[RedEnforcer]

I'm used to being the straight man to Megan. Hmmm, come to think of it, in both figurative senses. And we have a very similar sense of humor. I don't know exactly what she's gonna do when I do my bit with Simon Cassidy. but I do know that she's gonna sell it as well as Xavier Woods sold being put on the List of Jericho.  And she doesn't disappoint. It takes all I can do to not corpse in this ring. Seeing her be so wonderful and excited and energetic about being in this ring warms my heart. It's odd looking across the ring from her though.

We've known each other for years and traveled up so many roads and eaten so many waffles. But to be perfectly honest, we've only been in the ring against each other maybe a handful of times.

When she was in the Carolinas doing some learning, there wasn't much intergender interaction. Not in a wrestling sense. But we made up for it in training sessions in the middle of the week.  I remember after about the 400th collar and elbow tie up, both of us sweating buckets, she'd wonder why in the hell were we spending so much time with such a simple move.

Right now, I'm pretty sure she's no longer wondering.  It's a simple enough spot, one that fans expect and these days gets rushed, but when you know how to work it, when it comes as natural as breathing, it becomes a storytelling device you can use to draw people in. 

Right now, I'm hoping the crowd uses this time to ease down so they don't exhaust themselves before we're done. But this is a really smart crowd. They know what we're trying to do and they're getting into it with us. Hell it feels like I'm back in the early 80s with some of those Greensboro or Spartanburg crowds.  It takes me back.  And I can't imagine doing this kinda thing with anyone else but Megan. 

Now that we've got the crowd going with two collar and elbow tie ups and two corner bits, it's time to speed things up a bit. I take a moment to look over from the corner and see Megan bent over a bit with that million megawatt smile she's never stopped having since she got to this ring. I notice a lot of cellphone flashes behind her so I know exactly what kind of stance she's taking. (You're welcome r/WrestleWithThePlot.) I can hear the voices of my old mentors telling me to slow it down a bit and build it back up.  So I go in for another collar and elbow and when I do, I whisper just loud enough for Megan to hear, "headlock" and she gives me a tap of her index finger to let me know she understands.

See in our crazy world, there's two types of matches, booked matches and shoot fights. Shoot fights are just real fights between people. Booked matches are choreographed. Now, how you lay out a match differs among the people. In the old territory days, we'd just use house shows as practice to get a match together. You'd fight the same person for the length of the program and the tour dates and by the end you had it down. As things shifted, some people would still do spot calls in a match and others would lay out the match beforehand.  Nowadays, people will even practice matches in their down time to get things right.

I've always been a spot caller. I learned from some of the best and I trust my instincts in a match. You have to know the crowd and go with how they're reacting. You can't control the matches that happen before you so you have to watch them and see what kind of audience you have. Then when you're in the ring, you play to that crowd.  Megan has great instincts too. She loves the flow of a match and she really gets the psychology of it. But like I said, we've only been in the ring against each other a handful of times so we don't have experience against each other to fall back on.  What we do have though is countless hours of training and complete and total trust in each other. So we're calling this on the fly and here's my chance to get things going.

Megan struggles against me in the tight collar and elbow. I struggle against her. This time, she has her stance wider, letting her dig her boots in deeper, fire up her calves and really flex out those thighs of hers. All of which not only shows the crowd, the struggle she's going through, but it also really makes her ass pop in the ring. We're here entertaining everyone.  For my part, I shift my boots and tense up my own strong legs to really show that we're straining. It also helps show that hey now that we messed with each other, it's time to get serious.  We sit in the middle of the ring in deadlock for about 10 seconds, enough to get the crowd to wonder which way this is going to go. 

Then Meagan eases up on her left hand  and takes a slight step back with her left foot, making me lunge forward just a bit as I'm really trying to move her back. This causes me head to lurch forward and for Megan to wrap that strong right bicep around it and clasp that wrist with her left hand and yannnk me into a really solid side headlock.

And this damn crowd pops. They're gonna pop for every damn thing I think.

Megan works that headlock, making a big show of moving her arm and flexing her bicep and grinding her forearm into my forehead. And I wriggle with each torque of my head. Jim's in there like a champ, helping sell the power of this hold by getting close and using his hands to show he's asking me if I want to give. To a headlock. It's all pantomime and exaggerated motion, but a quality referee really helps make the drama build. 

I'm slapping at Megan's side a little.  You know, trying to flop about and figure out how to get free. If I were playing the heel, I'd snatch her braid and use it to help me do what's next. I'm not because it's not that kind of match and not that kind of story, so instead, I use my arms to push against her waist and her near thigh so I can push her back into the ropes.

See now, the crowd may be expecting another clean break or some shenaxxxxns in the ropes or something. I prefer the third option. And this is tricky because if we don't do this right, Gemma's gonna kill me. "Steamboat" I whisper. And there's the tap to let me know she understands. It's so much easier working with someone who understands the shorthand.  I press her hard against the ropes and then use the momentum from the release of energy from the taut ropes to help me propel her towards the opposite side which lets me pop my head free. And I launch her and she runs to the opposite ropes. She's moving very fast so I need to get this timed just right.

She turns and hits the far ropes on her back as she was taught and she springs back to me. I make a big leap and a show of diving my body down towards her legs. Most people don't get this, but the idea behind the drop down is that you are trying to trip up your opponent. Nowadays though, everyone counters with a leap up so people don't get the spot. Bless Kay Lee Ray though.  I've seen her does this and actually trip her opponent.

Anyways, I'm worried that if I mistime it, Megan is gonna trip and hurt her knee. But I shouldn't have, she leaps over me like a pro and goes to the far side.  I hop up and wait and  duck my head, going for a back body drop. Instead the blur of motion that is Punky rushes to me and leap frogs up over me and hits the other side.  I turn in a hurry and already am getting my body leaned in at an almost 45 degree angle and I catch her left arm in deep and whip her up and over my body with a very deep arm drag takedown. 

The crowd goes OOOOOOOOHHHHHH again as I've nearly tossed her all the way across the ring. I get up smiling and she looks over at me, shaking out her left arm and glaring just a bit.  She positions herself for another collar and elbow and I look like I'm going to go for it again, but instead I trick her and dive in so I get my right arm around her head and pull her against my side for my version of a headlock.

I work my hold. Tight. My bicep is crammed and flexing against her right ear and cheek. My forearm digs into her forehead and I'm crushing the left side of her face hard against my side and abs. Jim comes back in to ask her if she gives and she extends her arms and shakes her hands as if to say no.  She gets her hand around my wiast and the other on my thigh and this time she backs me up.  I can feel the tight ropes (which by the way usually aren't rope, but tight cables of material designed to bruise the fuck out of you if you hit them incorrectly) biting into my back and when I'm ready I give her the tap.

BK:" Ooooh and now it's her turn to push the brute into the ropes and now she's tossin' him off into the far ropes."
RP: "Punky doesn't swing that way Billy."
BK:"The fuck you doin' on my broadcast Perle, get off!"
RP:"If she strains those cutoffs anymore, I will."

And now it's my turn to run the ropes, and I admit, I hammed it up here. I usually have to be the monster, the muscle, the indestructible machine that breaks things and people. So when I get the rare opportunity to let some comedy in (Like my appearances in Chikara's King of Trios tournaments) I really go for it.

I make big, outsized motions of going to the far ropes and I leap over Megan as she drops down, resisting the temptation to give her booty a little tap with my boot as I go over her. Then I hit the far ropes and by now the crowd expects the leap frog, except Megan isn't bending over, she's looking at me straight on. I make like I'm going for a shoulder block. And the crowd expects this too and braces for it.

But they forget my Japanese loving friend.  As I get to her, she gets her left arm up under my left arm.  Her feet set on the mat and she bends low. Then in perfect timing to me getting to her, she raises up and explodes her hips, her arm catching my arm and using her momentum, she yanks me up and over onto my back in a textbook Japanese arm drag. 

The crowd OOOOOOOOHHHHHHSSSSS louder now and I take a moment to reach behind me and hold my back before pushing up on one hand and looking over at Megan.  Nodding my head as if to say you got me. Stifling a grin as I know we really have this crowd worked and damn if it doesn't feel good doing this again.

BK: "And it looks like these two are just trying to one up the other.  What are we gonna see next???"

[ThePurpleVixen]

You think you're gonna go this long in Punky story without more flashbacks? It's been like ... several posts without one. We're way behind quota. I mean, on the plus side, there hasn't been a bunch of super sad stuff. There's been no betrayals, no heartbreak. No sheer brutality that bruises the very soul. No one's even really gotten hurt, unless you count when we killed Sean Connery and maybe those window cleaners we knocked out in Liverpool. I bet you guys forgot about that. We TOTALLY had a whole Benny Hill/Beatlemania thing going. Total fuckin' classic. But still, let's get some flashbacking going. We haven't had a full-on one since Reddy was thinking about that strip club again. He fucking LOVES thinking about that strip club.

Battle Boxing Gym, Columbia, South Carolina

I was coated in sweat, fucking glazed in it. I'm proud of my stamina, always have been. I've got the resting heart rate of god damn land tortoise, and I keep going long after a normal person would just fall over decently and die. But right now, right this fuckin' second, I'm fuckin' FEELIN' the limits of what I can convince my body to do as I sag back into the ropes for a moment, my arms draped back over the top. I've got less tattoos back in the day we're in, and less scars - but I was also more hyper and kind of a fuckin' madhouse a lot of the times. I realize it's hard to convince you that I'm a lot more chill these days when I spend so much time piledriving my wife into the breakfast table and bashing robots with baseball bats, but rest assured, I'm a fuckin' fountain of calm these days compared to what we're lookin' at now.

