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Joey’s entrance was first. He stood behind the curtain, listening to Melissa Marcus, the ring announcer, “The following match is scheduled for one fall and is for the GWA World Heavyweight Championship!”
“Okay Joey, you’re on,” said a stagehand. Joey’s music started, and he stepped into the wrestling world.
“Introducing first, weighing in at two hundred twenty pounds, Joey Mayhem!”
Thirty-thousand people filled the Astrodome from the floor to the ceiling, and they were all his fans. Signs bearing Joey’s name floated atop the sea of people. Joey’s hard rock music blared throughout the stadium. As he walked down the aisle, he could hear the shouts of the fans closest to him.
“Alright Joey!”
“Kick his ass tonight!”
Joey stepped into the ring, then worked the corners. At each ringpost, the crowd responded to him like he was some sort of deity. Hundreds of flashbulbs popped in the darkness. As Joey took it all in, he felt a shudder of fear that one day soon it all would end, and these same people who adored him now would grow to hate him, or worse, become indifferent.
“And introducing the champion, weighing in at three hundred pounds, Goliath!”
The arena lights dimmed, and Goliath’s rhythmic heavy metal music started. The twenty foot TV screen above the entrance glowed bright orange with Goliath’s black logo in the center. Goliath stepped into the arena, and his fiery orange pyrotechnics exploded around him. The crowd cheered for his impressive entrance.
Goliath stepped into the ring as the arena lights returned and his music faded. He handed his title belt to Nick Gaugin, the referee, who held it over his head and turned to display it to the entire audience. Nick walked to the edge of the ring, handed the belt to the timekeeper, and called for the bell, starting the match.
The crowd was already in a frenzy of anticipation. Joey sensed that these people expected the world from him tonight, and suddenly he felt naked.
He stepped forward for the first lock-up with Goliath. On Goliath’s cue, they snapped into a wrestling hold, Joey’s left hand on Goliath’s right shoulder, his right hand grabbing onto Goliath’s mane of blonde hair. Goliath won the lock-up and threw Joey to the floor. The crowd was a mix of cheers and boos at Goliath’s initial victory.
Joey stood up slowly, keeping his eyes locked on Goliath’s face. The two men circled the ring, staring each other down. The crowd remained hot. Goliath charged and they locked up again. This lock-up had a little more action. Joey instantly fell to one knee, but was able to get up, regain his balance, and push Goliath into a corner, where Nick stepped in and broke the hold. Obeying the ref, Goliath lifted his hands in the air, playing innocent, but as soon as Nick stepped out of the way, Goliath planted a knee right in Joey’s abdomen. The crowd booed. Joey groaned and doubled over, allowing Goliath to knock him down and pummel him with fists and kicks.
Joey curled up in a protective stance and Nick pulled Goliath off of him. Goliath stepped to the middle of the ring and held up his hands to pander to the crowd, who were only too happy to boo and hiss. As Joey lay on the floor, doing his best to writhe in agony, he listened to the crowd’s venom. The heat for this match was blistering. Everyone in the Astrodome wanted Joey to win.
He stumbled to his feet only to see Goliath charging at him with a vicious clothesline that sent him right back to the floor. Again, Goliath stepped away and pandered to the crowd.
Joey crawled back up and staggered toward Goliath again. As the babyface in peril, Joey would allow Goliath to beat him senseless until Goliath called a new spot. GWA matches usually played out as such. The heel would gain the upper hand and dominate the match until the crowd just couldn’t bear it. The babyface wouldn’t get in any real offense until the very end of the match, at which point the announcers could point out his stamina and heart.
After two more minutes of general pummeling, Goliath called for a more active spot. “Bulldog from the corner,” he whispered to Joey before swinging him into the ringpost. An instant after Joey’s back hit the turnbuckles, Goliath splashed right into him, then grabbed the back of his head and pulled him to the ground in a well-executed bulldog. Goliath rolled Joey over and covered him.
“One more near-fall after this,” Goliath whispered.
Nick swept to the floor and pounded out one..two.. then Joey used his feet to kick out of the cover.
Acting frustrated, Goliath grabbed Joey’s hair and pulled him to his feet, only to deliver a hard punch to the face that sent Joey right back to the floor. Goliath lifted Joey again and whipped him off the ropes into a clothesline. Then he went for another cover.
One..two.. Joey kicked out again.
The crowd was pleased that Joey was kicking out of the near-falls. Even though it appeared that Goliath was dominating the fight and was near a victory, the crowd knew well where this match was going. For the most seasoned fans, the fact that Goliath was in complete control of the match in the early-going was all the more reason to believe that Joey Mayhem would be the victor when the night was over.
Again, Goliath used Joey’s hair to raise him from the mat.
“Ref bump, then you hit a superkick,” Goliath whispered.
Joey looked to Nick to see if he was ready to take the obligatory “ref bump.” Nick nodded his head once. Joey allowed Goliath to swing him into an irish whip. Goliath followed through and swung Joey toward the corner. On the way, Joey caught Nick and sandwiched him into the ringpost. As Joey reeled out of the corner, Goliath charged at him to deliver another clothesline. Right as Goliath swung, Joey ducked out of the way, and Goliath walloped Nick, who fell back in a blur of stripes. Nick landed on his back, rolled over to his stomach, and lay still as if unconscious. Goliath hesitated in surprise. Joey collected himself to prepare for the big kick that would switch the momentum of the match. Goliath turned around and Joey stepped forward to deliver a high kick right to his chin.
The kick connected.
Goliath snapped to the mat with the impact, making a loud slap as he fell. The crowd went crazy. Joey stumbled and fell on top of Goliath for the cover. Of course, with Nick face-first on the mat, there was no referee to make the count
The crowd knew their job here, and counted in the referee’s absence. “One...two...three...four....five....six...” they yelled.
