Post by cooltubesource on Feb 29, 2020 14:03:06 GMT -5
Thursday
February 27, 2020
“Hot DAMNIT!”
“me am sorry”
Sarah Grey-Lacklan, THE UGWC World Champion, clutches her head in her hands. The albino’s pale hair is pulled back into a tightly braided bun, and her equally pale face is flushed with a mixture of pain and anger. Both her eyes and her jaw are clenched as she takes one of her hands, balls it into a fist, and slams it down on the ground below, the impact causing her body to jump in an odd way.
“We have been THROUGH this, Thunder! When I go HIGH, you go LOW!”
The two are situated in the middle of the boxing ring of L.A. Fitness Sport Hollywood, not exactly the ideal place for wrestlers to train their craft, but suitable enough. Sarah, sitting upon the mat, is wearing her most recent workout gear, with the unnecessarily tight sports bra and shorts now bearing black and white spiderwebs in place of the old flames, along with her heavy leg braces and black boots with the red and green firebird flames. Standing a few paces from her is Thunder, the massive slab of man nearly as wide as he was tall, wearing long shorts and his black wrestling mask. Even through the mask, a feeling of unease from the brute can be felt.
“me am-”
“Sorry. I know. I KNOW.”
Sarah stomps one of her feet down onto the mat and then growls as she gets to her feet. She runs a hand over her abdomen where the pale flesh has been turned bright red.
“That clothesline was supposed to take out someone’s feet as I came in with a spinkick, Thunder. Too high and BLAM! I go down again.”
She lets out a sigh and then sets her feet, her body falling into a fighting stance where her heels lift up slightly from the mat and her balance is poised on the ball.
“Again!”
Over and again, Sarah and Thunder run through basic training exercises, working on timing, speed, power, and technique. And over and again, Sarah finds herself slammed to the ground, or Thunder gets a knee to the face, or some other form of miscommunication.
“Oh come ON!”
Sarah pulls herself up to her feet by pulling on the bottom rope and stomps angrily back and forth in a tight pace.
“I FULLY understand that this is not the BEST ring in the world...its just some old boxing ring...but we should NOT be having this many problems! Mackenzie and I worked out the Star Maker AND the Into the Abyss in this ring! Angelica and I figured out the crazy-hard timing for our Double Shining Wizard in this ring. Hell, even SHIN and I have been doing some badass training together, and he neither talks OR listens to me! Why is OUR timing SO FUCKING SHITTY?!”
Breathing heavily, Thunder hangs his head.
“me am holding you back”
Sarah waves her hand at him with impatience.
“Nonsense! Sometimes it just takes a little time to get settled. Listen, not EVERYONE can walk into the Coalition and with a prestigious championship on their first foray, or something. That takes the likes of ME. Well, and Sloane, too, but THAT ship has sailed.”
Sarah lets out a long sigh at the fact that, indeed, her hopeful “SloaNder” ship had, indeed, sailed far out of view.
“no. me am Thunder. me CRUSH! But me fail. Again.”
The pain in the man’s deep rumble of a voice makes Sarah stop in her tracks. With a face set with determination, she stomps towards Thunder and reels her right hand back, palm open, but then suddenly stops as she stands before the man with her head cranked as far back as it can go.
“Lean closer, s'il tu plaît.”
Thunder obediently leans forward, his head coming up from its ashamed lowering from before, shortening the 13-inche difference in their heights. But just as he is halfway, his head pushes to the side as Sarah slaps him across the face as hard as she can. The sound of the slap pierces the are of the room and a red print immediately begins to form on the man’s jaw. A finger quickly replaces the open hand, pointing into his nose as he turns back to face her.
“First of all, don’t you DARE act as if my baby sister’s Vaughnemous Kick is anything BUT debilitating!”
Sarah’s voice is filled with a cool anger as she admonishes the mammoth man.
“When Angelica Marie Vaughn, of the House of Lacklan, punts you square in the head with one of her gargantuan, over-sized, freakishly-large, likely loaded with lead, boots, there is no choice BUT to go down for three, do you understand me?!”
Thunder rubs the side of his face and nods at her. Sarah shakes her head and goes back to her pacing.
“YOU are not the problem. YOU are a monster that crushes bugs with every step! YOU are a beast who squishes the infidels! YOU are the creature with the most imposing war tiddies in the business! YOU have been champion all OVER the world, NEVER turning down a challenge, and fighting everything from a bear to robot dragons to the majority of that hillbilly Constantine family!”
With every compliment, Thunder’s posture straightens, ultimately ending with his chest swelling with pride. Though he does narrow his eyes somewhat at Sarah’s continued dismissal of an entire wrestling family because of that one time HER daddy beat up THEIR daddy.