Of course, at this exact moment in the flashback, it's unlikely I'd be bashing ANYTHING with a baseball bat, even if it really, really deserved it, since I can barely lift my arms. My battered Dixie Chicks "Fly" shirt (I got it at a thrift shop when we went through Macon because it looked sweet as hell and it was only 75 cents, and then I actually started listenin' to 'em after that, and fuck yeah, they're awesome. You should hear the roadtrip duet Reddy and I can pull on "Cowboy Take Me Away") is god-damn painted onto me, and my cotton shorts look like I just went fuckin' swimming. I'm sheened in flourishes of greasy sweat, my purple hair looking almost black. I crane my head back and look up at the Battle Gym's ceiling. It's not much to look at. It's just hanging acoustic tiles, pitted and stained with age and yellow from smoke. This gym's been around since the days when you did your boxing with a cigar in your teeth.

Reddy's across the ring, with his mask on and a shirt with a fancy rooster on it, and sweats. He's just as greasy as me - it's impossible not to sweat in this fucking antiquated gym. This place is "cooled" with paddle fans that do nothing but stir the sweaty air around like they're mixing gumbo. But he's on his feet, beckoning me in.

"Reddy," I growl. "I love trainin' until we fall over an' die as much as the next corpse, but that's seventy-eight fuckin' tie-ups."

Reddy nods, adjusting his mask a little so he can breathe better, his head craned down a bit. It's the only real sign of exhaustion he's showin' right now, aside from a wobble in those beefy legs that you'd have know him really well to spot. He's so damn good at shifting his weight to hide it. Never let 'em see ya bleed.

"Another twenty two and we'll break. Good job keeping count."

My groan echoes over the gym, causing grizzled heads of old carnies and palookas to turn in case the masked guy is doing something unspeakable to the titsy broad with the weird hair in the ring. He's not, so they go back to lifting kettlebells and hitting leather bags and hoisting medicine balls and doing other old-timey exercise things that RED ALSO MAKES ME DO.

"Reddy, on my last card I opened with a fuckin' shotei and delivered like 60 chops an' a dragon suplex, an' I didn't tie up once."

Red nods again, and beckons me in once more, more insistently.

"And that's why you were jerking the curtain, darlin'."

That hits me like a slap, and it shows on my face.

He holds one hand up, soothingly.

"You're good, Megan. Obviously. But you're still trying to wrestle like you're going for a spot on Hardcore TV. This is the Southern circuit, the REAL stuff. And I KNOW you know the fundamentals because I've heard how O'Dwyer trains and I know Scotty knows his stuff. You just need to USE them. The collar and elbow isn't just something we train you in to get your biceps toned up. It's a key part of wrestling - it's not just to set the pace of the match and get your opponent under control; it's more than that. It's something the fans have learned to expect. It's a FUNDAMENTAL."

I let my head hang back over the top rope, and growl in my imitation of Squire O'Dwyer. "'An' they're called that for a bleedin' reason, lass', he used t'say ..." I drag myself off the ropes and swing my arms across my chest. My shoulders burn like god-damn Pompeii as I bounce on the toes of my ragged mismatched Chucks, and roll my neck like Rocky, loosening myself up and getting going again.

"So you're sayin' that if I get good enough at this fuckin' Irish folk-wrestling grip, then I'll be a better wrestler an' the fans are gonna dig it?"

Solemnly, draws two fingers up and down and across his chest.

"Cross my heart, darlin'."

I crook a half-grin, and shake my hands out. "Better be fuckin' worth it," I wrinkle my nose at him and curl my fingers as I lunge in for #79.

Back in the O2 Arena, London.

"TOTALLY fuckin' worth it," I giggle to myself as the sellout giant fuckin' crowd of 15,000 or so lucky souls all cheering after our second collar-and-elbow. My heart is god-damn dancin'. There's NOTHING like this. Wrestling is fucking amazing even when it's a bloody stiff brawl in front of 50 people at a VFW. When you're working with someone who can dance each step with you, who you know and love and trust, with so many people cheering that it becomes one huge noise as big as the fucking stars, there's nothing like it on heaven or earth.

Reddy comes back in, and we lock up smooth as butter, and Reddy whispers "Headlock" without his lips even moving. Reddy's a better ring general than pretty much anyone I've been in the ring with - well, maybe Christopher Daniels that time he and I got put against each other due to a weather shutdown that caused a bunch of wrestlers to miss a show in Osaka. He was under the Curry Man hood then, but man, considering what we got that going in the ring and we had never even so much as been in the same locker room before ...

But Reddy is great. Reddy's been steering rookies through great matches for-fucking-ever, and I'm no fuckin' duckling. Reddy's sotto voce is so low that Jim probably can't even hear us, and he's barely a meter away, but it's clear as a bell for me. I tap my fingertip on his shoulder, just once.

Okay, just to be clear -

- it might seem WEIRD to some people who are taking in this story who also saw the living hell Rowan and I put each other through in Paris might find it confusing that Reddy and I are choreographing. If we were living in a world where all of professional wrestling fake (can you even IMAGINE? There'd be no one left but that carnie fuck McMahon instead of the vast array of independents we have now), that might seem confusing.

But wrestling is a SHOW. Sometimes it's a fucking great show, sometimes it's fucking horrifying, but it's a show. When Rowan and I were trying to mangle each other, we were still doing it in a wrestling ring, with  a referee, following what rules there were. I didn't bring a gun and fucking shoot her, she didn't dose my pre-match smoothie with cyanide. We were fighting, but we were fighting within the context of wrestling.

It's up to the people in the ring how you want the show to go. Are you gonna lay some stuff out, talk through it on the fly, plan a big glorious finish? Or are you gonna suddenly try to bite through someone's eyebrow like Daffney tried to do to me once in Austin, forcing me to abandon a perfectly good top wristlock to instead punt her cxnt up around her ears? For most of us, it's somewhere in between. Even in a fight that feels like life and death, the show still goes on; we hit the turnbuckles with our backs, we let the ropes rebound us, we don't deadweight a bodyslam, we let the audience see the pain instead of keeping it a secret, and sometimes we just fucking take a hit instead of dodging because it suits the moment. It's a fight - but it's also a show. And what Reddy and I are doing tonight is a LOT more show than fight.

And fuck yeah, it's gonna be a GOOD show.

I mean, I don't have to explain all this. You kids know how wrestling works. It's not like this is all taking place in the context of some big work of fiction that tacitly assumes a pro wrestling match is a real fight of some kind in the stories that are told. That'd be MADNESS, to think like that! Absolute barking box of frogs MADNESS.

So let's focus on how this match is going instead.

We struggle real pretty with the tie-up, my legs out wide and planted to show off some muscle (and REALLY make my ass pop) as Reddy tenses up and rounds off those broad shoulders, and we get a gorgeous visual struggle going that has the Londoners all riled up before I pull back into a classic side headlock, and really GRIND my arms in as soon as I get it on and take the stance. Reddy sells it beautifully, as I'd expect, and I do a real vintage wrist grip, using my forearm to pour pressure on the hold like Fit Finlay. Molineaux is right in there, checking for a submission and hamming it up (probably glad for once that he gets to officiate a match with REALLY limited opportunities for staple gunning).

Reddy backs me up, and as soon as he does I can already see where we're going. It's funny - he and I have only taken each other on formally a couple of times, but we've worked together so long training and fighting on the same teams that I can just SEE where we're going, a map being drawn with each step we take. It's fuckin' beautiful. He pushes off the ropes and gets free, a classic slip the crowd loves, and shoots me across to the far ropes.

These are the parts I was worried about. Running with my new fucking knee brace on with tens of thousands of eyes on me. But what the fuck - either it's gonna work at the speed I go or it's not and I'm gonna need a new brace or a new knee. So I don't hold back. I fuckin' PUNCH it, hitting the ropes HARD and hearing the buckles creak, and it feels GOOD, getting past that initial bite of pain from the new tendon and the pressure of the brace feels FUCKING GOOD. So Reddy dives down at my feet, and I have a brief vision of getting thrown ass over teakettle and my knee popping and Gems beating Reddy to death in the ring with the cricket bat and then having to go to a funeral and a murder trial with one of those huge exo-skeleton braces on my leg - but then I fuckin' JUMP and I'm up and over and shooting past to the far ropes, and it feels SO FUCKING AMAZING to run again, not even hesitating as I shoot back at Reddy, not even sure when he's gonna bust it out. Not yet - he ducks and I plant my hands on his shoulders and vault over him, the movement so fluid and familiar that I forget to be scared, my brown boots hitting the canvas as I keep going, the beating of my Airwalk soles on the crisp canvas like music, creaking the ropes once more, hearing the way the crowd has that little "Ohhhhhhhhhhhh-" of rising anticipation going. It's hanging like a choir note in the air as Reddy and I make 'em wait but this time when I shoot back he's turning and he leans back deep and -

"WHOOOOOA-NNNNNNFFF!" I groan, WHIPPED over with that deep armdrag. I even kick off the mat to add more height, my legs swinging over high and wide and pretty, and the momentum launches me across the dang ring. I take the bump smooth as I can, the shock of it running up me, but it's a GOOD shock, and I can hear the crowd eatin' it up. I shake my arm out and knuckle my hip, shooting Reddy a little Death Glare to keep the marks hot, rolling up to my feet and coming back in.

This time Reddy takes me into a headlock, and I get a solid reminder that he's strong as fuck as even with just a playful amount of force he manages to squeeze a juicy pomegranate's worth of blood into my cheeks. This time I get to do the flailing and struggling to get everyone all fired up before I back him up and shoot him at the ropes. I put some pep into my drop-down, doing a little sideways spider-crawl just after he jumps over me, and then I push myself up with a growl as I bite back another complaint from my knee and square up - and he comes at me full speed, leading with his left like he's gonna check me outta my Docs before I snag his arm and neatly take him up and over, a crisp (if-I-say-so-myself) Japanese armdrag, based on the judo throw called a yoko wakare. Reddy sells it like it's BOGO and he gives me a nod, and we square up again.

They're all fire and popcorn out there! It's tempting to feed them some of the stuff the Brits REALLY love, but we're saving that; I don't even have to ask Reddy to know that. We're doling the match out a bit at a time like a parent cutting a birthday cake into painfully small slices - each one delicious, but you want so much MORE.

