Post by Samantha on Nov 6, 2023 23:40:17 GMT -5
Samantha Tolson stands on the balcony of the condo she owns in New York City. She's in a black dress, and shiny pair of flats, and her long, brown hair is back in a ponytail. A small black clutch purse is in her hands, and her gaze goes down to the ant-like happenings of an early Sunday evening in The City That Never Sleeps.
"Forgive me for the intrusion, but before I go to the Velvet Rabbit tonight, before I make tongues wag and give men and women dreams they'll remember for a lifetime, there's something I need to get off my chest."
Samantha opens the clutch, and pulls out a long Cuban cigar and a lighter. She lights the cigar, takes a drag, and exhales it into the evening sky.
"Again, forgive me. Don't do this often, but on nights like this, it helps."
"I want to take you all back in time about four years. A hair more at this exact moment, but you get the idea. I want to take you back to a nightclub in New York City, where two people put each other through absolute hell."
"It's October twenty-seventh, twenty-nineteen. The end of the Steinbrenner Cup tournament to crown the first ever World Champion of Five Boroughs Wrestling. It was myself, then still hyphenating my surname, and my friend Lex Collins, facing off for that big shiny belt."
"It was a thirty minute Ironperson match, and Lex and I pulled out every single stop. Chairs, tacks, a fire extinguisher. For half an hour we beat each other bloody, only for the score to be two falls each when the bell rang."
"They called for a five minute sudden death period, and about two minutes in, Lex caught me for the deciding fall. There's zero shame in losing to a man like him, and I put the belt around his waist like we'd promised each other, that is after we could both stand."
Samantha takes a moment to get another drag from her cigar, tapping off the ashes over the edge of the balcony. She watches them fade quickly out of sight as the float away.
"As the celebration took place in the ring, Luciana Verdoza saw fit to come down to the ring with her tag along Dakota Mendoza, whack Lex in the back with a chair, and drop me on my still-bleeding head. Now, why do I bring that up? Because it was a sign of things to come."
"Fast forward a bit, and Verdoza gets a friend in power in the company, and he shoehorns her into the rematch. Goes so far as to help her win the title she couldn't earn on her own. Lex leaves the company soon after, and I was hard pressed to blame him. He'd just been screwed over by management, and publicly at that. To this very day, he has yet to receive an apology that I'm aware of."
"I go on to force Luciana to face me inside Devil's Playground at Vendetta Two, put her through a flaming table then make her tap out to reclaim and rescue the title."
Samantha smiles at the memory, then takes a quick drag and exhales.
"To this day, I am still the longest-reigning 5BW World Champion, with far and away the most defenses. For the benefit of your scorecards, those numbers are 366 days and 19 defenses."
"Flip forward a few months, and Mary Ellen Harrison and myself, the Pretty Little Ravens, capture the tag belts, do the work to make them a World Tag Team Championship. Hold them for around six to seven months, and have a set of absolutely epic matches with xS."
"At the end of our tag title reign, I can say without pretense or bragging that I was the single most dominant champion in the history of the company, with Lex's run as the inaugural World Champ the standard I followed and tried to restore."
"But since then, that company has seen fit to throw me away as well, shunned to the side and forgotten. My last match in 5BW was March Fifth of this year, a violent pummeling of some poor nameless sap that probably shouldn't have been in the ring."
"The first World Champion, and arguably the greatest World Champion, both tossed aside like trash."
Samantha knocks off some ash, then hits the stogie again, pausing for a long moment.
"For what, exactly? Who has taken up the mantle Ariel Madden earned from me? Abso-fucking-lutely no one. Not a single memorable belt warmer since Ariel held it."
"There'll be those who claim otherwise. I'll likely raise some folks' dander by saying this, but they damn sure can't say I'm wrong."
"5BW has gone from a place where being a fighter with passion for this business was prized, and devolved into what amounts to a five-family reunion where it's clearly obvious that it's all about who in the office likes you."
"If anyone in 5BW wants to dispute this, I'll challenge you publicly to fucking prove me wrong. There are about four to five people there with which curried favor gets you whatever the hell you want, and now there's as many so-called championships there the term champion is watered down beyond belief."
