Monkey Flip: NOVA 5/3/13

“Listen, I’m giving you the night off.  Come back on Friday.  Only, you won’t be wrestling then, either.  You’re gonna deliver a promo.”

Alex has been thinking about that all week.  He’s known all along, his whole life, that wrestling is its own peculiar art form.  Except now he’s been asked to do the one thing he’s never really developed in his repertoire, and all he’s been able to think is, Oh my god I wish I was Colt Carson.

The more he’s thought that, the more he realizes that this exactly what he’s going to say.  He spends every waking moment practicing.  Scotty is amused, and maybe not the right way.  He doesn’t offer much in the way of practical suggestions.  He just lets Alex yammer on and on, trying to get the feel of an actual personality the fans will care about.  He has everything it takes to make himself distinctive in the ring except the one thing that matters when it comes to selling t-shirts.  He doesn’t have a hook.

“I wish I was Colt Carson.  No, I’m glad I’m not Colt Carson.”

He keeps returning to that as his opening line.  “I’m not Colt Carson.  I never wanted to be Colt Carson.”

Is it enough?  Is it even good?  By the time Friday arrives, he has to believe that.  NOVA doesn’t have anyone to write scripts.  He’s heard that anyone who actually knows how to do promos hates the very idea, but to someone like him, being asked to give one for the first time, something more significant that “I’m the good guy!” or “I’m the bad guy!” kind of generalization, it’s a living terror to even consider trying to consider delivering a promo without one.

His music starts to play, “Nothing Lasts Forever” by Wiseguy, and Carson sends him through the curtain.  Alex is stumbling all the way to the ring, trying to pretend he’s the most confident he’s ever been.

He has a mic in hand.  He steps between the ropes and stands there a minute.  The reception is raucous, just as he was told it’d be.  He waits a full minute.

“I don’t know why you people are cheering.  I’m not Colt Carson.  I’m not some circus clown.  I’m not some punk like Oliver Pine.  He took my title.  I took his blood.”

The fans are still going wild.  They liked that last line.”

“I’m not finished!  Shut up and let me speak!  I’m not finished with him.  I haven’t bled him dry.  By the time I’m finished with him, he’ll need that title.  I let him win the match because as far as I’m concerned, the kendo championship is now nothing more than a glorified bandage.  That’s why I gave Sir Oliver Pine Soft the beating of his life.  It was all but a mercy killing.  I let him win because I’ve transcended all that.  I transcended the match, I transcended the title, and I’ve transcended NOVA itself.  I am bigger than you.  I’m better than you.  And I am done with you.”

The fans are getting crazy.  They’re starting to throw their trash in the ring.  Alex has never been anything but a babyface.  He’s just turned heel.

“The greatest trick the Devil ever played was convincing the world he didn’t exist.  I’m the Devil himself.  I’m the worst evil you’ve ever seen.  The new kendo champion is beneath me.  I’ve burned him.  I’ve bled him dry.  There’s nothing left to prove.  Don’t blame me.  You believed in me, and now you know what I am.  Nothing lasts forever.”

Carson has come down to the ring.  It should be Oliver Pine, but it’s Carson.  It’s the first time Alex knows for certain that they’ll have a match together.  Carson climbs into the ring.  He doesn’t have a mic.  He leaps at Alex.  That’s how the show ends.