So I square up and bring my hands up - and this time I throw some vigor at Reddy, a little flaunt and trash talk. "COME AN' GET SOME IF YA THINK YER HARD ENOUGH!" draws a delighted and scandalized roar from the crowd, and Red gives me a comical reel back as if in Red Foxx shock before growling and charging in, bullrushing me just the way I want. So I dip neatly around him, hooking my right arm around his waist and swinging right behind to reach quick as a closing door to snatch my right wrist in my left hand, catching him in that underrated wrestling classic, the Rear Waistlock!

LVK: I just have to say, it's a delight to see so many of the core fundamentals of wrestling on display with these two greats.

RB: I have to agree with that, Mr. Van Keel. It's a joy. I hope above hope we get some proper catch-as-catch-can.

BW: This is absolutely tremendous!

WU: Si, claro!

RP: ... for the LOVE OF GAWD, SOMEONE JAB A *BEEP*IN' EYE!

Reddy seems properly flummoxed, first trying to lunge away from me only to get dragged back, and then lunging left and then right, each time getting swung back into my control. I even arch my back and tighten my arms up, getting the big guy up off his teal boots for a moment, letting him kick at the air. The crowd seems delighted, especially when Reddy does the full on Curly Howard panic and tries to run in a little circle with me dragging behind him, my arms still locked tight. He starts to reach for the ropes and I tighten up my grip, dragged along step by step as he extends his arm with me growling and tossing my head, fighting each heavy slow pace until he's juuuuust about to touch the rope, with Jim Molineaux drawing right up next to Reddy's wrist, one hand raised, ready to call for the rope break - only for me to SWING the Teal Enforcer around and drag him back to mid-ring, sinking him down in my grip for a moment. I make a show of putting some pressure on him, my left knee flexing forward, leaning into his back, rounding my shoulders off, working it almost like a bearhug -

- except the rear waistlock is really even more effective than a bearhug as far as breath control and movement control go, it's just way less popular because it's real easy for your opponent to jack your jaw with a back elbow in this position.

But Reddy ain't gonna do that. Not this early, anyway. He sinks a little, fighting the hold, letting the crowd see some wear and tear from the grip as he reaches for my hands - and he slowly tugs at my wrists to get just a LITTLE visual separation on my hands before he clutches my left wrist in both hands and pulls that arm open like a gate, pivoting around and swinging neatly behind me, locking his arms around MY waist instead in a BEAUTIFUL standing switch!

"NNHH DANG IT!" I growl, immediately pushing down at his forearms, going to my toes and flexing my shoulders, sliding both feet forward so I can brace my legs and push back against him, making it look real intense. He pours on the pressure, and I'm fighting it every step, rolling left and right, my cut-offs grinding against that teal singlet, when -

Okay, we cover it real well. REAL well, given the circumstances and how prone we both are to giggles.

Even Maffew - somewhere out there in the internet celebrities seating in the mezzanine - can't REALLY say for certain what happens. We don't make it onto "Talk Too Much" segment or anything, but he DOES show a slow-motion cap of this clip and intercut it with the Tex Avery wolf howling at a nightclub dancer.

Both my eyebrows climb up into my hairline and I stop struggling, for just a moment.

"Oh shit, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry ..." Red breathes out like a litany of prayer, his head ducked to hide behind mine. One of those contrition prayers, the kinds that'd earn him a fuckton of Hail Marys.

I grit my teeth and get back into selling - carefully - focusing mostly on pushing on his wrists as I straighten up a little, making sure my ass ... juts less against him.

"We gonna have a Cena here?"

People famously can't see John Cena, but we could all sure as fuck see his stiffy that Raw where he tagged with Trish back in 2008. There were erections in wrestling rings (for the kinds of matches where they WEREN'T supposed to be there) both before and after, but Cena's the lucky one to become a watchword for it. And he still worked the match. Reddy has a hot cheek pressed to my back and I can feel the blush through his mask.

"No no no, it's fine, just ..."

I could feel him shift against me, and I grinned a little. Which is an odd thing to do when selling a rear waistlock. We needed to do SOMETHIN' else soon. I lunged forward, as if going for the ropes on the far side, dragging Reddy a few steps and letting us get a little separation while I was still covering him. I stopped struggling as I was cut short and growled again, nice and loud, working at his wrists locked around my hips.

"You're so lucky I'm nice. Gemma'd back ya into the corner and grind ya," I tease through my growling teeth, only to feel THAT mental image stir him even more, and this time I had to bite my wrist to stop from giggling out loud. My eyes are CLEARLY glittering with wicked mischief, though, on camera.

"meganplease ..." Red groans, and I can feel the shiver. He's a nice boy. The NICEST. The sweetest and gentlest and kindest man I know, and I trust him implicitly. He's always ALWAYS respected my sexuality and my desires and my boundaries - but I've also got a (if-I-do-say-so-myself) exceptionally nice round creamy ass pressed RIGHT against his junk, and he's only human.

"I gotcha. Sell for me, big boy ..." I growl again - and I lean to the side and drill my right elbow back sharply, catching him in the breadbasket. It's the first direct shot of the match, and it catches everyone off guard except Molineaux - including Reddy, who lets out a WHULF that means he's probably forgetting some of that helpless excitement - and I snatch him in a side headlock again and IMMEDIATELY twist my hips, smacking my curvy hip into his belly and bringing him up and over with a rope-shaking headlock takedown!

I drop down, leaning across his chest, working him and letting him lie on his side and recover a bit, and he pats my lower back just once. I curl my fingers on his mask just a moment, scritching him. My Reddy. I'll keep him safe.

"I'LL POP YER HEAD LIKE A GRAPE!" I growl, planting my boots and rocking my hips up, pouring some pressure on the grounded side headlock, arching my back to really put on a show while I bring blood to Reddy's cheeks and away from anywhere troublesome.

... we're REALLY lucky we didn't end up on "You Talk Too Much".

[RedEnforcer]

I like sexfights. I know that's a hard left turn from where we were in this pro wrestling bout, but I wanted to get that out. I've done my fair share (and if you believe some people, more than my fair share) of sexfights of all kinds. You do the standard it's straight sex to dominance all the way to it's pro wrestling with groping. One thing that is constant about my sexfights and my wrestling matches is that I dress appropriately.

Hang on, I'm getting there. I mean if you're this far in, can you really say that this is the strangest tangent we've taken?

Good, ok.  So usually when I get into any kind of match, I like to know what the rules and limits are so I can dress in such a way that it not only allows me freedom to move, but also helps my partner's enjoyment of the match. And I say partner, because again, I don't usually do shoot fights. At the most I usually do worked shoots. (Shoot meaning real, work meaning it's booked or choreographed.)  And I figure if they are willing to be in the ring with me, I'll make sure they have fun as well as the audience we're performing for. Don't get me wrong, I love being physical, but ultimately to me, this is Broadway with better stage fighting. So if my opponent has a thing for feet, I'll go barefoot. If my opponent wants me in speedos, I'll do that. I fight naked, whatever. I do have to say though, wrestling in a g-string is a lot more complicated than just wrestling naked. But that's a story for another day. 

If I'm wrestling a match and it involves an opponent of any kind who wants to keep it straight to wrestling, I wear gear that helps me..well for lack of better term, contain things so that  there's no issue in the ring.  It's all about respecting the other person in the ring. When you square up against someone, even if it's apure competition, you should afford them a basic amount of respect.  Sure, in this crazy world of pro wrestling tropes, weird and wacky stuff happens. But when you are going to perform with another person, you really should communicate intentions before hand. That prevents injuries both physical and emotional.  It's why I run any ideas of heel moves by my opponents before hand, or give them enough cues to let them know what's coming next. That's respect on a large scale. On a smaller scale comes the issue of gear.

I admit, I was so stunned by Calli remembering our bet that I just went with it without thinking through all the possible ramifications.  See, my wrestling gear for taking on someone like Megan or any other person that wants to keep it completely on a progessional leverl is designed differently than my sexfighting gear.  Even tjen, I do have other...equipment that I can use in case I have to borrow gear due to lost luggage or other things. I didn't think about this when I put the gear on. That's on me.

And thinking about it, I can't really blame Callista as much as I want to. She came up with this amazing surprise and I bet she got my measurements from some gear that...uhh...Gemma may have..ummm...won from me...in..uhh...the match where...I...kinda..became hers...   Yeah.  That's a long story for another day though. I 'm not sure even Megan knows about that. Of course knowing her and her love for me and Gemma, I know she won't mind. Love works the way it will and honestly in my opinion , in this crazy world, you enjoy the love others have for you instead of questioning it.

So here we are on and I'm clocking in a standard waistlock on Megan. I've done this in training literally hundreds of times. Maybe even thousands.  But of course here, on the biggest stage I've ever been on, I'm doing it to her and there's only a super thin layer of lycra and denim between me and her. Somehow she and I just kinda....connect in ummm...hot dog-like fashion.  Now all of you who have ever fought Megan will know what an amazing ass that woman has. And during her selling, there was shifting back and forth and rubbing and...fuck..yeah.

I was lucky she only teased me the one time about Gemma because that mental image...whoa....

But Megan loves me. This is about having fun and entertaining. So even when this embarassing thing happens, she's there to protect me.

She's like that. Fiercely loyal. She claims you and you are hers. And right now, she fights against her wicked nature to make sure that I don't become the new Cenarection meme. 

I'm on my side and she's working the headlock. I love how these fans are eating this up. And now I get to do a spot I first saw done by some jobber and Jack Brisco.  IF you're a WWE fan who saw the Attitude Era, you'll recognize the Brisco name but mostly because of Gerry Brisco who was one of the stooges. Thing is, back in the day Gerry was a capablle hand at wrestling and he and his brother worked the Crockett area. His brother Jack Brisco. Jack was a two time NWA World's Heavyweight champion and multi-time NWA World Tag Team champion with his brother Gerry.  Their feud with Ricky Steamboat and Mark Youngblood was one of my favorites of my childhood. Jack was a legit wrestler too, NCAA Champion.  First Native American ever to win an NCAA wrestling Championship. And the man knew how to work a headlock.  So now, with Megan playing the part of Jack and me the jobber. 