"Hell, there's more family squabbling there than one would see in a decade of Family Feud."
Samantha keans on the railing, tapping away more ash that falls into the evening breeze, quickly disappearing.
"Lex did get away fairly clean, from what I remember pretty much a clean break. I've not been so lucky."
"I was browsing the website the other day, obviously bored out of my skull, but curious. Lo and behold, my own bio had been moved to the Alumni section of the Roster area."
Samantha raises the cigar and takes another pull, exhaling slowly.
"Not one word from 5BW. I never quit, never said I was leaving, and was never told by anyone I was being released. Apparently though, I have been."
"Who, exactly, put that place on the map? Lex Collins and I did with that match four years ago. Who took that World Championship and literally defended it around the world? I did that."
"No one, and I do very much mean no one, did more for that company than Lex Collins and I did. Anyone who says otherwise is a fucking fool."
"Yet they've seen fit to throw the both of us away. Why? What possible reason is there for them to toss aside the two people who did more for that place than any other five people combined?"
"Because we didn't stroke the corporate cock? Because we were too fucking good? Too dominant?"
Samantha chuckles as she smirks. A drag-and-exhale later she continues.
"Bottom line is we'll likely never know. Lord knows I'm not going to feed Victoria Salinas' overblown fucking ego just to get an answer. Then again, she might just be the answer."
"You aren't on her good list, your days in 5BW are numbered, and that number is not large. She was allowed to come in, turn her little Festivus sideshow into a weekly company show, and hold absolutely all sway over it. You don't behave the way she believes you should, and half your chances for a match go straight out the goddamn window."
"That has permeated everything about that company now, and if you're not willing to be who or what they want you to be, your opportunities are few and far between…if you get them at all."
"Look how long it took Christy Winters to finally be given an opportunity. Say what you want about her lifestyle, or her social media posts, or everything that doesn't affect what she does inside the ring, when given a chance to go she can go with the best. Took them over four seasons to give her a chance, and why?"
"They've even gone so far as to employ Crystal Hilton, yet given her zero chance to make an actual impact. How messed up is that?"
Samantha takes one last drag from the cigar, then stubs it out in the dirt of a nearby plant, sitting in a brown and withered state.
"Bottom line? I could talk about this for hours, but as you can see, I'm already digressing from the real issue here."
"I'm going to throw out one more date at you. November Fifteenth of the current year, ten days from now."
"The two greatest champions 5BW has ever had or will ever have are locking horns once again. No, this isn't the main event of Warhandle, and there's no fucking way you'd ever see this match made on Festivus."
"This time, it's in UPRISING. Reno, Nevada. The Silver State Ballroom. Lex Collins versus Samantha Tolson. A match that will be violent, a match that will make three of the four participants in the main event cringe…Madison will love it…and a match once again for the ages."
"Appointment viewing if there ever was."
"I want every single person in those 5BW offices to tune into the Splat Network, sit down in a nice comfortable chair, and watch as the two people who defined the discarded backbone of their company go to war again under another banner."
"I want all of you to watch the two greatest fighters you've ever employed put on a show that brings people to their feet and makes them glad they bought that ticket."
"Most of all, I want you to watch, because this is something you had in the palm of your fucking hands and threw away because you wanted family soap opera drama. Because you let the wolves into the hen house."
"Everything about this match screams good business. Business you could've retained and done over and over again. You think Casey Fucking Holliday is going to move any needles, aside from the ones attached to decibel meters when she screams about haters?"
"Casey Holliday isn't fit to carry either of our bags. Wanna prove me wrong? Come to Reno and try. I'll wipe the mat with your stupid ass in under five minutes, then let Amber Mansley come out and pick your bones for clout."
"This is the kind of match you had four years ago that put you on the map, the kind of match you threw away for telenovelas, and the kind of match that should shame you for letting it get away."
"Lex and I are going to shake that ballroom to its foundations, just like we did four years ago."
"Too goddamn bad you were too short sighted to understand what you had."
"Enjoy the bitchfest that is Nicole Peyton Turner versus Casey Holliday for your World Title. Everyone knows it's gonna happen, so don't even pretend. Just know this."
