Introductions

[Guest Powerplay]

6:59

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7:00

The clock radio springs to life, screaming its high-pitched squeal like an amateur soprano vocalist. As the clock sings “The Best of Yoko Ono”, the radio turns on to the local news station, the only station it has ever been set to.

 

“… and Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick felt that, in it’s current state, Detroit is fully ready to hold the National Democratic Convention, citing the new hotel facilities offered by the Casinos and the new growth started by former Democratic Mayor Dennis Archer making it the poster city for growth and renewal sparked by Democratic policies. You are listening to ABC Newsradio 760.”

 

The man in bed stirs a little. A well-trimmed gray beard and mustache show from under the covers, as does his close-cropped hair. The man opens his blue eyes for a moment, glancing at the clock in front of him, and closes them. He knows he should get up, but he does not want to. Today holds great importance to him, in the past, present, and future. But he certainly wishes it didn’t.

 

“In local news, one year ago today Judge William Hearford III stepped down as Oakland County Judge under charges of unfair and biased treatment towards the prosecution in a murder case against Antonio Gerrad, causing him to be convicted of 1st degree murder... In 1978, former Judge positively identified Gerrad as one of multiple attackers in a rape case involving a close friend. The friend survived the rape, but was unable to identify any of the attackers as she was struck unconscious from behind at the beginning of the attack. After a long trial, Gerrad was acquitted of the rape charge, even after Hearford’s eyewitness account. It is widely speculated that Hearford still held a grudge against Gerrad, believing him to be the culprit a case that has never been solved.”

 

The man winces noticeably, obviously stung by the newscaster’s story. Memories flood his mind briefly: of mistakes, of pain, of failure. But he quickly shuts them out and blocks them from his thoughts. I’ll never make those mistakes again, he thinks to himself. I’ve changed since then.

 

“Before the trial in 2001, Hearford was one of the most respected judges in all of Michigan, serving as a district attorney for 9 years in Oakland County and being elected to judgeship in 1992 at the age of 32. He served 10 distinguished years in his county court seat, kno -”

 

The man slams his hand down on the radio, shutting off the irritating buzzer and the newscast. He realizes why he had to get up, and why he needs to make this step. William Hearford III was going to a job where the only person that mattered was him. Where his work, his triumphs, and his spoils were his alone, not those of the faceless people who praised the work that he did for them and scolded him when he tried to give something to himself. All his life he had thought about how he could help others only to realize that the others didn’t feel the same way. But that ends today. With that, William got dressed for his interview.

 

* * * *

 

Mr. Hearford looks around the airport terminal and refers to a note he had written a napkin. 12:00 at the Sports Nite Bar. He tightened his red tie, making sure it wouldn’t look sloppy with his blue suit. A professional look is always an advantage when doing these interviews, to give the impression that you know what you are doing and what want, Hearford thought as he turned the corner into another section of the sterile Metro Airport interior. He walked in a confident stride, keeping the briefcase with his credentials barely moving at his side. He turned another corner and found what he was looking for.

 

The bar was a sharp contrast to the airport; it’s stained wood paneling and furniture gave the bar more of a lively, English feeling which was certainly a nice change from the operating-room sterility of the rest of the airport. A modest crowd had formed even this early in the morning; a nicely built blonde man was hassling the cute waitress working the bar, a few businessmen were at the bar arguing some inane thing like who should start as the Lions Quarterback, and about a dozen people were scattered through the bar. One person, though, caught his eye: A lanky man sitting one of the back booths, sipping on a daiquiri. All alone in a corner stall, the red haired man had on a unbuttoned bomber jacket with the RAF symbol on it, an old pilot’s scarf around his neck, and under that a shirt with the “THE WHO” emblazoned on it. There he is, Hearford thinks as he makes his way to the booth.

 

“Edwin MacPhisto?”

 

The mystery man, no longer a mystery, turns and smiles. “So you’re William Hearford the Third? Slightly older than I thought you would be. Please, sit down.” Edwin says, motioning for him to take a seat in the booth. Hearford slides into the booth, giving Edwin a warm handshake and putting his briefcase on the table. Hearford looks at Edwin oddly, and asks “Is there any particular reason why you wear that outfit?” Edwin looks down at his garb through sunglasses-covered eyes, grabbing each open side of his bomber jacket. “What, this?” Edwin says with a little smile. “I’ll always wear this when I go on a plane. Just incase I have to take the controls and save everyone. Don’t want myself in the paper not looking properly heroic.” Edwin gives a small pose, hands on his hips with his head looking off into the wild blue yonder, looking right out of a WWII RAF recruitment poster… save for THE WHO shirt and the lengthy, unbrushed red hair.

