We click play on the video and as we do, a small loading icon appears in the middle of the blank screen, turning slowly as the video buffers for a moment before fading out as the video finally begins to play. And now that it's playing, the first thing we see is none other than Supreme Championship Wrestling star and member of the Helms Dynasty himself, Jason Helms, standing in what we know to be the home-office inside of his home in Aurora, just outside of New Orleans. He stands in the middle of the shot wearing dark blue jeans and a light grey Handsome Devils Club t-shirt, no amusing joke or witty pun this time and he nods his head down at the shirt before brushing some lint from the front of it. After providing ample time for the viewers to take in the design, he opens his arms in a welcoming gesture to the fans who may be watching the video and as he does so, a date stamp appears in the bottom left hand corner of the screen which reads [02.24.2020]. Lowering his arms again, Jason slips his hands into the side pockets of his jeans before opening his mouth to address the camera. “Sup ass-clowns?” he asks with a grin as he settles back against the edge of his desk to lean against it, hands still in pockets. “So I know that I normally take the opportunity in these videos to have a little fun at someone’s expense, some sort of novelty t-shirt that pokes fun or makes a joke or something like that, and under normal circumstances today would be no different, but given this shirt just hit the shop on SCW Merch dot com, I figured I really should be doing my bit to get it out there. I mean, I do get a cut after all, so I’m really just protecting my own interests when you think about it, and as we all know, pro-wrestlers are some of the most self-centred people in existence so obviously I need to think about myself above all others, right?” he questions, continuing to grin as only Jason can, a mischievous smirk that is almost as synonymous with him as his extremely curly hair that is most definitely not a perm, thank you very much. “So if you’ll indulge me for just a moment longer while I say that you can buy this thing right now on SCW Merch dot com, and if you use code ‘Jason’ at checkout, you’ll get an extra ten percent off and I get a little bonus too, so make sure you do it, because daddy needs another new car!” he says, laughing before shaking his head. “Alright, shameless self-promotion out of the way, and first off, I guess we’ve gotta talk about Trio’s, huh? I wanna congratulate my brother right off the bat, along with his partners Ace Marshall and Glory Braddock. Once again the asshole older brother outshines me and leaves me for dust, but I’m not bitter, nope…” he says, shaking his head before smirking. “Seriously though, I’m proud of the asshole, and I know he wanted to prove a few things to himself now he’s back, so hopefully this goes some way towards doing that. As for me… well, if you measure success and failure by only taking wins and losses into consideration then I guess you’d say I’m a failure. That my team are all failures? But I’m not being that negative about all of this…”

“See, on paper, yeah, we lost. Can’t deny it, hold my hands up and admit defeat,” he says, actually holding his hands up in admission. “Let the record show that Kelsai Adamson-Mason, Jason Helms and Jake Starr lost in the opening round of the two thousand twenty SCW Trio’s tournament via pinfall after fuck knows how many minutes… seriously, someone go work that out and tweet it to me, I’d be interested in knowing, just not interested enough to actually figure it out myself for the sake of a throwaway comment in a promo video that goes up on youtube,” he admits, chuckling to himself a little as he slips his hands back into his pockets again. “But I’m not looking at this as a failure guys, because you know what? I’m fucking proud of what Team Kelsai did last weekend. Sure, we lost. It happens. We were up against three former World Champions, two of them an actual tag team, and let’s be honest, that team were the bookies favourite going into that tournament anyway, so like anyone was placing any bets on us doing the undoable and unimaginable anyway, right? But I’m proud of the performance we put on, and if that makes me a failure then here I stand, Jason Helms, happy to be a failure in twenty twenty! Because between you and me, Trio’s was as much about proving to myself that I could still be competitive as it was trying to grab one of those shiny contracts that my brother now has in his possession; I spent more than a year on the shelf, and there’s plenty of people that like to point out that athletes don’t come back the same after serious injuries like the one I had to my knee, so there was doubt there, I can admit that little nugget. I had some fun as ‘Trenta’ but nobody had any expectations on him, you know? Nobody expected a certain level of ability or expected him to do this or that in the ring, in the business. He was just some weird, coffee-obsessed Mexican as far as most people in SCW were concerned and they didn’t really pay him any attention, but me…” he pauses, cocking his head to one side. “Well, that’s fucking different isn’t it? Because I already set a standard, I already started showing a certain amount of potential, of promise, and now you ass clowns at home - much as I love you bro’s and sisters - you expect shit from me, and truth be told, I wasn’t sure whether I could live up to those expectations after the knee blowout. And it was a legitimate question, wasn’t it? Jason Helms, former United States champion, younger - and some would argue better looking - brother of a company legend… can he still go? Can he still handle the competition that Supreme Championship Wrestling provides?”

