Toxxic

Hey, I'm older than Edwin. And in terms of titles held, more successful too. I know, I know, he's great. I'm not arguing. HAPPY BIRTHDIZZLE EDSHIZZLE!

"Fans, I'm backstage with Michael Stephens," Ben Hardy greets viewers off the commercial break before turning to his interviewee. "Michael, you shocked a lot of people when you returned, as most of us had given up any thoughts that you would respond to Landon's challenges. Now you're back, and the situation that you've been saying you want to avoid is taking place; you are facing Landon Maddix at 13th Hour, in a Last Man Standing match, no less. Your thoughts, please." "Ben, I won't deny that Landon kind of outmanoeuvred me on this one," the man formerly known as Toxxic admits. "I wasn't expecting him to force me to make a promise, but in hindsight I should have been. He's not as dumb as he looks - although to be fair, that would be very hard - and he knows I'll keep to my word. I don't like it, but I'll be there... and just because I don't like it, it doesn't mean I won't be ready." "You and Landon have faced off twice before one-on-one," Hardy nods, "with the honours even. How do you see this one going? Are you still feeling any ring-rust, or do you think the time off will have benefited you as Landon has been on the road?" "Yeah, but Landon hasn't done much wrestling since winning the World Title," Stephens snorts, "so I think you can count that one out. Ben, it's going to come down to one thing; who wants it more. And Landon," he continues, now turning to address the camera, "I think you'd best remember one thing, sunshine. You've backed me into a corner, a corner that you're determined I won't walk out of, and that was a mistake. See, I’ve been trying to play nice,” he carries on, moving perhaps unconsciously until he fills the lens and Ben Hardy is blocked out, “but that wasn’t good enough for you, was it? You couldn’t leave it. So now you’re going to have to see if you’ve got enough, if you want it enough, to take me down. “Landon, you’ve asked for this before and it didn’t do you much good then either. When it came to it you did not have the moves, the skills or the guts to put me down for ten,” the Englishman continues, “now maybe things have changed since then, maybe not. What I know is, I’m going into this match with the knowledge I might be fighting for my life. You want to know what I can do in that situation, you go ask Aecas for an account of our 200 lightubes match. Hell, go find Kibagami, if you can. You’ve been working yourself up to this for months, for over a year; you’ve dug deeper into yourself than you probably thought possible, certainly deeper than any of the rest of us thought possible,” the straight-edger says. “You’ve come out with the serious side you always needed, but you’ve twisted it into a dark side. Sunshine, I don’t need to dig to find that. I carry it with me all the time. I can turn it on,” he clicks his fingers- *snap* “…like that.” Michael Stephens’ grey eyes are boring into the camera now and his tone of voice has changed slightly; it’s a little harder; a little sharper. But then, as before, he seems to deflate slightly. He backs off a step, chews his bottom lip for a moment, then continues in a more subdued tone. “But I don’t want to. I want to leave it dead and buried where it belongs. I want to go into this match and wrestle for the World Title, and nothing more. Bloody hell Landon, isn’t that enough? You took the title from me once. Then we went at it again, and that time I stopped you from repeating the feat. Now we’ve got the rubber match, and we’re going to go full circle because I’m going to take it from you.” “Are you confident of that?” Ben Hardy asks, stepping back into view. Stephens looks at him for a moment, perhaps having forgotten that the interviewer was there, then grins at him - a slightly rueful grin perhaps, but not the lopsided rictus everyone used to associate with the Straight-Edge Sensation. “Yeah. Yeah, I am,” Stephens says. “See, one thing that I don’t know if Landon realises is a little statistic about me and title matches. Namely; no-one has ever, ever retained a title against me. Any title I’ve challenged for, I’ve won. Simple as. Now,” he continues, “Landon was the first person in the SWF to ever make me tap out. Maybe he’s going to be the first person to ever retain a title against me. We’ll see. In the meantime,” he says, cracking his neck from side to side, “I’ve got a little nutcase called the Insane Luchadore to take care of. Just like old times.” And with that, the former World Champion disappears from view. “Well fans, there, you have it,” Ben Hardy say, “Michael Stephens is-” Suddenly Stephens hoves back into view and, ignoring Hardy, focuses on the camera again. “Landon. Word of warning, sunshine. If it comes to a choice between burying my dark side, and burying me… then that ain’t no choice at all.” FADE OUT

Don't blame me if we finalised this match three weeks ago and you didn't think to start in your spare time. Granted, I took a massive risk as your movelist probably now bears no resemblence to what it did three weeks ago, but hey. I like to live dangerously. *goes and sticks knives and forks into a toaster while sitting in the bath*

You've also developed MPD, or so it seems.

