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Jaded Hope
Email: al.laiman.lop@gmail.com

IN LAIMAN'S TERMS: Culmination

Arriving at the gymnasium around ten in the morning, I'd never been so nervous in my life. I'd been told at the last show exactly what was happening, and Jimmy and I had been planning what we would do ever since. Our match would be agented by the world champion, so we would be in good hands. Nevertheless, every fiber of my being was caught on the backs of silver-winged butterflies after inhaling a cloud of LSD-laced angeldust.

Staying in character from last month, I wore a shirt, tie, and sunglasses to portray what I liked to call "rich fuck enforcer". Not that any fans were even thinking about being at the show by that point, but it was a nice little touch. I'd even been thinking of modifying my gimmick from a warrior nickname to an assassin one. Maybe a slight change in character would help boost this little singles push I'd be getting?

Going through the usual ordeal of setting up the ring, Jimmy and I discussed nonstop our ideas. For once, I was the bigger guy in the match. Jimmy was fresh out of training school, but had abs that would make John Morrison envious and could fly around the ring with the greatest of ease. Given that this would be the first time I wouldn't be the one getting the shit kicked out of me for the whole match, I didn't want to put him in that position either. I felt he should have a great moment to shine for his first impression, as I'd been given months earlier in the eight-man tag match. The promoter initially said he wanted a "2-3 minute squash", but both his trainer and I objected. His trainer was none other than, you guessed it, the world champion and the man the promoter listened to the most. I really feared that I would not only have to tow the line, but even wondered if he wasn't thrilled that I was booked to go over his kid.

As Jimmy and I were about to discuss the match, Ryan called us in the ring. Standing there with him was none other than his opponent in the main event that night, Sterling James Keenan, now known as Corey Graves in FCW. Still dressed in my suit and tie, Keenan looked at us and said "go." Shit! We haven't even had time to prepare yet! We froze for several seconds, then asked if we could take a few minutes to talk it over.

Our finishing sequence seemed awesome. He would get a chance to show off one of his high-flying finishers, but my manager would distract him. With his back turned, he would come back and walk straight into my brand new finisher; a scoop slam setup into the reverse DDT position, and then a twisting inverted neckbreaker. That move alone may have been the determining factor in netting me this mini-push in the first place, so I really wanted to show it off in front of easily the biggest crowd for whom I'd ever performed. It was the one-year anniversary show of the promotion, and the building would be filled to capacity at 260 fans. Peanuts to the guys in the big leagues, but more than twice what I'd ever seen.

As we were preparing, Keenan looked down at me and asked what my gimmick was. I told him, mentioning the assassin idea I'd had earlier, and he said, "if you're doing an assassin gimmick, why don't you wear that?" I looked down at the shirt and tie, almost questioning what he'd just said. "Think of it; you're an assassin, you're a bad-ass. Silent, cold, emotionless."

Ryan added in, "What he can do is keep getting the better of you, frustrating you, until he makes a mistake."

Keenan continued, "You capitalize on it, you get the victory, you straighten your tie to the hard camera like nothing happened, and you leave. Don't acknowledge the crowd, don't say a word. You're a cold killer."

Now they were waiting to see what we had, and we tried to show off our ending sequence. We failed miserably, especially during my finisher where he fell on me. We rushed it, and they were not impressed. "All right, we're starting from the beginning," I heard them groan. Knowing that they had to approve this match in order to be on the show, I became even more anxious. We were penciled in at number two on the card, but could easily be removed if we couldn't impress them enough to get their approval.

At first, they had me work on the cold stare. While Jimmy would be circling around, trying to get the crowd involved, my eyes would never leave him and I'd walk cool to the side. Moving in to tie up, instead of reaching I'd put my index finger in his face, as if to say "one minute", and then straighten my tie. Good little snobby heat moment to add to the buildup. "Now, when you do tie up, do something cheap. Knee him in the gut or something. Make it count, because it's the only offense you're going to get until the end." Ah, that's how this match was going to go. Once again, I'd get my ass kicked the entire match, but in the end, I'd recover and win instead of tagging out. Whatever works, they were the experts, and I sure wasn't going to argue.