Jason goes quiet, looking almost pensive for a moment as he considers the question before finally reverting his eyes back to the camera pointed at him. “And to be honest,” he starts, shrugging. “Until Trio’s… I wasn’t actually sure. I had no idea. I mean, you can only get so much from training and sparring, the intensity is never going to reach the same levels as when you actually step through those ropes and the bell rings for a real match, so until Trio’s, where I knew I had to put everything on the line and couldn’t afford to hold back at all… I had no idea if I’d be the same person I was before the injury. But guess what?” he says, pausing for a second before grinning. “The Jackass is back in business, bitches! Yep, after a gruelling fucking match, I know for sure that this thing is fixed,” he nods, pulling his hand out of his pocket to pat himself on the knee, “and that there isn’t a single thing holding me back from continuing where I left off, save for the actual competition that this place provides for each and every one of us! Because we worry about shit the same way each and every one of you fucks do, even if we come across as arrogant or cocksure or whatever… and let’s be real for a minute bro, we all know that I’m an all or nothing kind of guy, right? So the idea of coming back and my return being half-assed, that was pretty fucking scary… until Trio’s! Yes, we lost. Yes, Kelsai took a real beating at the end of that match. But Kelsai is fine, and Jake wasn’t a complete Jackass as I’ve come to expect and my knee? One hundred and ten percent, could not feel better! So when I said in the ring that first Breakdown after Day Of Infamy that my knee was good as new, I may have been hoping rather than certain… but I’m sure as fuck certain now! Which means one thing… the fun can truly begin!” he tells the camera with a broad grin on his face, looking as mischievous as it’s possible for him to look as he gives a nod in support of the statement. “Which is exactly what I want too, now that Trio’s is in the rearview. Don’t get me wrong, it would have been nice to walk away with one of those contracts, but at the same time I’m not gonna beat myself up about losing in the opening round, because that entire tournament is a crapshoot, bro. You can take the three best individuals in the business but there’s no guarantee that they’ll work as a team is there? But this Wednesday it’s not about teams or trio’s or any of that stuff, it’s about Jason Helms making his solo return to the ring for the first time since Coffee became a major part of SCW’s subculture!”

He smirks at that remark, knowing that at least one person watching will get a kick out of it for entirely different reasons. Now all he needs to do is work a donut reference in and he’s hit the home run. “And I guess you can call this the match of returns, huh? Given who I’m facing, anyway. The recently returning Scarlet Gray against recently returning Jason Helms, one on one in the middle of the ring for your viewing pleasure, live from Raleigh, North Carolina! And I’m sure Dave is gonna get a kick out of being back in his old stomping grounds, a city that he still has a fair few connections to with the record label and all… so I guess I should be thankful that he isn’t booked this week, because otherwise he’d have outshone me at Trio’s and he’d be getting a louder pop than me this week too. The ego can only take so much, bro!” he says with a smirk. “And there’s some weird sort of story going on with this too, isn’t there? Scarlet Grey hasn’t been around in some time, not since she was ditched by her ex-bestie for ‘an upgrade’ I think she called it when she returned months ago. Last match I even remember Scarlet competing in was against Datura, the infamous knee breaker that saw Scarlet lose to someone who had blown out their knee earlier in the match. I’m hoping that me and Datura end up with someone in common by the time Breakdown goes off the air, in that we’ve both injured our knee’s and we’ve both kicked Scarlet Grey’s ass, because while I’m at peace losing in the Trio’s Tournament, Breakdown is another matter entirely! Scarlet, I know you’ll be looking to impress sweetheart, after so many months away and all… but you’re not the only one, and I’ve not just got people to impress, I’ve got a level to get back to in this company! I was U.S champ, I was pushing for a spot in the main event, pushing to shake things up at the very top… meanwhile, you got ditched by your partner and disappeared off the face of the fucking planet for months while I had no choice! I was out injured, what’s your excuse?! You lost a match and then you vanished, poof, gone! And now you’re back, and everything has changed around here for both of us, only I had to sit at home and watch wishing I could be in that ring while you willingly walked away from it after losing to Rachel! Does losing suck? Sure, it does. We all have egos, we all like to think that we’re better than we are at times, but if you’re a professional, you suck it up buttercup and you get the fuck on with things… but you? No, you just quit! You packed up and fucked off by choice when people like myself or even the chick who hurt herself against you, Datura, couldn’t do anything about it and had to take time off!”