Well I'm 24 and was a kid in the Hulkamania era, I hardly saw much of it at all except on the occasional home video (like KC) and the occasional tape someone made off Sky. Didn't mean i didn't love it all the same. I mean, we had WCW on at 1am on Saturdays and that was cool, but it was never quite the same as the WWF. I watched Wrestlemania IX, and then I think the King of the Ring that followed it (Bret won? Yokozuna beat Hogan? Was that on the same PPV?) and after that I stopped watching completely. I didn't get back into it until early 2000 when, while completely at a loss for something to watch at my girlfriend's house, i was looking through the TV listings and went "well, WCW's on Channel 5..." It turned out that she watched it anyway so I watched it with her, then started watching Sunday Night Heat when it was still on Channel 4 on Sunday afternoons. And from then on I started watching again. First WWF PPV I'd seen in years was Summerslam 2000, and I picked up from there. Glad I got back into it in time for Mania XVII

I'm with the ROH crowd here. With the possible exceptions of some of the Marafuji/KENTA/Suzuki etc matches from NOAH, ROH has probably the best matches I've ever seen. And they churn them out regularly as well.

Thank you, Bruce. But I'd prefer a ham sandwich.

My match is pretty much done. Give me a marker. No, I'm not joking.

THE MAIN EVENT - SWF WORLD HEAVYWEIGHT CHAMPIONSHIP MATCH LAST MAN STANDING Landon "La Cucaracha" Maddix © vs. Michael Stephens ~Whoever wins, we lose. Oh, shit, that's Alien vs Predator, sorry. SWF INTERNATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP MATCH - TAG TEAM TURMOIL! (w/out the tag teams!) Aecas © vs. Insane Luchador vs. Stryke vs. Manson vs. Matt "Cosplay Master" Myers ~Gotta be the big Welshman. BATTLE OF THE WORLD TOUR ICONS "The Divine Wind" Akira Kaibatsu - The Seoul Survivor VS. Zyon © - The Patron Wrestler of Athens ~My money's going to be on Zyon. HOUSE RULES - KING'S ROAD MATCH Va'aiga vs. JJ Johnson ~JJ Johnson is teh awesome. Va'aiga also has awesomeness, but is teh rusty. I reckon J3 might just take this. SWF HARDCORE CHAMPIONSHIP MATCH - CAGE MATCH "Hollywood" Spike Jenkins © vs. Sean Davis ~Honestly? Whoever shows. The Dead Precedents vs. Tom Flesher and Charlie "Grappler" Matthews ~Team Matflesh Cruiserweight Match Wildchild vs. Grendel ~WC Austin Sly vs. Jimmy the Doom ~I want Sly to win. But I think Doom will.

He doesn't wear the eyeliner anymore, foolish Windy.

OK, so not only does Flesher not forward my match but Raynor doesn't leave space on the show for the pre-match promo i sent to him. I'm starting to feel distinctly unloved here, guys.

Sly's footer is awesome. Why couldn't Spike have been on this show? Someone could have got him early!

I have no siblings whatsoever, so I'll leave that analysis to you. However, if this is what they behave like then I'm even more glad to be an only child than normal.

I get the feeling that Wayne is gay for Clark.

Shrewsbury is in Wales. Don't listen to anything Aecas says, he just lives there. Trust me, it's in Wales. *ducks*

Look on the bright side: if they fire Burchill maybe he'll go to TNA and be an athletic big man who kicks ass. And then he can feud with Samoa Joe, which would make me happy.

Bloody seven-foot Hardcore whackjob... Nice promo Veers close enough to stereotypical OTT views of mental disturbance to be effective, without ever quite going over the edge...

Yeah, the big Welshman is tearing up the fed isn't he?

I second that. Do it.

I lament Spike's nuts as well. Nice promo Sarah.

Fine. I'll no-show the PPV, just to spite YOU! What, you don't think Landon's actually going to show, do you?

[VA'AIGA] I would like to be booked in a King's Road match against JJ Johnson, where we can hopefully chop each other, scream, and no-sell for half an hour before dropping each other on our heads and then no-selling that before finally admitting defeat and one of us agreeing to sell and losing. Seconds present at ringside, coloured streamers (red and white for J3, I'll take a guess and say black and red for Va'aiga, check Clusterfuck 2004 if you want), twenty count on the outside.[/VA'AIGA] (I posted this because Card's internet is down, and I wanted an excuse to slag off AJPW-style).

We're talking hosses here. Subtle distinctions; not a strong point AECAS SMASH!

Oh, wow. Mansonosity just killed the World Champ. Manson, can you capitalise your name to MANSON? Not through Japanese rudoism, just because your powers are so goddamn awesome.

Direct from Aecas' stats post: I think contravening a statement of that clarity in a simple singles match where he'd be DQ'd instantly for its use is leaving yourself open to questioning. But hell, my stats clearly said that Toxx would never kick out of a finisher and Thoth still put Johnny over me even though he wrote me kicking out of a MI Slam. But then, that was Thoth And maybe in hindsight it was making me a little fragile...