One thing this so called "rest hold" has done is get the crowd to settle. Some smart "fans" criticize the rest hold as a way for wrestlers to just stretch out a match. But they serve their purpose when done right. See this match is a story that we're telling with our bodies and you can't go 50 miles an hour the whole time.  You need to also let the audience rest or they'll burn out. In movies, even in Michael Bay blockbusters you have these quiet moments that lets your audience take a breath and get ready for the adrenaline of the next big action spot.  So we're doing that. As well as letting me recover. 

I have to smile as I feel Megan curl her fingers into my mask. There's so much love in such a simple gesture. And it helps get me settled so I can pick things back up in this match.  I don't think I've ever done this spot with her, but I know she's watched enough wrestling and knows the setting that all I have to do is initiate and she'll follow suit. I just need the ref to be ready. So I do a hand motion which induces Jim to come close and do the whole "DO YOU SUBMIT?" bit that is an excuse to get him close enough to talk to. 

Before I can speak though, he comes in after the submit question and me shaking my hands no and says "Damn and I thought Taz wrestled stiff."

Fucking Molineaux and his sense of humor. I had to slap Megan in the side quick to cover what I knew was was gonna be a big reaction from her. Everyone's a comedian.

"Be ready to count......asshole"

And I could feel Megan stifling giggles. I'll be hearing about this for a while.

I start to go for Megan's hair..but no..I'm not working heel now. So I go for her at the waistlband and grab it hard. I make a show of kicking my left leg up a bit as if to give me added momentum, but mostly to cue  the crowd that some action is about to happen, and I twist to the side. Megan gets pulled with me and her shoulders are on the mat.

Jim hasn't moved far from his earlier position close and so he dives in there and proceeds to count. "One...Two...."

And Megan does a pretty as you please roll so that she's back in control and yanking that headlock.

Sure it's not going to get me a win, but it engages the crowd and breaks up the visual of her just headlocking me. Also I wanna say that as much as the wrestlers perform, the referees do an amazing job of helping craft the story. 

But we can get into that more later because after a few really nasty looking head cranks, I yank Megan back over onto her shoulders.  See, if I was working heel, I'd be pulling her by her hair which she could use to complain to the ref about how dirty I am and could get the crowd to boo me. Subtle things like that help suck the crowd in.  Jim is right there and really gets into the count now. "ONE....TWO...."  And Megan's legs bicycle in the air for the first two counts before she's able to just barely roll me back over to my side.  Damn she sells these moves really well. 

Ok, I'm back into the match.

I give Megan a tap on her hip to let her know this is the big transition moment and I'm all recovered from my earlier...issues.  So I then grab her waistband again and yank her over to her shoulders.

[ThePurpleVixen]

"Damn, and I thought Taz wrestled stiff."

I was doing so well right up until then. I'd secured Reddy halfway facedown in a grounded side headlock to help him cover up and feed the crowd some new visuals, and I was really cranking it, but Molineaux just almost fucking busted me up. I was barely holding back a guffaw, helped slightly by Red irritably slapping me in the ribs so I could turn a snorting cackle into a growl of pain and a little wrench of my arms around Reddy's masked head.

I'm actually fairly experienced with trying to resist the urge to laugh in the fucking ring  - I traveled a whole circuit out West working and driving with Callista Quinn, who you remember from earlier at the hotel and from giving Red a silly outfit,  not long after our first meeting (fuckin' Chico). Calli is probably the single most gifted mat worker I've ever been in the ring with - her technique, her control, her insight and ability to just dissect an opponent - but as we ran a bunch of shows in VFWs and convention halls, she tried to make it her business to make me break character.

Admittedly, this was early on, when the Punky brand was nothing more than my purple pigtails, mismatched Converse, and lilac business cards that I printed and cut with one of those big slicers at a Kinko's in Medford with my fuckin' AIM account and a yahoo email address. So my character wasn't actually worth a ton, but I was TRYIN' to look like a growling gothy punk bad-ass, so Calli would keep trying to find ways to make me laugh while we were working in the ring. She'd mutter wickedly cruel but fucking hilarious comments about someone in the front row when she had me in a hammerlock, or I'd be getting ready to take her over with a suplex and she'd just - hit me with a callback to some goofy shit we'd said in the car, and my showy snarl of effort would dissolve in a whale-plume PFFFFT of a laughter trying to escape. And then she'd usually twist me up into some painful fucking pretzel of a hold while I was still furiously trying not to laugh.

Callista Quinn is a genuinely terrifying woman, with a callous cruelty unmatched outside of fuckin' genus Panthera and a razor mind that would cut William of Ockham to fuckin' ribbons - but she's also so god damn funny that I've laughed myself to gasping snorting tears with her more than anyone I can think of, the kind of laughter that's so fucking raucous that the act of laughing itself becomes unbearably funny and it tosses you into a feedback loop that leaves you squeezing your eyes shut and cackling.

So anyway, like I was sayin', I've had some practice in holding back the giggles like they were Persians at Thermopylae.

It's still kinda close before Reddy smacks me in the ribs though.

So he calls the spot and I shift my weight a little, so more of it is on my bootheels because I figure he's gonna do some NWA shit - and sure enough, he gets a hold of my belt and rolls me over to smoothly get my shoulders on the mat, and I make sure to show some surprise with body language before I roll us back.

See, if Reddy wanted, he could really put some weight on that pull, or get my hair, and make it really hard for me to kick out. There's a practical reason wrestlers are always going for roll-ups and shit - in addition to being part of the sacred canon, sometimes they just WORK. Sometimes you get someone who's not expecting it and you just fuckin' pin 'em. Also, even when they DO kick out, it burns stamina.

Of course, Reddy's makin' it buttery easy for me, but I'm just saying - it COULD be a reasonable tactic. Because this can be a fight AND a show. Remember that. I'm gonna get tired of explaining it at some point.

Anyway, he does it AGAIN, and this time I give a nice audible "OH C'MON!" and do a cute lil' kicking in the air routine, like I'm solo synchronized swimming (a sport I woulda medaled in back in the London Games if it existed), before dropping us back to just barely beat the count. I crank the headlock again, giving Reddy a beat and letting the fans build up some more heat - and when he taps my back all sly I give him a purring whisper.

"Pick it up."

We're gonna move a little faster now for a few moves. I feel the slight tap of his thumb at my lower back before he rolls me over again, a little harder this time, and I release the headlock and roll all the way through, over my shoulders, kicking my legs up high with only a little zombie bite in my knee from my new tendon, and come back to my feet with a flourish, staying bent low and with my arms out, fingers waggling to indicate that shit's about to go down.

Reddy expresses some surprise at getting out of the headlock and checks with Jim as he gets to all fours, instinctively giving me the time for a setup without me telling him expressly what I was gonna do - and I shove off my toes and dart forward.

Explosive speed was my watchword in the ring since day fuckin' one, and god damn if I don't still have some dynamite in my boots.

I lunge at Reddy from his right side, my right leg doing a nifty little kick-and-curl out and over his right arm and back around inside it (a trick I learned from Chavito Guerrero back in the day) to hook his arm with my calf as I bend down over his back, my right arm hooking behind his head and my left reaching out, barely getting a grip behind his left leg as I roll over him, kicking hard with my left leg to get us over.

This is a pure leverage move, not meant to be done at this speed against an opponent bigger than you who doesn't WANT to be moved, but Reddy knows what's coming as soon as I start moving towards him, and makes it easy as I do a pretty god-damn sweet old school pinning combination to roll him over all cradled up and get his shoulders down and his teal boots kicking in the air, as Jim does that bad-ass drop and slide that the best refs can do, getting into position.

LVK: A beautiful Oklahoma Roll! And the shoulders are down! Beautifully done!

RP: For someone who loves bashin' people with hammers as much as that little psycho does, Punky has some *BEEP*in' moves.

BW: I beg your pardon, sir, but where I'm from we don't refer to ladies as 'psychos'.

RP: Yeah? So whattaya call the 'ladies' who might snap and murder you at any second?

JC: Wives.

We get a two that actually draws a little gasp from the crowd. Despite just bein' a few minutes in and busting out nothing from outside chapter 2 of the Mr. Wrestling Handbook so far, these beautiful people were willing to buy that I almost beat Reddy at a supershow with a god-damn Oklahoma Roll.

I just barely manage not to grin as Red kicks out. I roll away, my cradle broken with Red's power, shaking my hands out, and I come right at him as he gets up faster than before - and he dodges around smoothly, hooking arms around my waist and slinging me with a little bit of ragdoll force into a pretty aggressive schoolboy roll-up.

I let out a furious yowl and kick my feet hard as Jim slides into position and counts a crisp 2, the fans counting along as I make a show of being absolutely furiously held down before I KICK free hard, flailing my arms a bit to show that it was work. Reddy comes up to his feet and goes right for me as I roll over and start to get up with a lil' flaunt of my hips (look, I wedged myself into these damn cut-offs, I'm damn sure gonna get my money's worth of making my ass look good). He gets a grip on my shoulders - I can TELL he instinctively wants to go for my braid, but we're playing nice still - and he's carefully framed in front of me.

Because we're playing nice, the idea of uppercutting him in the goolies BARELY even crosses my mind.

Instead, I reach down low and hook my hands behind his knees, yanking those big legs out from under him and dropping him down with a beautiful flail, flat on his back, and I shift my grip under his legs and kick up and over, doing a beautiful (if-I-say-so-myself) lil' flip over to plant my boots wide on either side of his head, hauling his legs up in the air with a flex of my inked arms and giving him what'd be a GREAT upskirt shot if I wasn't wearing shorts as I plant him under me in a jack-knife pin for another 2 count, tensing my legs up with a little growl. A pained growl. Running is one thing, but THIS particular position is a fuckin' strain on my rebuilt knee - but makin' it look good is key to these old school pins.