So I raised my knee into Jimmy's gut, and he sold it by jumping a foot in the air. With a cool, cocky stare, I brought him in for a headlock. He called for Jap armdrag, then regular, and I knew I was screwed. The armdrag was the one move that, for some reason or another, I could never get right. One of the most simple, basic moves of wrestling, and I always messed it up. Sure enough, I sold the Jap arm drag right, but I totally botched the regular one. The guys went over trying to do an armdrag for twenty minutes, and I still couldn't figure it out. I knew they were getting frustrated, so I suggested that we just do two straight Jap armdrags, hoping that would save my ass from being thrown out of the building in embarrassment.

After being discombobulated from my assassin plan, Jimmy would throw me in the corner and hit a huge chop. Then he would drag me by the tie to the next and do it again. "Whip him by the tie!" one of them yelled, and without missing a beat, I got tie-tossed.

"Now you're pissed," Keenan explained. "Explode out of the corner and try to tear his head off with a clothesline, but again you'll miss." With the grace of someone ordering a large ham, I swung over his head. "Enziguiri!" he called. I caught his leg, and with perfect timing, he kicked up with a clap and I sold it like death. Hearing grumblings of approval, I knew we were getting somewhere.

"All right, now from the corner, hit a running knee. Then go to the corner to do your springboard crossbody, and Al, you get out of the way." He ran, I sold, he came off the top, and crashed with a splat to the mat. Grateful I wasn't the one who had to take that bump, I started to set up for my finisher. Trying yet again to get it right, the turning him to his front part was what was getting messed up, and I grew frustrated.

Keenan shook his head. "Simplify it. You don't need to turn him. Just drop." We set up the finisher again, and this time hit it perfectly. "Perfect," he approved, "now pin him, adjust your tie like nothing ever happened, and leave."

I adjusted my tie, and stepped outside as if I were leaving. They then told us to take a break and run the match the whole way through in a few minutes. Jimmy and I shook hands and grabbed a drink of water. We finally had something; now all we had to do was execute. A few minutes later, we did a full run-through, and the only criticism we got was that we were moving too fast, and the match would be over too quickly at that pace. "Run it again," he told us. Starting over, we did the full match one more time, and this time we did it well.

"All right everyone," Keenan called to the other wrestlers and workers in the building. "We need an audience! You guys be the crowd for these two, they're gonna run through their match!" I knew this would be the true test, as I'd had my fair share of critics. It was do or die time, and despite this being the fourth run-through of the match, this had to be the best.

As I did the first adjustment of my tie, the worker crowd played along a bit over the top, and it was fun. They booed boorishly, and it was incredibly hard not to laugh. Soon, it switched to Jimmy's shine, and he flawlessly went through the moves we'd been given. Finally, I hit my finisher to a loud gasp from the crowd, and made the pin. "Hell yeah," I thought to myself, "that was awesome." 1-2-3! For once, I was hearing that slap of the mat, and I wasn't the one with my shoulders down.

"One more time," I heard Keenan call. Holy hell, they weren't kidding. They really wanted to make sure we'd get this right. Again we put on the match, and again the crowd played along. 1-2-3, adjust tie, leave. "Now the promoter has to see it!" Damn, at this rate, we'd know the match by heart on the show. Dawning on me as that thought crossed my mind, "of course dumbass, that's the idea!"

Seven times through, and we finally got it approved. Some of the other workers who had been most critical of me actually came up and said "good job!" It was a little hard not to mark out a bit inside, seeing as not only was I about to win my first professional wrestling match, but one of my favorite wrestlers put it together and provided me a new character. I could've retired after that night, and the experience of wrestling would not have been wasted.

Showtime came along, and the entire roster walked out under the lights and in front of the hot, sold-out crowd to commemorate the evening's events. Our little stable was even acknowledged as some of the only members of the roster that had been there since the beginning and every show since.

