Forged Steel's Wrestling Journal

Entry 9

I wake up early enough to get to the gym and join both Sister and Rusty for workout. Rusty jokes that I should work out with her every day so that all the meat heads leave her alone. I guess Rusty feels a little inspired by me because she moves up on her usual weight loads and manages to pull through. After the workout, we all go back to her house. Rusty goes off to her shop for the day, leaving just sister and I.

She suggests a few things about what to do in my off time. I ask her to teach me dance, and she's surprised by the idea. I tell her that there's a few ladies I know who would be impressed and she agrees, "it helps in the bedroom too."

I'm tempted to ask if she dances on her girlfriend's face, and then I remember what's at stake. I keep my mouth shut and let her begin going over the basics. As you can probably imagine, we don't make much progress in the day. Though many wrestlers compare what we do to dancing, it doesn't translate much. By evening I feel like I'm getting a good grasp of the basics as Rusty walks in on us. She remarks "Oh, great, you're dancing on your brother's face too? I thought you loved me."

I close my eyes, and and tempted to cut a promo but decide it's not in my best interests to alienate my future in-laws. Sister has nothing to say but her usually pink face is now deep red. With the day mostly over I leave and let them have the evening to themselves. I then have nothing to do for the rest of the evening, so I return to home base and practice what we worked on.

The next day is much of the same, workout with Sister, her dance lessons, and then back to my house to practice what's worked on. This is the new routine for the next few days, then on the next Tuesday spot shows resume. I have most of the day to myself as I want to get in the zone, and our first show of the month is a larger show in Appleoosa.

Just as I was doing in the last territory, I take a limo-like ride to the show with a police escort to keep fans a safe distance. The arena is big enough so there's separate dressing rooms again, and Quake nods me to the heel dressing room. People are looking at me with admiration as I walk in. I'm tempted to ask what's going on but Motorhead, one of the part timers and agents, cues me in.

"Semi main event and only one month, you sure know how to get them angry at ya. You're a heat magnet like I used to be." Corvus, who's hanging out, snickers at the remark, getting a dirty look from him "Thank you, by the way did I mention you're cut out of the will?"

As they trade barbs over Motor's past, I go over to a spot and begin to change. I go and check my match, and sure enough I'm second-to-last to go. Quake is really pushing me and has a lot of confidence in mine and Slap's feud. As usual, the older guys begin their poker games and the younger ones gather around the TV for games, while I'm sitting by my bag writing and doing crosswords.

I go to gorilla for a little bit to see what's going on in the ring. Outlaw and Lockjaw are having a good brawl, and Nefarious is going to do a run-in. The Farmhands are waiting for their tag match, and the Mavericks are waiting around the corner in the babyface dressing room to go with Farmhands. As I look out at gorilla, Nefarious goes for his run in. All of a sudden a fan vaults the barricade and grabs him around the waist. Police are quick to follow but Nefarious gives him a sharp elbow jab to break free, and the officers drag the fan behind the curtain, sitting him in a chair.

The guy's looking down as he begins to realize he's in trouble now. I tell him that I'd deck him but I won't hit nearly as hard as Nefarious will when he comes back. Nefarious comes back a moment after Lockjaw comes back. The fan stands up to I presume apologize but before he can get a word out, Nefarious swings a hand and gets the fan with a slap right under the jaw. I see the fan's hooves leave the ground as he flies back, hits the wall behind and falls to the ground, down for the count. Nefarious grumbles in his native tongue as he walks back to the heel dressing room. Meanwile, Farmhands have a match so they just step over the fan and walk to their ring.

About 20 minutes later, I'm back in the heel locker room area as Farmhands return from their match and I hear an ambulance pull in. A few of the older guys chuckle to themselves, having heard from Nefarious what happened. I peek around the corner and see the medics tending to the fan and preparing to take him away, the two police in tow. I walk back by Nefarious and ask for how hard he hit the guy, why not just punch his face in? His response is incredible, he puts his hands up and says "Woah, Steely, ya can't hit a guy with a fist, you might hurt him!"

The poker table nods at his words, obviously trying not to laugh. This is just how Nefarious thinks, really. My match is coming up soon so I begin to wind myself up for it. Three head rotations clockwise, two anti-clockwise, crack left hand, crack right, three hard slaps with both hands to the cheeks and tape the wrists. I finish up with the tape as I get back to gorilla. Slap is waiting there and he nods to me. With my music playing to thunderous jeers I head out.

Tonight had two firsts for me. First time involved in a fan riot and first time hitting a fan. I work over Slap's left ankle all match long, the one I injured during our last spot show, and put him in an ankle lock. Slap gets the ropes and I refused to let up. The referee DQ's me as we planned, and all of a sudden I take a battery to the right eyebrow. It busts me open and the blood runs down my muzzle as the fan three rows back who threw it stands up and curses at me.

The referee pushes me away from the ropes, presumably to keep me away and asks me if I see who did it. Of course I did, he's challenging me now. The ref then loosesns his grip and says, clean him up. I give him a ref bump, getting the crowd angry, make a beeline for the fan who suddenly looses his courage, and my slap sent him a good three rows back. I see the snuff fly from his lip as his buddies begin to fight me. I dispatch one with a sharp kick to the knee, which causes him to howl and the other I throw head-first into the barricade. I hop back over as several fans now begin to run down the main aisle at me. Mercifully I already see the riot police running out to nip this in the bud.

I can hear the ref telling me to work over Slap again, so I go back to the ankle lock as I see fans getting clocked by police batons. About a dozen referees come running down the aisle at me, pull me off Slap, and begin to walk me back to the dressing room, with drinks and various trash being thrown at me. I'm greeted behind the curtain by medics wanting to stitch me up, and by Quake. I start to say something but he hushes me and says that he saw everything and he has my back.

It takes about 10 or 15 minutes to restore order, I believe Quake says after the show that there were 17 arrests, and the main event goes off. I change back to my normal clothes and wait until after the show for my cue to leave. The Sheriff is waiting at the back entrance and is in a talk with Quake. They stop for a moment, the Sheriff points at me and says "You got yer one reprieve, kid. Quake, I'm serious this time. If yer talent touches a fan again I have no choice but to arrest 'im." Quake nods in understanding with a "Yes, sir." and the Sheriff leaves.

We hop in Quake's car and the police convoy leads me to outside the city, where Quake drives us around for about half an hour to lose anyone who might be following. He then drops me off at my house, walking me up to the door to prevent someone from jumping me, and I go in to call it a night.

In the morning the area around my stitches has swelled, so I decide I can't go out because I'll be seen. Sister comes over to work with me on dancing, and asks what happened. I tell her the story and she remarks that the fan got off easy. We work for about an hour and I start to feel dizzy. We stop for a little while and she decides to try to work with me again, but we don't get very far before the dizziness returns. We decide to not push it and so I first call Quake and tell him I won't make tonight's spot show. I tell him what's going on and he orders me to a doctor.

The good news is the knot isn't permanent and the stitches are fine, but the bad news is the battery gave me a concussion, my first ever. The doctor writes me a note and Sister runs it to Quake for me, who says I'll be off the spot shows for a week. He says I'll still get paid the same since it's not my fault, and to check back with the doctor after a week. The rest of my day is lazy, just laying down for most of it and doing some crosswords. Sister stays overnight, I try to tell her it's not needed but she won't have any of it.

I only hope I haven't made a mistake by working such an intense territory. I guess this is why the territory was rumored to be blackballed by the world champ for the longest time. Sister hopes I can go back to dancing soon, I want to go back to exercise and wrestling quickly.