These pinning combinations aren't just an effort to hold someone down - there's way less artistic ways of doing that. They're living sculpture, art that portrays the image of gladiators in full struggle. Positions that cause muscles to define, that show off unusual positions. It really ain't that different from ballet. Except in this case I'm a prima ballerina whose ass is almost on her ballerino's face.

LVK: And another close two-count from the jack-knife pin!

BK: I'd be bleedin' surprised if the lass hadn't used actual jack-knives more'n she's used that pin.

[RedEnforcer]

Back up a second. I feel the need to explain the joke that nearly killed Megan worse than the HIGGI BABY incident od 2018.  What's that? I'll explain later.

Wrestling has its own vernacular and working loose or working stiff indicates different takes on the same theme.  Wrestling when it's a work is performance art. And how you work tells a lot about how real you want it to look or if you're an insane person.  Japan has a reputation for strong style because they work stiff, meaning those chops will turn your chest into ground beef.  If you work loose, you are as gentle as can be.  For this match, I'm definitely working loose because this isn't about the competition or a title or anything. This is about my best friend having her moment in the spotlight at one of the biggest wrestling shows ever. Her knee isn't 100% and she's going to be pushing the limit. I'm here to do two things, make her look good and make sure she comes out uninjured.

The aforementioned Taz was well known in ECW for working a stiff style. Chops land, punches make contact, lifts and throws hurt.

So when the Hardcore Ref Jim made his comment about Taz....it hit Megan funny because she is such an ECW mutant.

That being said, Megan also loves technical wrestling and the classics. It explains part of why she loves me so much. No, I'm not saying I'm old enough to be a classic. Sheesh.  I'm saying she appreciates the history of wrestling.

I have to tell you, when she got me in that Oklahoma roll...it brought back memories.  I could feel Hector smiling all the way from the Spanish Announce Table.  It felt like he or one of his brothers had leaped over me and swooped me up in an Oklahoma roll  with how smooth it was.  Little nods like that to show respect for what's come before. Sure we'll be goofy in the lead up to this, but it's nice to show that traditional grappling can be fun too.

So where were we. Oh yeah, I'm on my back and Megan is lying on top of me, her tiny hands struggling to hold onto my beefy thighs as she stretches out very beautifully across my chest and has me in a pinning predicament.

I know what you're thinking. There's more chances for me to have an embarrassing moment.  I'm looking up at one of the top 5 asses around mere centimeters from my face. In any other setting you might be right.  But see right here, right now, Megan and I are in the middle of one of the classic tropes in wrestling, the near fall rush.  This is one of those spots where near falls are traded like insults at a rap battle.  It's a sudden flurry of activity that's built on the foundation of what you've done before.  It really helps wrestling fans get sucked in because they have to process what their seeing, the sudden count, the kickout and then to the next pinning predicament. Most times all they can do is count along with the ref and ooo and ahhh.  If you're doing it right.

Now for someone in the middle of this, having to figure out what your opponent is going to do, what position you're in and what move to go to next all while a guy is slapping a count that cannot reach 3, 4 being right out.  It's all very rapid and you don't have time to really appreciate moments.  I do appreciate the reddit user from r/WrestleWithThePlot who posted that really high res image of Megan mounted on me with her legs spread wide and that denim looking like it's hitting its limit around her curves. You get fans of all kinds in these parts. 

But anyways, the counter for this is as fluid as the set up.  As soon as Jim hits 2, with the crowd changting, I slap Megan's ribs rather loudly on both sides to get her grip loosened enough to allow me to power my legs forward as I slide them up to her armpits and pull her back.

She slides down my body and I pop up with a quick sit up and force Megan's shoulders to the mat  with that nice ass in my face.

She struggles with that sexy way she does. But oh no, Jim is out of position to see her shoulders dawn. And now he has to leap and dive to the other end and start his count. I can hear the announces now saying...

LVK, BW: "The referee is out of position!"

BK: "Grrrreat, American communtary in stereo..."

But see, that's what helps make the matches work. It's not just the wrestlers in the ring that tell the story. The ref is a big part of it, which is why I'm glad we got Jim.  He knows how to do those dramatic moves and such.  Use the fact you're wearing stripes and moving to get the crowd to watch you and get drawn into what you're doing, then slip back once your job is done. There's probably a handful of refs I'd want in a spot like this with all I have to do to make sure nothing goes wrong and Megan is protected. 

Here's another thing you should know about me. I have the sense of humor of an immature adolescent.  So while I have Megan so nicely rolled up, I lean my head down, arms shaking, doing my best to keep the Gothic Punk Princess down.  And while people are watching Jim and Megan and my head is down...my moth goes over one of Megan's cheeks and I give her a little bite. 

BK: An EXPLOSIVE kick out by Punky!  She seemed extra inspired on that one!"

I'm not sure what she was thinking about doing next, but she kicked out hard and I went flat on my back and she dove back on top of me, a little sauce on the elbow to my sternum, and wrapped my head up tightly in a headlock with maybe an extra crank and we ended up back at square one.

The crowd, bless their hearts, hung on every count and when Megan popped that headlock on me and we reset, they started applauding. 

"That was for the Gemma comment" I subvocalize.

A quick crank makes my eyes shut and I feel her shift her weight and tug me up a bit. She wants me to get to my feet. There's nothing like working with someone who can communicate without speaking. It's that trust we have. And like I said, even though we haven't squared off against each other that many times, we just know each other on a deep level. 

That's why as I get back to my feet and get us set in the middle of the ring, I'm getting ready to run.

Y'all are gonna love this next bit.  And me, I'm smiling in my mask, hiding it by gritting my teeth.

[ThePurpleVixen]

There's longer variations on the Nearfall Rush sequence, but I think we pulled off a real nice one. Repeated headlock reversals into a tumble-out to an Oklahoma Roll, into a schoolboy off the charge, into a jack-knife, into a sit-up foldover (that would've been a sunset flip if he'd jumped over me and flipped me over to get to that position - without the jump and flip, it's a foldover. Like the sandwiches). Pretty damn crisp, something that'd please any veteran of the squared circle, smooth enough that we could use it as an example for wrestling classes right up until the point where Reddy bit my ass.

At that point it'd only be a lesson for the ADVANCED classes.

I manage to just kick out with a sharp snap instead of scissor-crunching Reddy's head flat between my thighs, but it's damn close. He almost got Xenia Onatopp'd there. I jab him real good with my elbow to whoof some air from him and crank him back into the grounded side headlock, resetting us back to square one which is REALLY the key to a good Nearfall Rush. If you don't get back to right where you started, you could just be doing slapstick. Bringing it full circle lets the audience be part of the show - and that, perhaps more than anything else, is the big draw of wrestling. We bring you into the show. Sure, sometimes it goes too far and you get jackasses chanting about themselves or about wrestlers who aren't in the fucking building, but at its best wrestling is as collaborative a performance as any on the god-damn planet.

I give Reddy a few cranks while he gets his grins in. Admittedly, I was owed a BIT of payback for filling Reddy's head with naughty images while he was in dire straits (straight in 'em, too). But I'd better not have any god-damn bite marks on the moneymaker!

All right. I'm workin' the side headlock, putting some pepper on it, and thinking about where to go next. We've had some fun with the intros, and got the crowd into it with a little back and forth, and got them fired up for a nice rush, but now we need to get 'em giggling. That'll tamp the adrenaline back down but keep everyone involved. And also ... we gotta let 'em in on the joke a little bit. They need to know who they're workin' with here.

I give Reddy a little head-squeezy and haul him up to his boots, and he comes along readily, guided by little touches.

We've gone over this spot. On the drive in from the coast, we batted funny bits back and forth, and this was an idea that made us both giggle. So I tap him between those broad shoulders and shoot him HARD to the ropes. He turns and hits crisply, and we go through a repeat of the same sequence from earlier - the drop-down, the leapfrog (it still amazes me how he can swing over me so gracefully, like a big ol' gorilla in a teal singlet, while just pushing down on my shoulders a wee bit) - but then when he comes back a second time, I plant my boots and shoulder check him.

THUD!

Instead of me going rocketing back from slamming into him, I stop him cold, and he gapes at me. I give him a big grin, and demand another, smacking my shoulder.

This is the key bit - we've been running east-west, but he breaks off north to hit the ropes for this. He comes back and shoulder checks me, and I barely have to add anything to my sell as I'm bowled over backwards, rolling over my shoulders and ending up on my knees giving him a wide-eyed what-the-fuck. The crowd laughs and pops, and I ostentatiously dust myself off as I get back to my feet, and point off to the east ropes, indicating I'm gonna hit them and come back to knock him fuckin' senseless. I bound off the east ropes, Reddy sets his boots ... and I grit my teeth and just ROCKET right the fuck past him, hitting the far side and bouncing back - and racing past him again as he whirls to face me.

After the second time I do that, he finally growls an audible "OH YEAH?!" and runs off himself to the north ropes, running perpendicular to me as I race by, and with those big strides he manages to time it so we cross past each other after I bounce off the far ropes, missing each other by inches. He keeps going, shooting off the south ropes now, and I hit the east side, and we get the timing right:

LVK: Is that ...

BW: Could that be ...

WU: ENTRECRUZADOOOOOOOO!

BK: Lord save us, it's a bleedin' crisscross. Not since Hogan and the flippin' Warrior.

We get the pace up, crossing back and forth, letting the audience soak it in for a while. It's not a spot you see commonly, and with the only sound being the huffing of breath and the creaking buckles and the pounding of boots on the canvas, and with Jim standing alertly in one corner looking back and forth with a solemnity that just makes everything look even MORE ridiculous, we run past the initial laughing cheers, past the slightly confused silence as it KEEPS going - some of the best jokes are those that (bizarre fucking comedian and) Memphis wrestling legend Andy Kaufman used to specialize in, the ones that go on just too long for anyone to be really sure what the fuck is happening.

We just book it, running back and forth, crisscrossing the everloving hell out of each other. Sweat starts to sheen on Reddy's broad shoulders and gloss on the back of my neck as my braid whips around, and we hit clockwise ropes again and blaze past each other once more.