 

Hearford gives Edwin a cock-eyed look, but shakes off his bewilderment with Edwin and gets down to business. “Thank you for coming on such short notice.” Hearford politely says, to which Edwin responds “Don’t worry about it. It worked out well enough since the show was just here.” Hearford nods and begins his pitch. “I think I would join the Smarks Junior Leagues. I’ve been wrestling for many years, and I’m sure that I my talent can be very useful in the SJL. Here are my official credentials.” Edwin comes back from his little poster boy moment and is handed some papers by Hearford. He looks at them, studying them over, and reads off a couple of them. “So you were in the Detroit Xtreme League, eh? Sounds like an inviting place…” Edwin trails off as he flips and studies other material. “3-time Michigan Champion within the last 5 years? Sounds good…..” He flips through even more material, now onto a page with various physical statistics. Taking a sip from his Daiquiri, he reads off, “Max Bench 360 pounds. 12.95 seconds in the 100 meter dash. Very nice. When were these recorded, if I may ask?” Hearford strokes his neatly trimmed beard with his hand, and says, “ 2 months ago. If you would like some more current records, I do know a gym th-” Edwin looks slightly surprised, half-expecting these to be from 3 or 4 years ago, but stops him from continuing. “Don’t worry, these are quite acceptable. Your actually the first wrestler to give me such a, well…. extensive record of their experience. I’m quite impressed.”

 

Edwin gives one of his trademark light-hearted smiles. “Well, now some of my fellow co-workers will ask you some questions just to get a feel for you. Give me a minute to round them up.” Looking at the bar, Edwin gives a quick whistle and calls out “King!” motioning for one of men to come to the booth. The blonde guy who had been trying to convince the young waitress to come have a couple drinks with him later that night, looks over at Edwin with irritated look and give the universal sign language gesture for “Shut up, dammit, I’m trying to score over here.” Again, Edwin say “King!”, but this time adds “You have enough alimony payments without her, so get over here!” King gapes at him with an open mouth and turns to the bartender. Any chance he had with her before is gone as she gives him a big slap right across his stunned face before he can explain anything. With an angry quickstep, he makes it over to the booth, glaring at Edwin.

 

“God, can’t you ever take a hint?” he asks, obviously pissed and rightly so after Edwin messed up his chances with a good looking lady. He glances at Hearford and motions to him with his palm open, saying “Is THIS what you called me over for? To meet with your grandpa?” Edwin ignores his King’s comments and goes to introductions. “Mr. Hearford, I give you the King of women’s hearts and leisure suits alike, The Suicide King. He’s a third of our announcing team. King, this is our newest wrestling prospect, Mr. William Hearford the Third.” With an “Oh really?”-type smirk King scoffs and says “Grandpa here? Yeah, if we ever lose Cutthroat in some tragic-“King cuts himself off with a huge laugh, composes himself, and continues. “A tragic accident, yeah, right. But if we ever lose Cutthroat, we will think about using you.” Slightly miffed, Hearford looks back at Edwin and quips “Is he always this moronic?” “Yes, the doctors say it’s untreatable, but we are looking into a couple medications that-“ King stops Edwin from continuing. He gives the man a serious stare, looking him over and says “I guess when you get to your age you don’t fear death anymore. Okay old man, we’ll see if you’re ready.” Edwin now looks for the other part of their trio, but is unsuccessful. “King, have you seen Axis?” King looks at Edwin and says “Uh, yeah. He said he had to use the bathroom and that he might be awhile.”

 

* * * *

 

Meanwhile, on Flight 203 from Detroit to Paris, Axis continues to bang against the bathroom door to get out. On the outside of the door, a black belt wraps tightly around the door and ties to a pipe right next to the bathroom door. Oddly, the belt buckle has the two halves to a broken heart on it. Axis rams the door as hard as he can this time, ripping the wrapped up handle right off it and taking the door right of the jam. Luckily enough, Axis and the door fall right onto a terrorist who had taken control of the plane, knocking him out cold. Everyone on the plane gives a heavily accented “HO RAY!” as Axis gets up, shakes his head and gets his bearings. He goes to a stewardess and asks, “Excuse me, but could you tell me where is this plane going?” The stewardess looks at him and says in a heavy French accent “Oui, messiur. You are on the flight from Detroit to Paris. Excusem moi.” She takes the intercom off its hook. “In celebration for our new savior, we shall be playing our best films today. For our first in-flight film that we shall be showing ‘The Jerry Lewis Standup Comedy Hour’ followed by ‘Jerry Lewis: Behind the Genius” and ‘The Best of Jerry Lewis Standup” Enjoy.” Axis sighs: It’s going to be a long flight. “Could you get me a Fosters, please?” The stewardess looks at him and says “I’m sorry, messiur, but this is a non-alcohol flight.” Axis recoils in horror as the suddenly he realizes he will be on a French flight…. with only Jerry Lewis movies…. with not a drop of mind-numbing beer to save him. Falling to his knees, Axis can only say one thing. “NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”

 

* * * *

King gives a slight giggle as Edwin looks around for Axis one more time. “Well, I suppose we’ll just have to go on without him. Normally, Axis and King would ask you some questions just to see how you’d answer them and, get a feel for you. But since we only have King…” Edwin looks at King, and ponders whether he should even bother. King looks back at Edwin with a little grin, making Edwin let out a long, exasperated sigh. “Go ahead King.” King snatches the specs sheet from Edwin and looks over it real quick. His eyes fixate on one particular spot on the paper and he gives an irritated look. The text he's looking at says Is a mega face in local area.

