Ever wanted a chance to shine on a global platform?
Want to get your foot in the door for one of the most modern, premiere wrestling organizations in the world?
Just wanna… settle a score with someone?
WELL…
The camera finds Good Job!, taped up, braced up, and ready. Mort Good is explaining a few things to a nodding “Jumpin'” Julius Job.
Mort: Martial Law, they call themselves.
Jules: …the Sammo Hung and Arsenio Hall vehicle?
Mort: No, it’s a–
Jules slaps him on the chest, his eyes bright.
Jules: Arsenio Hall actually owes us $350, Mort! Remember when we consulted with his production company for a pilot about a crime-solving professional wrestler?
Mort: Great Ceaser’s ghost! You’re right!
Mort: Arsenio! Pay us!
Jules: We’re gonna meet you in the ring and I’m going to leap…fly…jump! Right onto you from such a height that the money you owe us pops right outta your pockets!
Mort hood’s up his hands in protest–a voice off camera catches their attention.
Jules: …Not Arsenio Hall?
More if camera mumbling. Julius slowly nods.
Jules: Nowhere near it, youre saying. Cowboy fella and a mysterious combatant from the Orient?
Mort: That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you, Julius! Those boys are mysteries to us and probably double tough, but I tell you what they aint got?
Jules: Mort, what is that?
Mort: They lack the patented Good Job! Moxie, is what they lack! Theyre stepping into a ring with the living legends!
Jules points directly to the camera.
Jules: That’s right! And my threats against Arsenio Hall? They go double for you, Martial Law!
Mort: Yeah!
They high five.
Jules: Yeah!
They walk off screen, all shouts and tears, and we cut away.
“How you feeling, kiddo?”
The scene opens backstage, the voice is that of the Real Deal, Josh Johnson, co-president of the SHOOT Project. The locker room he’s in belongs to his son, the Joy of Man’s Desiring (or #TJOMD). The 19 year old rookie is lacing his boots and putting the finishing touches on his ring gear for his debut match.
“I’m good, Dad.”
Real Deal notices the brevity.
Real Deal: You sure? You’re a lot more… muted… than you uhh, you know, have been. Not what I expected, exactly.
He sees his son smile with a slow head nod.
TJOMD: Yeah, I’m good. I’m just… I guess I’m nervous? Is this what nerves feel like? Like I don’t have control over my, well… anything? I have all this like… random energy and I can’t figure out what to do with it. It’s not… it’s like being restless, but not being restless. I feel like I might puke.
Real Deal sits down and puts his hand on his son’s back.
Real Deal: Wouldn’t shock me if you did. I did before my first match. Might just be genetics, but that definitely sounds like nerves to me. That feeling doesn’t go away for a long time. It didn’t go away for me for probably years, especially as my career started to take an upward turn. It’s a good thing.
TJOMD: Sure doesn’t feel good, man. It feels like I’m going to explode, but also that I’m scared.
Real Deal: It means that you care about what you’re about to do, but you haven’t figured out yet how to channel that into something more productive. That part just comes with experience and learning and shit like that. Sometimes you just gotta do.
TJOMD thinks on that for a sec, and takes a deep breath.
TJOMD: I just want to be good. Like, not just… you know, acceptable. Not just mediocre. I want to be really fuckin’ good. Great. I want to be better than you. Better. Than. You.
He laughs to himself.
Real Deal: That’s $.50.
TJOMD: Wait, what?
Real Deal: You don’t just get to use Sean’s catchphrase like that. $.50, either in the jar or out of your check for the night.
TJOMD: There’s no jar.
Real Deal stands up, smiling.
Real Deal: Out of your check it is, then. Pleasure doing business with you.
TJOMD shakes his head, almost disgusted with himself.
TJOMD: Dad.
Real Deal stops.
Real Deal: Kiddo.
TJOMD: Thanks.
Real Deal smiles.
Real Deal: S’what I’m here for. Pep talks, to take your money, and to give you some news that’s probably going to make you, you know… probably shit your pants a little bit.
TJOMD: What’s that?
Real Deal: You and Nemesis are the main event tonight.
“…fuck.”
Black.
Backstage. Buttressed by three crushed beer cans on a production crate stands the bemulleted presence of Robby Bingo, working on his fourth. He grins and looks toward the camera.
Robby: Hell yeah man, I’m out here at the Fightscapes, fight town, Shaddup ‘n’ fight. An’ I’m here to tell ya: Az-a-raith Dmitri?
He points to the screen, addressing his opponent directly.
Robby: Yuh gotta whole worlda hurt comin’ your way, shitheel. I know, I know, you stay lookin’ at the wins an’ the losses and figurin’ I’ma be an easy win. ‘Nother notch in that win column. But I tell you what, man.
Polishing off the last of the beer, he crushes the can one handed and drops it onto the crate with the others.
Robby: Country boys can survive. That’s right. Country boys can survive! You done seen fights with submission wrasslers and high jumpin’ ballyhoo types, but you ain’t step into the ring with a man that was trained in bars, streets, hollers, bars, and bars. I ain’t gonna wrestle you, champ–i’ma fight you, and you gonna watch me waltz on out with that pretty belt held high.
A flex.
Robby: Robby Bingo’s comin’, Az. An’ Hell’s comin’ with me!
We cut away…