“Wesley Bunt,” Joey whispered, signaling a classic wrestling spot. Wesley Bunt was a GWA wrestler in the 80s who became famous for losing his matches due to distraction. Whether it was a manager, another wrestler, a valet, or the fans, Wesley always paid attention to something other than his opponent and got walloped when he wasn’t looking. Hence, in the GWA, if you wanted to have a spot where your opponent hit you from behind while something else distracted you, you called for a Wesley Bunt.
Joey rolled off Goliath and walked to the corner of the ring where Nick was laid out. Leaning down, he shook the referee as if trying to wake him. As he did this, Joey braced himself for a kick to the back of the head.
He continued shaking Nick.
“Wake up,” Joey said aloud for effect. “Come on.”
Nick lay still, as he was supposed to. A cardinal rule of refereeing was to remain unconscious if the babyface was in a position to win.
“Wake up ref,” Joey said, frustrated that Goliath was taking so long.
The crowd was growing quiet. Joey was getting angry. In professional wrestling, a few seconds of downtime could ruin an entire match.
“What’s taking so long?” Nick said discreetly.
Joey chose not to respond, since the television camera was pointed right at his face. He turned around. Goliath was still down on the mat with his eyes closed, unmoved from where he had landed. He was too experienced to miss a spot. He must have knocked himself unconscious when he fell to the mat, Joey thought. Now, with thirty thousand fans in the arena, and another million watching on television, Joey was going to
have to fake his way through this mess until Goliath woke up to finish the match.
Joey looked around to assess the situation. Goliath was down in the middle of the ring, Nick had wisely chosen to remain strewn out in the corner. Nick wore an earpiece through which Duke could speak to him while the match was in progress. No doubt Duke would keep the ref down until Goliath got up. It was Joey’s job to figure out how to entertain the fans and keep the match going until that happened.
And suddenly it was all familiar. He had been here before. His second professional match ever, in his hometown, against Oscar Esquivel, with his whole world watching. He had messed up a superkick and knocked out Oscar’s front teeth. It was the worst mistake of his career, and now he had done it again, only this time he had left his opponent out cold.
And this time it was on national television, for the World Title.
No, he couldn’t have done it again. He’d mastered the move since then, probably better than anyone else in the business. He knew what a well-executed superkick felt like. Just light contact after your leg is fully extended. He had done it hundreds of times. Tonight was no different. And he would never forget that jolt of face-smashing inertia that came after the botched kick. It wasn’t there tonight. The kick was fine. Goliath had taken the bump wrong.
Stay in character, Joey told himself. What would Joey Mayhem do if this were all for real? Joey Mayhem wants to win the World Title. His opponent is unconscious on his back in the ring. All Joey needs is a referee to count to three.
Joey stepped under the ropes and walked to the ring announcer’s table. He grabbed a microphone and rolled back into the ring. Putting one foot on Goliath’s chest (a legal cover for a pinfall) Joey said into the microphone, “Can we get another referee out here?”
The crowd went nuts. They loved this sort of chaos. As they began their own pinfall count again, “One...two....three....four...” Joey thought to himself that this wasn’t turning out all bad. The crowd was very much into it, and they were still on the side of the babyface. Joey had done his part, Duke would send out a new referee to make this look like it all might have been planned. Maybe Goliath would wake up. If not, Joey was scheduled to win the belt down the road anyway. Everyone would understand. Beneath his foot, Joey could feel Goliath’s chest moving up and down. If Goliath could just pull himself together, this all would turn out fine.
“Seven...eight....nine...” the crowd continued to chant. And then Dr. Ernie Trott, a long-time GWA physician, came out from behind the curtain and ran to the ring. The crowd popped for his entrance like he was a wrestling superstar. Dr. Trott slid into the ring and waived his arms at Joey, asking him to get off Goliath. The crowd booed. Dr. Trott knelt down next to Goliath, and took his pulse off his neck. As he did so, the crowd’s boos faded to silence as they realized the injury might be real.
A hand touched Joey’s left shoulder from behind. It was Nick. He was standing, and out of character.
“Let’s get out of the ring,” said Nick.
No, Joey wanted to say. No, he’s going to be alright. This is a terrible idea; the match will be ruined. The stupid lug just took a bad bump. Maybe if he weren’t so drugged up he’d be more careful.
But still aware of the TV cameras all around him, Joey said nothing, and followed Nick through the ropes and to the timekeeper’s table, where steel chairs for skull-bashing were always kept. Nick and Joey each unfolded a chair and sat.
In the ring, Dr. Trott was holding smelling salts beneath Goliath’s nose. Goliath’s eyes opened, and he tried to sit up, only to fall back again.
The crowd remained quiet. In recent years, professional wrestling had blurred the line between real injuries and fake ones, making it difficult for fans to determine if they were being worked or not.
The television audience went to commercial. When they came back, they saw a team of paramedics sliding a straight board under Goliath, and, on a 3-count, lifting and carrying him out of the ring. They gently slid him under the bottom rope and onto a stretcher. With cameramen following, the paramedics rolled the stretcher out of the arena, through the backstage area, and onto an ambulance. The crowd applauded as Goliath was rolled out. The television announcers spoke in hushed tones to the home audience, using platitudes like, “This is bigger than the show. We all hope Goliath is okay. He and his family will be in our prayers.”
For the fans watching at home, the last shot of the night was the ambulance driving into the darkness.
“Okay Joey, we’re off the air,” said Nick, holding his hand over his earpiece. “They’re going to play your music. Make a quick exit.”
And, right on cue, Joey’s music began. He stood up, faced the crowd, and raised his hands. He got very little reaction from the confused fans. Quickly, he walked to the ramp and headed out.