"You earned every second of that shit."
Samantha turns on her heels and walks back inside the condo, closing the sliding glass door behind her.
"Forgive me for the intrusion, but before I go to the Velvet Rabbit tonight, before I make tongues wag and give men and women dreams they'll remember for a lifetime, there's something I need to get off my chest."
Samantha opens the clutch, and pulls out a long Cuban cigar and a lighter. She lights the cigar, takes a drag, and exhales it into the evening sky.
"Again, forgive me. Don't do this often, but on nights like this, it helps."
"I want to take you all back in time about four years. A hair more at this exact moment, but you get the idea. I want to take you back to a nightclub in New York City, where two people put each other through absolute hell."
"It's October twenty-seventh, twenty-nineteen. The end of the Steinbrenner Cup tournament to crown the first ever World Champion of Five Boroughs Wrestling. It was myself, then still hyphenating my surname, and my friend Lex Collins, facing off for that big shiny belt."
"It was a thirty minute Ironperson match, and Lex and I pulled out every single stop. Chairs, tacks, a fire extinguisher. For half an hour we beat each other bloody, only for the score to be two falls each when the bell rang."
"They called for a five minute sudden death period, and about two minutes in, Lex caught me for the deciding fall. There's zero shame in losing to a man like him, and I put the belt around his waist like we'd promised each other, that is after we could both stand."
Samantha takes a moment to get another drag from her cigar, tapping off the ashes over the edge of the balcony. She watches them fade quickly out of sight as the float away.
"As the celebration took place in the ring, Luciana Verdoza saw fit to come down to the ring with her tag along Dakota Mendoza, whack Lex in the back with a chair, and drop me on my still-bleeding head. Now, why do I bring that up? Because it was a sign of things to come."
"Fast forward a bit, and Verdoza gets a friend in power in the company, and he shoehorns her into the rematch. Goes so far as to help her win the title she couldn't earn on her own. Lex leaves the company soon after, and I was hard pressed to blame him. He'd just been screwed over by management, and publicly at that. To this very day, he has yet to receive an apology that I'm aware of."
"I go on to force Luciana to face me inside Devil's Playground at Vendetta Two, put her through a flaming table then make her tap out to reclaim and rescue the title."
Samantha smiles at the memory, then takes a quick drag and exhales.
"To this day, I am still the longest-reigning 5BW World Champion, with far and away the most defenses. For the benefit of your scorecards, those numbers are 366 days and 19 defenses."
"Flip forward a few months, and Mary Ellen Harrison and myself, the Pretty Little Ravens, capture the tag belts, do the work to make them a World Tag Team Championship. Hold them for around six to seven months, and have a set of absolutely epic matches with xS."
"At the end of our tag title reign, I can say without pretense or bragging that I was the single most dominant champion in the history of the company, with Lex's run as the inaugural World Champ the standard I followed and tried to restore."
"But since then, that company has seen fit to throw me away as well, shunned to the side and forgotten. My last match in 5BW was March Fifth of this year, a violent pummeling of some poor nameless sap that probably shouldn't have been in the ring."
"The first World Champion, and arguably the greatest World Champion, both tossed aside like trash."
Samantha knocks off some ash, then hits the stogie again, pausing for a long moment.
"For what, exactly? Who has taken up the mantle Ariel Madden earned from me? Abso-fucking-lutely no one. Not a single memorable belt warmer since Ariel held it."
"There'll be those who claim otherwise. I'll likely raise some folks' dander by saying this, but they damn sure can't say I'm wrong."
"5BW has gone from a place where being a fighter with passion for this business was prized, and devolved into what amounts to a five-family reunion where it's clearly obvious that it's all about who in the office likes you."
"If anyone in 5BW wants to dispute this, I'll challenge you publicly to fucking prove me wrong. There are about four to five people there with which curried favor gets you whatever the hell you want, and now there's as many so-called championships there the term champion is watered down beyond belief."
"Hell, there's more family squabbling there than one would see in a decade of Family Feud."
Samantha keans on the railing, tapping away more ash that falls into the evening breeze, quickly disappearing.
