a few short years mate,” he reasoned, and Dave had to admit that he was probably right about that one. It wasn’t exactly something you forgot, even if you slowed down with age. “And I know I’m probably jumping the gun a little given the fact I’m actually having to fucking convince you it’s a good idea, but… I’ve already spoken to Sasha.”
“You’ve done what?!” David asked in shock. How the hell had they got to here over a conversation while drunk?! “Dude, what the fuck?!”
“She said she can have a contract to us within hours if we actually tell her we’re serious about it,” Lucas informed him, and that caught Dave off guard.
He wasn’t expecting that, he figured Sasha would take some time to think about it, weigh up the pros and cons and figure out if she actually wanted a couple of ex-employees on the roster. “Really?” he asked, and Lucas nodded his head, confirming it.
“Said the board wouldn’t waste any time in giving approval,” he said, shrugging. “Guess SCW knows value for money when they see it. Just need to tell ‘em we’re legit and they’ll get everything drawn up. Think about that. I told Sasha D. that we were considering coming back, under masks, using assumed names and probably with some crackpot gimmick… and she said that the board wire have deals to us within hours. What’s that say to you, huh?”
“That Sasha might just be as crazy as you?” David suggested as he tossed the stuff back into the bag, piece by piece until it was all packed away. “You’re forgetting one important factor though, dude…”
Lucas gave Dave a curious look. “Oh yeah? What’s that then?”
“The minute either one of us speaks, the fans and - more importantly - our wives and family are gonna know it’s us,” David explained, pointing out the truly obvious flaw that Lucas should have seen coming a mile off.
It turned out he did. “That’s why we won’t be doing any talking, mate…” he explained, sitting back with a smug grin on his face. “Told you Dave, I’ve thought all this through. We’re wrestling under masks, right? Mexican wrestling masks to be specific… so the obvious solution is that we only speak Spanish and not a word of english. We pay some prick to pretend to have ‘discovered’ us or whatever, let them do the speaking for us, coached of course, and then go out and do our thing without anyone being any the wiser…”
“You really have thought this shit through, haven’t you?” Dave said in astonishment.
Lucas nodded. “Told you mate, the minute you said you’d do it if I found a way to keep it hush-hush, I figured fuck it, I’ll do just that. I’ve held up my end of the bargain, so how about you grow a pair and do the same, huh?” Lucas asked, mockingly.
But as he sat that, David realised he was starting to run out of excuses. He had a million and six reservations about why it was a dumb idea, why they were too old or that they would probably end up embarrassing themselves. But the more he thought about it, the more he realised Lucas was right about this being their chance to try and actually do something good for the business when it was evidently in need of help. If nothing else, their reappearance may help detract from all the shitty negative press it got thanks to certain members of the roster that kept dragging Supreme Championship Wrestling down to new depths of despair. “If we do this and it flops, I’m blaming you for everything,” David finally said, holding open the bag to look at the lucha gear again. “And if I end up divorced because Regan kicks me out, your paying for the hotel I have to sleep in too. Oh, and I get the skeleton costume. I don’t fancy dealing with scores of jokes about being ‘horny’ at every turn… those are my conditions. You good with that?”
Lucas didn’t waste a second in answer. “Hotel paid, I’m to blame and you’re the skeleton. Works for me… I wanted the horned mask anyway.”
David laughed before shaking his head. He couldn’t believe he was really about to agreed to this, yet there he was. Doing just that. “Alright douchebag, I’m in…”
“Excellent. Won’t say you’re not gonna regret it, because you probably will, but it should be fun at least…” Lucas said, which didn’t exactly help fill David with confidence given the reservations he was having… but he wasn’t getting any younger either, and there would come a time where he wasn’t able to do this anymore, no matter how much he may want to. And it was a chance, wasn’t it? A chance to do some good. To act on everything they’ve talked about over drinks that night, everything they saw as wrong with the business and where it was heading. Sasha D was doing her best to run the company, to help drive it forward for another generation and ensure it was still a market leader in an industry notorious for things growing stale quickly. After so many years of operation, it was impressive that SCW still led the way in professional wrestling and despite everything she was up against with people like Sienna and Syren making accusations of favoritism and having to contend with the ego’s running around unchecked in the company. It was a risk… but it was one that had to be worth taking, surely? “Okay, so next question… how you feel about coffee?”