After the first match, the moment of truth came. The bell tolled in the music I'd selected, "Not Meant For Me" by Jonathan Davis, and my manager led the way as I stared straight at the ring and looked at no one. Taking off my sunglasses and stepping through the ropes, I immediately sat in the corner and awaited Jimmy's arrival. When "Anyway You Want It" by Journey blared over the PA, I chuckled to myself, seeing as that was the song Rikk used in the last singles match I'd had in West Virginia.

The match went off without a hitch, and seeing the match on video, my finisher looked absolutely devastating. The ref didn't allow me to just leave, as he raised my arm in several directions, so I kept my emotionless gaze, not acknowledging anything. Paul, my manager, pointed at me, yelling "This is the FUTURE!" What a compliment to receive from someone who had followed me the whole way and supported me, even if I didn't deserve it. As I slowly walked to the back, my stablemates Rikk and Shane came out from the curtain and congratulated me. They may not have been supposed to do that, but it made the moment sincerely perfect.

Later that night, I accompanied them through their tag match. I protected my flamboyant manager and stared death at the crowd, who weren't fooled at all seeing as they knew me personally. I had a lot of friends in the building that night, and was proud they got to see me three times for their three-hour trip effort. It was a culmination for some other friends of mine, however. Jeramey and Tommy, two of the closest friends I had in the business, finally won their first tag team championship, and the pop was immense. I had to pretend not to be excited for them, but many a bro-hug was exchanged behind the curtain.

Paul was paid for the show for being a manager, and he felt it wrong that I wasn't. Having only been paid at a show once, back at the West Virginia Buff Bagwell debacle, I was feeling far too good to accept part of his earned envelope, so I politely turned it down. He insisted that I earned it, but I still didn't feel right accepting it.

So I didn't have the second coming of Ben... Voldemort/Angle from the Rumble 2003. I wasn't the biggest star on the show, and I didn't win a championship. I was second on the card and wrestled for maybe three minutes. But having started in an underground company, trained for over a year, been thrown around by much bigger guys and gotten the shit kicked out of me for months, done everything I was told, never quit, never gave up, and never stopped trying; it was simply the culmination of all the effort I'd given over the past few years.

And for one night, to quote Stephen Chbosky, I felt infinite.

LAIMAN'S SHIRT OF DOOM

Joining the list of Kane, The Miz, John Morrison, Ric Flair, Bruno Sammartino, Delirious, Low-ki, Buff Bagwell, Tracy Smothers, Jimmy Snuka, Shiima Xion, AJ Styles, Christopher Daniels, Chris Sabin, Sara Del Ray, Greg Valentine, Jerry Lynn, and Chris Hero...

"Sweet 'N Sour" Larry Sweeney. This man will get a little more than my usual anecdote. Larry Sweeney was my friend, and he was an amazing person. I wrote a column literally minutes after I found out about his tragic death here. Even months later, knowing that so many of you never got to see a man I considered to be a slightly-above average wrestler but a promo god still makes me sad. The man could work a stick like no one I've ever seen in my life, and could go into promo mode at the drop of a dime. I even collected some of my video and photographic memories of him in a tribute video, and I'd appreciate you taking a look.

A Tribute to Larry Sweeney

For those who knew him, this will be a bit of insight on someone who considered him a friend. For those who don't, this might serve as some inspiration to look up some of his matches and promos, for his character and mic work is something that will tragically never be known to the majority of the wrestling world. Later the same day, Edge gave his retirement speech, and had it been any other day, that would've made me emotional. That night, however, I knew the wrestling world had lost a unique individual who had been so kind to us in the past and was considered a friend. He signed the infamous shirt before I even got the chance to figure out that all the hype was true.

12 Large, Brother!

...

Thanks to everyone who took the time to read this week, and to the 110 Facebookers who liked my Matt Hardy one-liner. Be sure to like the Facebook pages above, at least the one for this column, and know that I respond to any feedback, be it Facebook comments, LOP comments, or emails. Thank you once again, and as always, this has been In Laiman's Terms.

Source: lordsofpain.net