Then we get to the turn.

I stop in mid-ring, and hold up one finger.

Taking a few artfully deep breaths that really do wonders for my white button-up, I rest my left hand on my hip, holding my right hand out towards the Hardcore Ref as he approaches to check on me. I make sure to speak just loud enough to get picked up on the ring mics. Speaking from the fucking diaphragm after running two dozen forty foot laps is just one of the many amazing tricks you learn as a pro wrestler.

"One sec. Just need a second. WOO! Been a fuckin' while!"

And now I'm putting on a show of being out of breath, starting to go through a series of flagrantly over-the-top stretches to genuinely ease my aching knee while also doing a Bugs Bunny impression of someone warming up. I go through yoga stretches, breathing exercises, deep knee bends that make my knee brace creak and seams in my cut-offs strain - and as I'm going through my routine, Reddy pulls a Forrest Gump and just ... keeps ... running. Back and fuckin' forth, going full speed, bouncing off the ropes and runnin' runnin' runnin' like a constipated weiner dog while I go through virabahdrasana and trikonasana and vriksasana and an ass-swaying variant on utkatasana that draws a few wolf-whistles (look, I'm gonna lean into the cheesecake thing. It makes the comedy funnier. Ask Session Moth.) as Reddy keeps running until he finally notices that I'm not.

He skids to a stop, hands on his hips, taking a few deep breaths with his chest genuinely heaving. Poor bastard is slicked in sweat and looking proper angry as he approaches me with big grand gesticulations.

"HEY! WHAT THE HELLFIRE IS THAT? YOU CAN'T JUST STOP RUNNING!"

Reddy plays deep Southern when he's going full pantomime. I go wide-eyed, glancing innocently back and forth, and point a thumb at Jim, next to me.

"Him?"

Jim waves off, loudly protesting his innocence. Red stomps his boot furiously and throws a big grand fit. I stop myself from giggling by biting my lip god-damn hard.

"NOT HIM! YOU! START RUNNING!"

He points expressively at the ropes. I crane my head, following his finger, and look back at him, eyebrows up.

He stomps his foot again, angrily, and points with that big arm jutting out straight, rigid as a scarecrow telling me which way people prefer to go along a brick road. I do my best to look astonished at the very idea.

"What, NOW?"

"GAAAH!"

Reddy clutches at the sides of his head, rumpling his mask in a way that REALLY plays wonderfully to the delighted crowd (Brits love this sort of ingenue humor as a rule. You wanna make a limey laugh, show 'em a man in drag, a cheeky poor person, or someone pretending not to understand the situation they're in) as he finally snaps and lunges at me, grabbing my arm and yanking me into a smoothly launched Irish whip with a smack on my hip, just plain SHOOTING me into the far ropes, putting enough pepper on it that my heels leave the ring apron as I slam the ropes hard enough to bow 'em out! THAT gets the old pulse racing like fuckin' Racer X as I shoot back at him -

- he has his arms out and shoots me a nod to lemme know he's ready while I come roaring in at 88 miles a god-damn hour, which is fuckin' great. He's ready. Now we'll just find out if I'M ready for this. This is a perfectly reasonable spot when I'm driving along in Jeremy Clarkson's fuckin' cocaine-white sports car gesturing and describing the cool-ass move I'm gonna pull off, but it's a god damn different thing when the dead person's tendon that's been stitched into my fucking knee is learning what it means to be part of my performance and there's just fucking thousands of eyes on me.

But on the other hand, y'know - fuck it. That's my mantra.

I just fuckin' JUMP. It's been a few god-damn months since I pulled this shit off, and it's never really been super heavy in my repertoire, but I know exactly what I wanna do here. And the best thing is, it's still old school, keeping with the theme of the match so far. Plus Reddy dips his head, just a little, almost like he's gonna go for a back body drop. We hadn't discussed that, but he's trying to make it easier for me, the big fuckin' softie lug.

I'm not gonna go for a straight up Rey-Rey jumpin' no-hands huracanrana here. I can't get up THAT fuckin' easy, and plus that's too flash for this stage in the match. But we've set a pace here that will make what I AM doin' seem god-damn huge. So I fuckin' JUMP, turning my hips and kicking my left leg up high, over Reddy's head, so he straightens up and ends up with me kinda straddling his left shoulder, facing out at the audience, my back arched and head lifted to flare a big grin for the crowd as I hook my ankles together over his right shoulder behind me - and I twist my hips back the way I came, Reddy pulled with me as I clap my hands together up above my head, leaning and just ROLLING with my legs locked.

Rey Misterio made Huracan Ramirez' graceful huracanrana pin into a household name in the US. Before that, Scotty Steiner (in his pre-freak days) did a more power-based, deliberate and slower back-flipping straddling headscissors meant to drive an opponent's head into the mat, a move so scary that his mentally challenged brother called it the Frankensteiner.

But before either of THOSE, fans in the States popped for one flying headscissors above all others, and it was done by Robert fuckin' Gibson and Ricky fuckin' Morton, often in fuckin' stereo.

A Rock and Roller flying headscissors. It's a move so old school that it just had an awkward 35th reunion in the gym with cheap sparkling wine and a cheesy DJ. We roll clean through, just like the boys in the Tennessee top hats would've wanted, and Reddy's smack-dab at center ring on his back, while I end up at his left side, seated with my hands planted behind me, my long inked legs (somewhat) gracefully wrapped around Reddy's neck in a lovely seated side-ridin' neckscissors. I even throw in an ol' Rock and Roll Express fist pump to capitalize on the big god-damn hero pop that Deep South move gets.

I cross my ankles, my shiny brown Docs gleaming as I press up on my hands, arching my back and looking like I'm pourin' just a steely bear trap of pressure onto poor Reddy's neck with my deadly-deadly legs, but leaving him wiggle room. There's a lot of fun counters to this position, and Brits love fuckin' ALL of 'em. I'll let him decide which way we're going.

And maybe at some point I'll be able to turn off this million watt grin.

FUCK that felt good!

[RedEnforcer]

Now this really brings me back.  I've been doing this a long time. My love for wrestling started as a young kid, watching Mid-Atlantic Championship wrestling on Saturday mornings with my dad. After my parents divorced, mom moved to Charlotte and I'd spend summers with her and one summer, I was lucky enough as a teen to get a job helping Jim Crockett Promotions. That's when I learned to set up a ring. Which led to me rolling around the ring with some of the vets so they could warm up or test out moves or what not. And then, the one night they were short a guy and tossed me a red mask and some ill fitting trunks (people were sure I was a Mulkey under a mask) so I could do some spots in a squash with the Rock and Roll Express.  I fell in love with being in that ring which led to Gary Hart recommending me to an old friend of his. And well, here I am.

I have to admit, Megan isn't usually one you think of as being all flippy, but she can really get her motor running when she's inspired. And I have to stifle a grin when she adds that Robert Gibson hand clap when she flips me over. It's not so much that it's a devastating move, it's the optics of it.  We've been working a methodical World of Sport type match with some comedy added in and this is our first really big move. A sexy, smaller woman leaping up high and snagging a larger, muscular guy and flipping him onto his back just looks damn impressive. And in the context of what we're doing, it's big.

The crowd pops like mad.

They're into the story we're telling and letting us set the pace and following along with glee. Now in this slower, quiet moment, it's time for a bit of silliness. 

There's many ways to get out of a headscissor hold. Some are more devastating than others. I'm not looking to tear up her knee so I have to be careful. So we're gonna do it a silly way.

She's on her side, I'm on my back.  She's to my left facing the audience and my feet.

So first comes the strongman bit. I plant my feet hard on the mat with a big dramatic THUMP.  My arms go in flex mode and my hands go to her lower thigh and upper calf. And I puuuuuuuussssssshhhhhhhhhhhhhh.  And I'm not getting anywhere.
So I try again and puuuuuuuussssssshhhhhhhh, 
Nothing.

And then with a mighty sweet looking bridge I puuuuussssssshhhhhhh and get nowhere. In anger I bridge up and down and push and push over and over and look like a silly man and it gets a nice reaction.

Jim comes over and says sotto voce "Nice bridge, but your trunks man..."

I blush again as I realize I'm hip thrusting in a tight suit that isn't hiding anything. I'm pretty much Finning my Balor all in front of the people. Fucking Molineaux. I'm gonna call a ref bump.  No, I'm gonna have Megan do the ref bump. She's always so...enthusiastic on those. 

Ok, so step two, since these things always come in threes. I shift and turn so now my head is facing towards her feet and I move to get her on her back. My knees are at her feet and I'm kinda bent over a bit. And I try to pull my head free. This is where I'm hoping she trusts me. She can't squeeze too hard or I'll end up hurting her knee. She just has to look like she is.
I pull...and nothing.
I put my hands on her knees (gently) and nothing.
I push really hard with my hands (not really, but I find out later that Gemma saw me and almost stormed the ring to kick my ass) so I almost did too good a job) and yank my head and shift like I'm really straining....And nothing.  I hold my hands up palms up like I'm shrugging. And that gets a laugh.

I move my hands up and down Megan's legs, looking for the right placement. And, well, they're really hot legs. I mean, smooth skin, toned just right and...well...yeah.  Don't judge me, you'd do it too.

Anyways, where was I? Oh yeah, I pick a spot on her upper thighs to do this and I tap her thighs with my thumbs to signal I'm about to go. In this position, there's really only the one way left to get out. The headstand. Normally, it's a really fluid way of getting out. Not today. Because threes you know.

I take a deep breath and get the toes of my boots on the canvas and push.  Just enough to get me up enough for my legs to be at a 90 degree angle from my trunk. Yeah. Big failure.  Megan sees what I'm doing and sits up a bit to ostensibly use her hands to push my head between her legs still. It's also helpful for me to keep balance. 