 

“You’re a crowd-whore, aren’t you?”

 

“A crowd-whore? What is a crowd whore pray-tell.”

 

“A crowd whore. Someone who always plays everything up to the crowd. Like Hulk Hogan. ‘Duh, only thing that will get me through this match is all the little Hulkamaniacs out there.’”

 

King gives a little mock pose of Hogan and looks at the new guy for his answer. Meanwhile, Hearford has gone completely cold. The whole air about him seems to chill a little, and with a stony face he replies “I don’t do that anymore.” King cynically replies, “Well, it says right here-” but the older man cuts him off. “I said I don’t do that anymore. I don’t care what that sheet says, I don’t act like that anymore.”

 

Both King and Edwin are definitely a little surprised at how suddenly the older man’s mood has changed. “Okaayyy, maybe you don’t appeal to the crowd anymore. So what.” King says. “It doesn’t matter how good you are if you aren’t going to be around for a while. I’ve seen some older guys just go down the drain. I mean, look at all the old guys in the WWE. They can barely wrestle anymore. At the SJL, we don’t go easy on people, especially old guys. Why should we hire someone who probably needs to use a walker during his entrance?”

 

“My doctors say I’m in better shape than most 25 year olds are. I exercise every day now and I’ve never had a major injury in my life. It will take a lot more than a few amateurs to injure me.”

 

Edwin can tell that their personalities clash hard, and if King keeps it up Edwin may lose one of the more promising prospects he’s had in a while. I'm already convinced he's good. I don't need King to scare him off. “Then what about t-” King starts, but Edwin cuts him off before he can finish the smart-aleck remark. “You’re hired.” Mr. Hearford smiles, and shakes Edwin’s hand once again, and leaves the duo as they argue about the decision. Hearford walks to the airport parking lot, looking for his car, and gives a little self-satisfied smirk. I’m finally coming back…

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Hi! I'm the newest guy in the SJL, so I thought it good to do a nice promo. Actually, this promo has been in the works for a couple weeks before hand, but because I was moving to college at the time I never could finish it. I'm not some incredible writer type guy who spits out 4000 words in the two hours he got after his dark match. I'm still just getting back into wrestling, so I may screw up moves now and then but hopefully I'll get better.

 

CYA.

[Guest Edwin MacPhisto]

Damn.

 

That is one hell of a debut promo. It looks like you double posted it, though, so I'll edit it for you...

[Guest ScorpionDanceofDeath]

A very nice intro promo, indeed. Welcome to the league, old man.

[Guest Powerplay]

A very nice intro promo, indeed. Welcome to the league, old man.

Watch the old man comment or I'll run you down with my golf cart and throw my vitamin pills at you. Whippersnapper...

[Guest Tod deKindes]

Awww, it's all right, pops; don't worry about him. You want a drink or sumthiin?

[Guest chirs3]

Oof. I wish my entrance promo was this good.

 

Welcome aboard!

[Guest Edwin MacPhisto]

Yeah Chris, wasn't your entrance promo just "I'm Chris Raynor, and I'm contemplative and stuff, and I wrestle and stuff?" OUCH! BURN!

 

...Judge Mental rules my pants.

[Guest chirs3]

Die.

[Guest Powerplay]

Calm it, you youngins before I haves to pull out my belt.

 

*Looks at Edwin's comment*

 

I don't know whether to be angry or appreciative....

 

And get me a martini, please. I get cranky when I don't get my drinks in for the night .

[Guest crusen86]

Erm, wow. Quite possibly best introductory promo ever.

 

Heheh, although nobody in Australia actually drinks Fosters.

[Guest kelloggs]

Okay I'm here to stop the lovefest...

 

It sucked...and stuff...because I said so...and stuff...

 

Dammit your character is good. And you know what direction you want to take it. I wish I was like that when I was a n00b...

 

Whats that you say...I'm STILL a n00b. And I'm damn proud of it.

[Guest Muzz]

Fosters = teh suq.

 

Wonderful promo, if you wanted to get noticedm mission acomplished. I feel sorry for the people you have to face.

[Guest Rabbi_wilson13]

Raynor, have you ever had a serious promo this good ever? Not just your debut?

 

Very nice work, and an enjoyable introduction to this lovely federation of ours. Few people come in like a bang like that, and you sure have the attention. Now kick some ass in matches and we got ourselves one surefire supahstah.

[Guest Kibagami]

Wow. It's a n00b with a reasonable grasp of the English language.

 

Cool.

 

S.