* * * * *
“Knife-edge chops,” Crusader whispered.
Joey obeyed, and let himself get tossed into the corner and bitch-slapped across the chest ten times. Joey’s chest would be a blistered mess of welts and bruises tomorrow morning.
Per Duke’s booking instructions, Crusader was calling the match, and squashing Joey. He was also putting on a clinic of the most legitimately painful moves allowed in professional wrestling.
He had opened the match with a few smacks to the chest, followed by an irish whip into a hard clothesline. Then he picked up Joey and delivered a sidewalk slam with all his body weight behind it. After a few seconds of filler, Crusader locked his arms around Joey’s waist and dealt out three consecutive German suplexes, followed by the knife-edge chops in the corner.
To sell the move, and in hopes of getting a break, Joey fell face-first to the mat after the tenth chop. Normally, Joey’s flop to the mat would be a signal to his partner to put him in a rest hold. He hoped Crusader would oblige.
Crusader stepped across Joey’s back, and wrenched Joey’s left arm backwards, pulling it into a simple yet painful hold. Joey considered breaking the hold and punching Crusader in the face for this stiff match that was bordering on dangerous, but instead he gritted his teeth and let the real pain help him sell the move. Perhaps this beating would earn Joey some respect backstage.
“Other corner. Super-plex, then the Iron Sword,” Crusader whispered.
Thank God, Joey thought. The Iron Sword, a combination suplex-bodyslam, was Crusader’s finisher, and was the spot they had picked for the momentum shift and the end of this torture. Of course, before they got there, Crusader had called a super-plex, one of the more dangerous moves in wrestling.
Still holding Joey’s arm behind his back, Crusader allowed Joey to stand, then pushed him into the corner, where he threw four punches to Joey’s head before scooping him up and dropping his butt right on the top turnbuckle. Crusader climbed to the second turnbuckle until he and Joey were both crouched in position for the move.
“One..two..three,” Crusader whispered, and he swung Joey over his head. Both men soared through the air like a giant sledgehammer, then crashed down to the ring floor. The wind rushed out of Joey’s lungs. A sharp sting ran through his shoulders. He wished he could lie on the mat and go to sleep.
Crusader was immediately to his feet. As if the super-plex was no more than a simple take-down, Crusader scooped up Joey again, held him upside down for a minute, and slammed him in the Iron Sword. Then he went for the cover.
When Joey kicked out at two, the crowd’s reaction was so loud that his ears popped. Now it was his turn to call the moves. In the swirling haze of his thoughts, he briefly considered working Crusader as stiff as he’d just been worked. He considered beating the crap out of him and taking away all his heat. He envisioned a half-hour beatdown that would make Crusader’s character look so weak that he’d never main event again.
“Throw me to the ropes,” Joey whispered.
Crusader followed the instructions. He dragged Joey’s carcass from the mat and flung him to the opposite corner of the ring. Joey bounced off the ropes and leaped into a flying cross-body block that landed him in a cover of Crusader.
“Let’s trade some punches,” Joey whispered while the two men were down for the cover. Crusader kicked out at the referee’s two-count. Both men jumped up and started trading punches to the face. Joey hit the first one. Crusader hit the next. Four times they traded blows before Crusader followed the script and let Joey get the upper hand. The crowd went wild as the traded blows turned into a Joey Mayhem trademarked beatdown. The energy of the fans was the most Joey had ever felt. They were not expecting him to go over, and they loved it.
Joey went into his full “Going Mayhem” routine, pummeling Crusader into a corner and stomping and punching him like a lunatic. Then Joey picked him up, threw him over his shoulder, and ran to the center of the ring for an authoritative power slam. Joey covered Crusader, the referee counted to three, and the fans went ballistic. Young Joey Mayhem had just gone over one of the GWA’s most prominent stars.
His body screaming in pain from every joint, Joey was oblivious to the ovation he was getting. To the fans tonight, Joey was a bona fide superstar. But their cheers were just white noise in his head, drowned out by pain and disorientation. He focused himself enough to step through the ropes and walk toward the back. Halfway up the ramp he realized that in ten minutes he would be out here to wrestle again. And before he came back out, he’d have to face the thirty wrestlers behind the curtain who had expected Joey to lose this match. Fuck them, he thought. If they couldn’t appreciate the shit Joey had just taken from Crusader, then fuck them. As his head cleared, Joey became aware of the cheers he was getting. Unconsciously, he stopped walking, and turned around to face the fans. They cheered even louder to greet him. Joey wished he could stay out here in the arena, among friends – fifteen thousand people who adored him so much they chanted his name. But this was wrestling, and what happened in the arena was just for show. Reality was behind the black curtain. Joey turned around and finished his trek up the ramp.
Martha greeted him on the other side.
“Joey, back to Salon A for another meeting with Duke,” she said. “Jumbo and Deep Six,” she called out, “Curtain in two minutes!”
Joey walked down the same hallway where, twenty minutes before, the other wrestlers had showered him with compliments. On his way, he passed Pit Bull Brody, Bandit Thompson, Bigfoot, and Henry Dexter, four wrestlers sitting together who were not performing on tonight’s television broadcast. They all ignored Joey as he passed.
Joey opened the door to Salon A, where Duke was waiting for him. Duke congratulated him on a successful match. Then Duke ran over the booking for Joey’s match with Jumbo. The match would be a duplicate of the one he had just finished with Crusader, only this time Joey would get squashed for even longer before he found the super-human might to shift the momentum.
“Do you have any questions?” Duke asked after he had explained all the booking.
“Yeah,” said Joey. “Is it alright if I hang out in here to rest until match time?”
“You bet, kid,” said Duke.