“It must be me. But! BUT! That makes ZERO sense! You see, I am not just THE World Champion, Thunder. I am not just three quarters of my way towards being added to the list of Grand Slammers. I am not just two thirds of the way to winning EVERY regular tournament the Coalition has to offer. I am also a cooperative specialist! I have told everyone around here...though not often, mind you, because I loathe people who constantly bring up their past accomplishments...that I am EXCELLENT cooperative wrestler! Seriously legitimate, I LOVE team-based wrestling, whether it be duos, trios, or more! I love the timing, the back-and-forth, the tandem offense. And in my career, I have wrestled with MANY different partners and have won the VAST majority of those matches. I don’t tell people this often, of course, because I canNOT stand when people talk about themselves ad naseum, but I am nearly unTOUCHable in these environments.
“Honestly, when it comes to this company ALONE, I have won cooperative matches with EIGHT different partners...and that doesn’t include winning last year’s Outlast, though I don’t speak of that too often, of course, don’t want to seem rude. So why...WHY...were you and I unable to make it number nine? WHY was my overwhelming, unstoppable, undeniable, statistically-proven ability to win with everyone, from jobbers like Mathis to future Hall of Fame Ringbearers like my Beloved, yet WE fell to Angelica and Hide?”
She comes to a stop again and stares at Thunder before throwing her arms out wide.
“Well?!”
Thunder blinks several times.
“because Angie?”
Sarah tilts her head to the side and chews on her lips, her infamous “Thinking Dimple” sprouting to life. Thankfully, she does not notice her cooperative partner nearly swoon from its arrival.
“Possibly.”
She puts her eyes back on Thunder and posits her hands on her hips.
“Do you trust me?”
Thunder nods his head, but Sarah shakes hers and walks forward.
“I’m not sure you do. I mean, I’m obviously trustworthy and all...literally everyone in the Coalition will tell you that ‘trustworthy’ is the FIRST thing they think of when playing word association with my name...well, that and ‘humble,’ naturally...but you and I have little to no actual experience together as wrestlers.”
Her face shines brightly when she stands before him and she throws up her finger into the air.
“I know! We’ll do what we used to do in Cheer Camp.”
Even through mask, Thunder’s excitement can be seen. It can be felt.
“really? is it like what me did inband camp me mean football camp?”
Sarah puts on her best “Pardon?” face.
“No! Now, listen. We need some trust exercises. Like a trust fall! That’s where we-”
“me know!”
Thunder’s enthusiasm fills the ring and he quickly turns around.
Throws his arms out wide.
And falls backwards.
“Shit!”
Thunder’s 380 pounds fall atop the World Champion without any resistance. Sarah squeals as she is squished like a bug.
Ten Minutes Later
Sarah stretches her arms into the air, trying to loosen up the pressure from Thunder’s landing.
“Okay, THAT didn’t go well. Good thing Max was teaching her powerlifters class today.”
“me like being deadlifted by strong women”
“Lets try a different exercise. This is called Helium Stick. Put your hand out and stick out your finger.”
Sarah nods as Thunder puts out his giant paw and extends his finger.
“Good! Now, I do the same and...holy CRAP your hand is massive. Like, Good LORD your finger is, like, the size of my FOOT. Not one of Mackenzie’s feet, of course…’dainty,’ my ass...but sweet MOTHER do they get me going...but yeah, huge hand, dude.”
“you know what they say about big hands”
“You have to buy Kem-sized gloves?”
“........”
“Anyway, we have to balance something between our fingers, right? And go down at the same speed and...one sec...hey, Max! Still need you, buddy!”
THE MONSTER Maxine climbs back into the ring and gently, with the grace of a thousand swans, places a long bar across their extended fingers and slowly releases her grip until it balances between them.
“Now, here’s the deal: We have to lower ourselves to the ground, always keeping the tips of our fingers touching, and keep this yoga bar balanced, okay? We, DAMNIT IT ALREADY FELL!”
THE MONSTER Maxine gently places it on their fingers again.
“Now, listen! We have to work together and THUNDER I SWEAR TO GOD”
THE MONSTER Maxine gently places it on their fingers again.
“Now, slowly okay? Good...good…DAMNIT”
“that was you this time”
“I KNOW THAT”
THE MONSTER Maxine gently places it on their fingers again.
“I’m already squatting, Thunder! Why aren’t you down here yet?!”
“you have tiny legs”
“THEY ARE NOT TINY! They are SHORT, not tiny! These thighs can squeeze out a man’s soul!”
“uhhhhhhh”
THE MONSTER Maxine gently places it on their fingers again.
“I wanna be your bubblegum bitch!”