I kick up a second time and get my feet almost right. I'm almost completely striaght up and down and....nope, I fall back to the mat.  I raise my hands up from her thighs and clench my fists and shake them in anger and frustration.  Then I hold up one finger. Trying to signal I'm going to do this one more time. And sure enough, the crazy Brits start a "One more time! One more time!" chant.  I give them two thumbs up and then put my hands on her thighs again and I kick myself up and get completely straight up and down. And I hold it. And hold it. And hold it.

And hold it.
And hold it.
And hold it.

And now the crowd is wondering what is going on

And hold it.
And hold it.

And now some of them are laughing and clapping.

When I hear the applause get loud enough, I scissor my legs apart, getting a laugh. And then I bend one leg at the knee and slide that foot along my other leg, you know, pure MGM musical Esther Williams synchronized swimming moves.
And the howls keep coming.

Until finally, I push forward and my head pops free and I roll over Megan's bumpy chest and end up on my side on top of her, left arm snaked around her head, grinding away at a headlock to a big round of applause from the crowd.  I lean in like I'm going to shit talk Megan and I give her a quick kiss on the tip of her nose and growl loud enough for nearby people and mics to hear me say "Don't underestimate the Luchaness of the Teal Enforcer. Ole!"

And I'm sure Hector just buries his face in his hands when he hears me say that. And Johnny is about to go full Cornette old man mode.
But whatever. The biggest memory I have of watching wrestling back in the days when I was sure it was real was one overriding thought.

Wrestling is fun.

[Callista]

(This match is a love letter to professional wrestling. Bravo.)

[ThePurpleVixen]

As I mentioned, I've had a lot of practice with forcing myself not to giggle in the ring. It definitely plays against my rambunctious psychopathic character; I mean, if it's a sort of creepy malicious giggle after I drive someone's head into a chair, sure, that's fine. Obviously. But I'm talking non-theatrical giggles, the real shit, like a high-pitched flurry of bubbling laughs that that usually end in a snort because I'm a massive dork at heart. Fortunately, between Calli constantly trying to needle me when we were working out west and Bren Rua's wry comments while I was young and working with that Irish warhorse -

- did I ever tell you guys that Bren is the one who named me Punky? I might've told this story already. I've had a lot of concussions, bear with me. So I was fresh out of Raven's school in Portland and one of my very first gigs was a house show for Fabulous Warriors, the promotion that Bren founded. Scotty sent me a couple of other girls to fill out the card, and I ended up catching the redhead's eye backstage, and when her scheduled opponent had travel issues she told me I'd be taking her on. After my heart skipped a dozen beats and I briefly flatlined, I remembered to thank her for the opportunity. Although I obviously ended up eating a Celtic Wheel and taking a rather tinglingly sensuous pin under her ample curves that night, I impressed her a lil' bit, and even got a couple of 2 counts on her. Back then I couldn't afford wrestling boots, and although Scotty offered to loan me money to get some, I made it part of my gimmick. I just wore ratty Converse. The night of my biggest show to date (other than a few tiny shows in Portland and my first road gig in Chico, California, this was my big debut), I was so eager to get down to the Rose Ballroom that I brought mismatched shoes, one red and one green.

Bren saw that and called me Punky Brewster while we were talking backstage - and when she saw that made me grin despite how nervous I was, she kept it up. That hokey old sitcom had been one of the shows in syndication on the cheap-ass UHF networks my family got out in the Badlands before cable, so I got that reference. I didn't grin when she ended up having the house announcer introduce me as Punky, though - instead I was late coming out since I fell over behind the curtain snort-laughing with embarrassed delight.

My wrestling name's a fuckin' rib.

But all the best things in wrestling are.

... anyway, where was I.

Oh, right.

So I'm good at not laughing, but when Reddy starts fucking synchronized swimming his big long legs with his masked head wedged between my thighs, I drop my head as deep as I can and make it look like I'm pushing his head down hard, but my shoulders are shaking so much and my cheeks are so pink and my snorts are so loud that there's really no choice but to send for the revered ghost of Randy Savage to come out and slap me in the mouth (That's a Botchamania joke, and if you didn't get it then you haven't gotten MOST of what we've written here and I'm very sorry if you've come this far just looking for someone to grind their junk in someone else's face. That might come later, though. You never know when a sexy Bronco Buster will break out, so don't give up hope yet. Another 150 obscure wrestling references, tops, and you might well get titillated. There might even be tits. Red likes tits).

Fortunately, by the time Reddy lucha-rolls over me and cranks me into a side headlock and smooches my nose, my face is so mooshed up against his ribs that I can hide the laughter a little better and get myself under control. The Teal Enforcer just fucking busted the crowd up into pieces, so now we need to get them back in hand. Nothing too aggressive, still - but we need to show them a little smoothness to go with the ha ha. Hit 'em from all angles, that's the thing.

Wrestling is a carnie business, and always will be - and the most important thing about a carnival is that it's entertaining in LOTS of different ways. Games of chance, candy, thrill rides, fried food, barkers, dancers, beer and sideshows - a good match has gotta be fun for children of all ages (or at least children 18 and older if it's one of those nightclub matches we've all done for extra money here and there or part of my Punky By Night series, such as my famous Motel 6 Thong Showdown with Sadie).

So now we're gonna get a lil' technical. Not quite as crazy as our flurry of near-falls ... but British crowds do love them some reversals, so we'll feed 'em some to keep 'em invested while they're settling down from laughing at Reddy. I shift around in a way that gets my knees under me (despite the zombie groan protests of my braced right knee), while writhing around in Reddy's headlock convincingly. He plays it up, cranking on the pressure enough to keep my cheeks photogenically scrunched and planting his teal boots to arch up a bit. There's a bunch of ways to effectively reverse a side headlock - in fact, I learned a lot of 'em when I was a lil' punklet taking judo classes at Obukan. But most of them aren't PRETTY. They'll turn me and Reddy into a writhing tangle of limbs. That certainly has its own appeal, but this ain't MMA. So instead I do what we've been doing this whole show, and take a World of Sport approach.

First I give Reddy the slightest tug on the back of his attire, an almost invisible gesture that just means "gimme room". Red immediately shifts his weight and adjusts the hold in a way that looks like he's putting pressure on the headlock while leaving me much more open. That's the beauty of working with a veteran of the craft - Reddy and I have a connection all our own, but he'd be able to make this look good if I was fuckin' Eva Marie in here. Well, pretty good. Okay. It wouldn't be terrible.

Anyway, he's great.

So with a bit of space, and my head still firmly visibly locked under Red's big right arm, I bring my right arm slowly and deliberately up behind him, waggling my fingers in a little lookahere gesture to get the fans' eyes on my tattooed hand. I slowly reach over Red's broad shoulder and rest my wrist there as he gives a theatrical glance at my arm, and adds more rocking pressure to the hold. I sell it a little, and then waggle my right index finger as if to say No-No-No when Jim asks me if I intend to submit - and I slide my left hand down, Red following the movement of it like he's watching a snake. My left hand slides up, slowly and insinuatingly, UNDER his left arm as he's secured the headlock properly in two hands - and I slowly and carefully lock my left and right hands together, just in front of Reddy's right shoulder, almost at a 90 degree angle, each movement as deliberate as a fuckin' ornamental bricklayer. I'd have thought of a more bad-ass simile, but Gemma and I had the garden brick redone at Rox Manor last month, and I was impressed with how carefully they laid the brick wall that shelters the peonies.

Well, that doesn't sound very fuckin' punk. Shit. Uh, I meant AS DELIBERATE AS JOEY RAMONE DOING AN 8-BALL.

Anyway, the crowd actually builds up anticipation, a rumbling sound of excitement just from my hands slowly linking - and Reddy does a marvelous job of looking furiously frustrated that I've dared to put my hands together while he intensifies his headlock, letting me show some resilience as I keep my hands locked - and I sloooowly push my braced arms towards him, just under his jaw, working his head back, creating an angle. He plays along, waiting for just the right moment for his arm to loosen. It's important that we play this part slow, because the turn - is QUICK.

As SOON as his arm loosens when his head is artfully angled back enough, I push with both locked hands and SNAKE my head out from under his arm and pop up on my knees behind him like a buxom fuckin' tattooed jack-in-the-box, both my hands snapping back and capturing his wrist as I slither past, so that I end up twisting his arm behind him and cranking his right arm in a crisp hammerlock. The move is sudden and fluid, and all the more striking after how anaconda-slow I was moving before, and draws a cheerful round of applause.

Reddy gets his boots under him, struggling beautifully in the hammerlock - there's an art to really selling such a simple hold without hamming it up too much, and the Teal Enforcer is a god damn master of it. He's been making women half his size look like absolute bad-asses for most of his career, which is only one of many excellent reasons to love him. We get a little momentum going with me kinda steering him by the arm, ducking back when he reaches for me with his free hand. He reaches past each hip, over his shoulder, and between his legs, and each time I add a brashly loud "OH NO YA DON'T!" as he gets increasingly visibly frustrated, finally running around in a little Curly Howard circle flailing at the ropes before I crank him back to the middle of the ring and push his hand up near his shoulderblades. "You ain't goin' NOWHERE!" I grin all smugly as I walk him to his tippy-toes, which he obligingly and comically does.

"Still feelin' limber??" I purr through a teasing grin, lips barely moving. Wrestlers either end up as ventriloquists without dummies, or we end up in a "You Talk Too Much" segment. Reddy chuckles while grimacing in pain and slapping his right shoulder. "Isn't that my line?" I tap my fingertip on his wrist, giving him the go-ahead, and he steadies himself in front of me -

- and does a deep knee bend. And then another one. I put on my best baffled face as the fans - particularly the older blokes - pick up a cheer. Reddy dips low one more time as I follow him with my eyes narrowed in suspicion and my eyebrow up - and then he brings his left boot up behind him, kicking up his heel. In a crueler match, he'd be setting up a mule kick. Gods fuckin' know I get my cxnt punted in the ring often enough to expect it, but I don't even tense up, just looking down with bright curiosity at his boot, subtly sliding my own feet back to give the audience a better view while keeping his right arm hammerlocked - and then he reaches back with his free left hand and grips the toe of his boot, giving a little grunt as he lifts his leg and lets it drop, hooking inside my left elbow and letting gravity take it down, unlocking my arms in an instant as I back away wide-eyed with my unbreakable hammerlock broken!