"Lex did get away fairly clean, from what I remember pretty much a clean break. I've not been so lucky."
"I was browsing the website the other day, obviously bored out of my skull, but curious. Lo and behold, my own bio had been moved to the Alumni section of the Roster area."
Samantha raises the cigar and takes another pull, exhaling slowly.
"Not one word from 5BW. I never quit, never said I was leaving, and was never told by anyone I was being released. Apparently though, I have been."
"Who, exactly, put that place on the map? Lex Collins and I did with that match four years ago. Who took that World Championship and literally defended it around the world? I did that."
"No one, and I do very much mean no one, did more for that company than Lex Collins and I did. Anyone who says otherwise is a fucking fool."
"Yet they've seen fit to throw the both of us away. Why? What possible reason is there for them to toss aside the two people who did more for that place than any other five people combined?"
"Because we didn't stroke the corporate cock? Because we were too fucking good? Too dominant?"
Samantha chuckles as she smirks. A drag-and-exhale later she continues.
"Bottom line is we'll likely never know. Lord knows I'm not going to feed Victoria Salinas' overblown fucking ego just to get an answer. Then again, she might just be the answer."
"You aren't on her good list, your days in 5BW are numbered, and that number is not large. She was allowed to come in, turn her little Festivus sideshow into a weekly company show, and hold absolutely all sway over it. You don't behave the way she believes you should, and half your chances for a match go straight out the goddamn window."
"That has permeated everything about that company now, and if you're not willing to be who or what they want you to be, your opportunities are few and far between…if you get them at all."
"Look how long it took Christy Winters to finally be given an opportunity. Say what you want about her lifestyle, or her social media posts, or everything that doesn't affect what she does inside the ring, when given a chance to go she can go with the best. Took them over four seasons to give her a chance, and why?"
"They've even gone so far as to employ Crystal Hilton, yet given her zero chance to make an actual impact. How messed up is that?"
Samantha takes one last drag from the cigar, then stubs it out in the dirt of a nearby plant, sitting in a brown and withered state.
"Bottom line? I could talk about this for hours, but as you can see, I'm already digressing from the real issue here."
"I'm going to throw out one more date at you. November Fifteenth of the current year, ten days from now."
"The two greatest champions 5BW has ever had or will ever have are locking horns once again. No, this isn't the main event of Warhandle, and there's no fucking way you'd ever see this match made on Festivus."
"This time, it's in UPRISING. Reno, Nevada. The Silver State Ballroom. Lex Collins versus Samantha Tolson. A match that will be violent, a match that will make three of the four participants in the main event cringe…Madison will love it…and a match once again for the ages."
"Appointment viewing if there ever was."
"I want every single person in those 5BW offices to tune into the Splat Network, sit down in a nice comfortable chair, and watch as the two people who defined the discarded backbone of their company go to war again under another banner."
"I want all of you to watch the two greatest fighters you've ever employed put on a show that brings people to their feet and makes them glad they bought that ticket."
"Most of all, I want you to watch, because this is something you had in the palm of your fucking hands and threw away because you wanted family soap opera drama. Because you let the wolves into the hen house."
"Everything about this match screams good business. Business you could've retained and done over and over again. You think Casey Fucking Holliday is going to move any needles, aside from the ones attached to decibel meters when she screams about haters?"
"Casey Holliday isn't fit to carry either of our bags. Wanna prove me wrong? Come to Reno and try. I'll wipe the mat with your stupid ass in under five minutes, then let Amber Mansley come out and pick your bones for clout."
"This is the kind of match you had four years ago that put you on the map, the kind of match you threw away for telenovelas, and the kind of match that should shame you for letting it get away."
"Lex and I are going to shake that ballroom to its foundations, just like we did four years ago."
"Too goddamn bad you were too short sighted to understand what you had."
"Enjoy the bitchfest that is Nicole Peyton Turner versus Casey Holliday for your World Title. Everyone knows it's gonna happen, so don't even pretend. Just know this."
"You earned every second of that shit."
Samantha turns on her heels and walks back inside the condo, closing the sliding glass door behind her.