Leonard Johnson, forty seven year old manager of Blitz, sat alone in his office, reading through some old papers from a bye-gone era, before he and his current team had gotten their big break. In fact, it was some time before, when he was first a manager back in the late nineteen seventies. It was a report from a now defunct magazine of an independent show that’d taken place in a small gym somewhere in Oregon. As he read, a flood of memories came over him – he remembered leading CLAW, the first grappler he’d ever managed, through the curtains to face another wannabe. He remembered that night, he debuted a new tag team – the Moon and Sun, a pair of large men, both over two hundred and seventy pounds, whose sheer strength could dominate any and all teams. But that wasn’t what he remembered most about Moon and Sun – what he remembered most was their habit of checking the cards before a match. His hand went instinctively to the second drawer down on the left hand side.
Opening it, he saw an old, cloth-covered deck of tarot cards. They’d given it to him in nineteen eighty seven, when they’d decided to call it a day because the money wasn’t that good in the indies. The previous year, age and war-wounds had brought down CLAW, which meant Leonard was back to square one. He’d had a lot of fun with all three men though, and that was what mattered – he could tell you stories that’d put most of today’s grapplers to shame.
Sighing, he closed the drawer again. He had meant to keep in touch, but with managing Max and Jecht, not to mention helping in MCW and doing independent events, he hadn’t as much time as he liked.
That was the price of success. He’d better ask Laura to invite them to a drink sometime though, just to keep in touch.
Buzz.
“Mister Johnson,” came Laura’s voice over the intercom, “you wanted me to let you know when F.A.T.E sent something in. Latham sent it special delivery, do you want to watch it now?”
He gave a brief acknowledgement. Another price of success. The need, once you reach the top, to push beyond it. With Blitz, for the first time, he had been able to reach the big-time. He didn’t have to deal with the politics of his clients being “too old” or “too weird” for mainstream TV – this was the twenty first century, and everyone under the sun seemed to be able to get on TV these days. He’d managed to get them to the World Tag Team Championships in Empire Pro Wrestling, after a stuttered start when MCW closed down for the first time. And now, he was taking them back, to the company where they got their first national TV exposure, to have them compete in something he’d help set up. TEAM may have had it’s Tournament of Champions, but it was this, MCW’s Tag Team Invitational, that was going to be the biggest prize in the wrestling world this year.
And it was just the chance Max and Jecht needed to prove how dominant they could be.
He walked through to Laura’s desk. She was wearing a smart outfit, but let her strawberry blonde hair fall over her shoulders. Her jacket was over the back of the chair, and as she heard the door open she instinctively picked up the package, offering it in one hand just as the phone rang. “Hello, Mister Johnson’s office,” she said, “how can I help you?” She looked across as he took the package, mouthing the name of some independent promoter, and drawing a question mark in the air with her left index finger. She saw by the look on his face that he really didn’t want to talk to him. “I’m sorry, I’m afraid he’s out right now, can I take a message?” Taking a piece of paper, she listens: “Uh-huh, uh-huh, sure, I’ll ask him to call you back when he gets back. Good bye.” As she sets the phone down, she looks at her right hand, then at her employer – “Silly me, I forgot to get a pen again didn’t I?” She said this with such an impish grin that he didn’t know whether to laugh or not – she was definitely a good employee, despite her young age. She definitely wasn’t like any of his previous secretaries.
“Thanks,” he said, heading back to his office. She sat down, and he passed through the door.
Later, he sat on his desk, the tape in hand, thinking. “They cannot be serious,” he said to no-one in particular. “I know this is the first round, but this is the best they could come up with in opponents? I understand Latham wants the later rounds to have the best but this is ridiculous.” He toyed with the idea of calling Laura over the intercom, but decided against it – he had better called Max and Paulo himself.
[FADE IN. Leonard Johnson is standing, flanked by Max and Jecht, in front of a Major Championship Wrestling logo]
LJ: So, we’re at the start of the biggest tournament in tag team wrestling history, and the most dominant team in recent memory is being fed two nobodies, one of whom totally ignores history by referring to a popular video game that came out after Blitz started teaming?
And here I was, having heard that she was intelligent. Yet she can’t even read.
Let me, briefly, go over Blitz’s history. In two thousand and three, four years after they came under my wing, MCW contacted me about adding Blitz to their roster after a hugely successful career in the independent circuit. Before that they had teamed together for a couple of years. That takes Blitz’s time together at being nine years, starting in nineteen ninety seven. Since ninety nine, they’ve gone by the name of Blitz, a slightly abbreviated German word meaning lightning, which I decided to use because of the power and speed these men have. How many athletes over three hundred pounds can do the moves these men do, after all?
Now, when did that video game come out? Sometime this century, I believe.
Are you really sure an illiterate is the best person to be representing Nakita? Have you even read the contract for this tournament?
If your assumptions are anything to go by, then I sorely doubt it.
Which is a shame, because if you had been literate, or at the very least able to go back and watch old tapes, then you’d have known that Blitz are not the stereotypical big man team. They are not Demolition, or the Legion of Doom, or the Monsta Boyz, or any other powerhouse team you care to mention. How many of them would even dare try to execute Maximum Impact? How many almost three hundred and fifty pound men would attempt an Asai moonsault?
And here, I was hoping for something of a challenge in the first round. But as is often the case in tag team wrestling these days, one member speaks, and the other doesn’t even appear on camera. There’s a lack of co-ordination, a lack of communication, and a lack of teamwork – which is what makes Blitz so dominating in the ring. They know each other. They’ve been friends and colleagues for almost ten years. They know what the other is going to do in the ring, and they know they have each others backs in the ring.
And the one thing they never do is underestimate their opponents. They go out there and destroy. If anything, they overestimate – in the same way as I overestimated Delilah’s intelligence. And the same way I overestimated Rob Franklin’s ability to speak.
But, I do want to say one thing – Delilah is right about one thing. The bigger they are, the harder they fall. But that’s only how the saying starts.
Make sure they don’t fall on you is how it ends. And when, to be as clichéd as she is, I send forth the full might of Blitzkrieg against her client and her resident mute, the only thing falling will be FATE’s chances of winning the tournament, as their bodies get tossed to the wayside. Because Blitz are the top of one mountain, going towards new heights.
And FATE just happen to be on the bridge across. Wrong place, wrong time for you, Delilah.
And, Nakita – if you ever want to talk about getting a manager with intelligence, Latham has my office’s number. I’m sure Laura can make you an appointment sometime.
[FADE OUT]