While everything had been fairly lighthearted until that as fair to say that Jason was now showing much more intensity as he speaks about Scarlet, and perhaps he was more annoyed by her situation that he initially let on. “We all make sacrifices in this business, whether it’s family or friends or even our own health and well-being, and I’m no different in a way. I’ve made sacrifices at times, I’ve missed things due to wrestling commitments, spent time away from loved ones, friends and family,” he admits, shrugging his shoulders. “That’s life. Big Frank had a song about it. But what I don’t understand is how someone can willingly walk away like that! And fine, if there’s an injury then fair, but why the fuck does no one know about it if that’s the fucking case, huh? When Datura blew her knee, it was officially announced by SCW head office, when I got hurt, when AJ got hurt, it was all confirmed by SCW so you guys at home knew what was going on, you were kept in the loop and Amy even gave regular updates in her blog of how my return to fitness was going whenever she posted one of her pay per view predictions! But Scarlet? Radio silence! Not a fucking word from anyone, from Scarlet herself to our higher-up’s, so what does that tell you, huh? And now she’s back and I’m supposed to not take issue with any of that? Fuck that bro, fuck that!” He tells the camera, indignantly. Perhaps he was making a meal out of the entire situation, he really had no idea whether there was an injury involved, maybe even something to do with her mental health, he didn’t know the details. But that was no excuse to not bother at least making an official announcement, was it? And that was where his issue with the entire situation truly came from. “Maybe I’m being too hard on you, Scarlet. Maybe I’m being a dick. I mean, like that’s never been known to happen before, right? Jason Helms being an asshole, nah, that’s never been a thing in SCW, surely that can’t be right… but that’s part of the fucking lesson ain’t it, because this business is hard, as you probably already fucking know. Ditched by your bestie, replaced as a tag partner, ignored by the higher ups giving no update on where the fuck you’ve been and now, on return, you get me talking shit about you when there’s every chance that you’re just a victim or circumstances or whatever… but lemme fill you in on something sweetheart, and most people know this already because it’s basically the worst kept secret in the business; pro-wrestling is full of apparent victims! This business has more people that play the victim card at every fucking turn than any other industry I can think of, it’s basically a fucking club at this point!”

‘And no, I’m not talking about the actual victims, people who have been through the ringer in life and came out the other end to be a success, this isn’t about victim shaming here,” he insists, wanting to make damn sure that nobody was going to turn this against him and make him out to be an asshole for unjust reasons. There were plenty of just reasons to choose from, already! “I’m talking about the Syren’s and the Sienna Swann’s and even the Bree Lancaster’s of this world, the people who think every decision that doesn’t go there way is an attack. The people who invent justification for being douche canoes and then get indignant when called one their behaviour! Look at this roster; you can’t throw a quarter into the air without it landing within five feet of these self serving arrogant egotistical asshats, and then you wonder why I’m on my fucking high horse? And maybe it’s rich coming from me, given I’ve been a asshole plenty in my time here in SCW but it’s called growth! Am I the same person that made his debut dressed as a bear to attack Konrad two years ago? No! I’m the same guy in name only, and that’s because I realised what a fucking butthole i was being and I did something about it! So what’s the deal Scarlet; are you gonna come back and jump on your soapbox and talk about the injustice of it all, or are you gonna price a point? Are you gonna show the world what you can do, or pull a Swann and cry about what you can’t do because the world is against you? The entire SCW fan base is gonna be waiting with bated breath sweetheart, though I won’t be holding mine because I think I can make an educated guess already… so go ahead and prove me wrong I guess? Prove that Jason Helms doesn’t know the square root of anything in this world and then beat me on Breakdown to add that nice little exclamation mark to your point. Just don’t be shocked if my own point gets hammered home first when my career comes Back From The Dead!” He finished, bringing one hand up like a gun to point at the camera. He mouths the word “Bang” as he ‘fires’ the gun before the video ends, the screen dimming in a still frame of the last shot and a replay icon appears in the centre of the screen.