The crowd is fucking ECSTATIC at that. It was basically just an artistic bit of calisthenics in Spandex, and they're cheering like the barman just said there was time for one more round before last call. Reddy waves one hand politely with his other tucked behind his back before I let out a furious growl and just BLATANTLY charge at him (in the biz we call this "giving him the run-up") - and he neatly turns his back to me, letting me smack into his broad shoulders with a "WHULF!" as he reaches up to crisply cradle the back of my head, dropping to one knee and flipping me over his shoulder in a snapmare that gets a much louder cheer than a snapmare frankly deserves. This crowd loves being fanserviced, I'll give 'em that. They love being serviced almost as much as I do I make Gems wear her French maid outfit.

Reddy smoothly gets his left arm around my neck - and I hiss "Right" through gritted teeth, since we're gonna have to reverse this spot on account of my stupid knee. He gives a soft grunt of acknowledgement and cranks back with his left arm before switching elaborately to the other and cranking back even HARDER, as if showing off that his chinlock is strong from either side. He works me back as I'm sat on my ass in my cut-offs, my long legs sprawled out in front of me and my shiny brown Doc Martens with the custom Foree Electronics logo stitched onto the tongue wilted outwards. My inked arms rest on the mat as I sell the chinlock for a few long moments, letting the fans see the first real sign of weardown in the match - letting 'em see a little flash of how energy can get drained - before suddenly coming back to life! I go to one of the oldest tricks in the literal book (The National Wrestling Alliance Handbook, 1956 - "While yelling is discouraged and heckling or engaging the audience in conversation during a competition is disallowed, rhythmic clapping or stomping to garner the support of the fans in attendance is allowable within the referee's discretion") and begin to stamp my left boot on the mat.

THUMP!

THUMP!

THUMP!

It's a little silly - I've been in the hold for no more than a minute, so I shouldn't need a rally, but we're feeding the fans, letting them get engaged, so they buy into it readily. Even though we've also established that neither of us is the heel, so the fans are entitled to cheer for both of us as cheesily as they want. And oh, they want to. They start a rhythmic clap that fills the O2 like it's the singalong of "Hey, Jude", and I take rhythmic breaths as Reddy plays along, shaking his head and shouting "No! NO NO NO! SHE'S TAPPING OUT TO THIS CHINLOCK!" which almost makes me snort-laugh again, but a stone face is important for this part. I take in the fans' energy with a double pulling-chains gesture, like I'm just hauling all those good vibes right into me, and then I center myself as Reddy pours himself into working the chinlock, fixing my eyes at a distant point somewhere in section 5C. My legs are straight out in front of me, my arms serenely at my sides as Reddy works the hold.

Then I slowly bring my left leg up - and tuck my boot into my belly as my left hand leaves the mat and snakes up through the loop made by my calf and thigh - my hand snaps open, fingers waggling. The nails alternately red and black. No fight tape or gloves tonight, showing off the mandala tattoo on the back of my hand.

That one simple gesture gets an even louder pop than Queen.

Reddy plays it PERFECTLY, keeping his arm loosely around my neck but staring suspiciously at my offered hand.

He glances at Jim, who looks at me and shrugs, as if to say he has no idea what I'm up to.

Reddy looks at my offered open hand again - and starts to reach his left hand for it, slowly.

The crowd fucking ROARS.

He draws back.

They BOOOOOOOO the god-damn rafters down.

He reaches again - and CLASPS my hand with a curious look.

And I reach up with my RIGHT hand to peel his right arm easily off my neck as he gasps in surprise, pushing up and to the side and ending up on my knees at Red's left, twisting him down in a neat wristlock that plants him facedown on the mat with a THUD to a delighted cheer.

Remind me to buy Johnny Saint as many beers as are required for this much gimmick infringement at a big show. I think it's a a galleon. A three-masted galleon of beer.

Jim circles us briefly, crouching down and letting Red know that he has a visible moose knuckle in his wry Philly accent before checking to see if Red's gonna submit to the devastating wristlock I have him in, which I think would only be likely if he had that Mister Glass disease.

Facedown, Red sells the devastating eighteen inch drop he took to the mat, but he turns his mask to me and growls. "Ref bump."

I glance up at Jim, and raise my eyebrows while putting some elaborate pressure on Red's wrist, torquing his wrist with my right hand while spreading his fingers out with my left, which is a great way of working a rest hold and giving some light shiatsu massage while looking you're torturing someone.

"Ref bump - or ref BUMP?" I purr teasingly behind a wicked grin.

He gives me a side-eye through his mask with a smirk. "Like you don't know."

I giggle and push up on the wristlock with Reddy facedown, getting to my feet - and deciding what the best way to incapacitate him to set the bump up would be takes only a moment. Stomping the back of his head or kicking him would be on brand, but this isn't that kinda match. Instead I bring my right hand up - WAY up - with the palm towards me and the fingers rigidly together and ...

"KI-YAAAAA!"

LVK: A KARATE CHOP TO THE BASE OF SKULL! GOOD LORD, WHAT IMPACT!

RP: Yeah, I hear Punky c'n cut through like 15 boards at once since she sent in 50 cents and a coupon from an issue of Weird Tales to learn the secrets of the Kung Fu Masters.

LVK: ... I feel like you're not taking this seriously.

RP: She said 'ki-yah'.

Reddy sells my DEVASTATING Kung Fu chop like pure death, as is appropriate for the territory once dominated by martial arts masters like Kendo Nagasaki and Judo Al Hayes, and as I straighten up I hit a kata pose, gracefully moving my hands and feet into position - and then I smoothly shift into another one, thrusting my palm at the turnbuckles slowly, building my chi.

Jim paces by to check on Red and side-mutters "The hell're you guys doin'?"

"Ref bump. Reddy called it." I purr through the cover of some Bruce Lee mean muggin' as I go into a Crane stance. "Get behind."

Jim blanches slightly. "Any chance I can bribe you out of this with a signed Taz poster?" he murmurs quietly while he's checking on the downed Reddy.

THAT gives me pause.

"Welllll ..."

"NO."

THAT was loud. Molineaux sighs and shuffles behind Red to ostensibly help him up as I bring my right leg up, fiercely ignoring the creak in my knee as I get that boot nice and fuckin' high - and STOMP it down, fists out low to my sides, locked tight, head towards Reddy as I begin to fuckin' Dragonball Z charge up.

The helpful O2 light jockeys even make the ring lights flicker for me as if I'm drawing energy from them. Good to know the techs are watching, because we didn't book this spot.

The crowd has a constant rising "Oooooooohhhhhhhhhhhh ..." ascending as I give get my leg up again, higher this time, and deliver another stomp, loading my boot like HBK used to, and focusing all my kicking power, making my foot like a THING OF IRON.

READY TO SUPERKICK SOMEONE'S HEAD OFF!

... oh, poor Jim.

[RedEnforcer]

Rick Knox.

That's who I should have asked for. Not Jim.  Rick Knox. 

JC: "Punky has the superkick lined up and..."
BW: "The Red Enforcer just nopes right out of there!"

I do my best Samoa Joe, DGAF walk away from the path of Megan's foot and leave Jim to his own fate. 

Wrestling is about trust. And timing. As much as you train to look like you're killing each other, unless you're in a shoot fight, you don't really want to hurt anyone. Falling hurts. Landing on concrete hurts, but that's just part of the deal.  The biggest ting we have to do in the ring is know our bodies.  Know what spots we can do and can't.  For example, if I'm going to do a powerbomb, then no matter what, I better save the strength to lift my opponent up so they can do a flat back bump and not land on their neck.

But here, I set Jim up.

See Megan hasn't been wrestling for some time. And I'm sure she hasn't done a superkick on that leg in even longer. Muscle memory is there, sure, but also there is the fact that Megan is just amped for this. She's ready to show off that she hasn't lost a step. That kind of adrenaline can have consequences. And I know, seeing her load up for that kick that she is focused on making it the sharpest looking kick she can. Someone like me could eat that in such a way that it looks nasty, but does no real damage. Jim doesn't have that skill level. And I think he actually leaned into it.

So Megan smacks him WAAAYYYY harder than she intended. Just like I intended. That'll shut Jokey McJokerson up.

I hear the loud SMACK of flesh that is more than just a leg slap and I turn to see the ref just crumple in the corner. Ok, so I feel bad now. I go over to take a look. Megan comes up beside me.

"Did I kill him?"

"Pretty damn close"

And right here the pacing of the match comes to a screeching halt for a bit. 
Worked matches are laid out in different ways.  Some people like to talk through spots before hand and lay it out precisely. Ricky Steamboat vs Randy Savage at Wrestlemania 3 is a classic because they did just that.  Other people like to call spots in the ring especially if they are wrestling someone they've worked with a lot before. All those close tie ups and lean ins you see in older matches are guys calling spots on the fly. 

Megan and I just decided to rough sketch this match, focus on specific spots and then work towards those as we felt the crowd react.  And it has been working beautifully. But this right here killed the crowd.

Maybe.

Thinking quickly, I decide to go loud.

"HERE. THIS ALWAYS WAKES PEOPLE UP!"

I exaggeratedly move to the side and grab Jim's right arm at the wrist, give a little shake and raise it up.  At its apex, I let it go and yell out.

"1!"

Some folks in the crowd chuckle and echo me.  I look at Megan and shake my head and look out at the crowd as if I'm Peter fucking Pan asking kids to believe so Tinkerbell would be ok.

I lift his hand up high again and bellow out

"2!"

Nothing. Well except a snot bubble coming out of Jim's left nostril. Nasty stuff, but more of the crowd get back into it and join me in yelling out 2.  Yeah we're getting them back.

Once more, and maybe Megan can help get this thing back on track. I look solemn and lift the arm up high once more.

And I let go.....