“...thank sweet Baby Jesus…”
The yoga balance bar falls to the mat, intentionally this time, as Sarah stalks away towards one of the corners.
“...this doesn’t even need to be good...any freakin’ excuse for a break right now…”
Sarah rummages through her exclusive sibling-triggering YSL athletic bag and pulls out her matrimonially-obligated iPhone and reads the messages waiting for her:
Sara blinks at the messages for a moment, her lips curling up in humor at the ridiculousness that was the G-L automatic responses to someone even whispering “Psst!” to one of them, then reads them again. After a few seconds, her fingers fly across the screen of her phone.
She shakes her head as she puts her phone back in her back.
“Baby Jesus’ pock-free bottom, I HATE that Topher guy.”
“me like Topher”
“I KNOW!”
Sarah stands up and slings her bag over her shoulder.
“C’mon, I need to dust off my TARDIS. Off to the Egg!”
HOUSE OF LACKLAN
-FRIENDS, ASSOCIATES, PEERS
-UNITED GLOBAL WRESTLING ASSOCIATION
-REDD THUNDER
-COLLECTED WORKS
-JOURNAL ENTRIES
- 2020
-FEBRUARY
Monday
September 17, 2018
The door of the TARDIS, painted in the general theme of the Grey-Lacklans and with their family sigil adorning the top, bursts open and the pile of bodies spill out with a mass cry. Thunder lands first, thankfully on his back, as his large torso is able to absorb the fall of the cameraman, the expensive movie camera being clutched to his chest with as tight a grasp as the most protective mother and their favored child. Sarah and Kenzi, their hands clasping together unconsciously in their ever-present instinctual need to be together, are able to get their elbows and knees up to avoid landing on their faces.
“Ow!”
“I HATE that part!”
“WHAT’S GOING ON?!”
“me am confused”
The four get to their feet, the Grey-Laklans far better for wear, and both hold out hands toward the cameraman.
“Its okay, mang. You’ll get used to it.”
“C’mon, Nameless and Faceless member of the documentary team!”
They pull the poor man to his feet and he looks around in confusion.
“Where...where are we?”
Sarah and Kenzi share a look, both eyes brown and red filled with a slight spark of mirth.
“Not where-”
“-but when.”
The cameraman looks confused, but no more so than Thunder.
“me know what you are talking about, but please say it out loud so that the Thunder knows that you know what you are talking about”
Sarah rolls her eyes as she reaches out for Thunder. After a second look at the daunting task of pulling him to his feet, she elbows Kenzi in the ribs.
“Gimme a hand. Just pretend we’re doing a low row.”
Kenzi blinks in clear confusion.
“wut”
Sarah sighs and rolls her eyes again.
“The exercise where I’m bent over and pulling a weight toward my body, and you spend the entire time making comments to everyone in the gym about how you ‘tap dat shit e’ery NIGHT!’”
“Oh! Why didn’t you say so!”
Kenzi and Sarah take one of Thunder’s hands, set their feet, pop out their hips backward and then heave towards themselves. Thunder comes to his feet with a bound, and both Grey-Lacklans give pleased smiles at their teamwork.
“Hey Thunder, remember how Sar used to wrestle for fifteen different companies at once?”
“Fight the world, across the world!”
“And how she used to wrestle several times in one week, sometimes twice a day?”
“This one time, I wrestled four matches in two days in three different states. Won them all! Holy FUCK did that trigger people!”
“THIS is how we did it!”
Kenzi gestures to the TARDIS like an ebony Vanna White and Thunder’s eyes light up.
“me love Doctor Who but not the girl because that’s dumb”
“Literally never seen an episode.”
“Don’t even know what they call time traveling!”
“I always assumed ‘hop’ or whatever.”
“Anyway, WHEN we are is probably whatever the last destination was.”
Sarah’s face suddenly grows cold.
“I know when we are.”
Kenzi looks at her with confusion, but Sarah just gives her a nod.
“C’mon.”
Sarah turns and walks down a hallway, with the rest of the group following. Before long, they find themselves opening up onto a balcony. Below them, a crowd of people stand, not a single person sitting in their seat, and cheering on the action at the center. Within a squared circle, a woman with platinum hair is staring down into the face of a blonde woman laying on the mat, a microphone in her hands.
“...babe?”
“AND ANOTHER THING! I-”
Sarah mouths the words with the woman down below before the screaming starts. The blonde woman’s hand jabs itself into the yelling woman’s mouth, and before they knew it, the bell was ringing.
“HERE ARE YOU WINNERS….AND NEWWWWWW UGWC COOPERATIVE CHAMPIONS….”
“Babe...you come here?”
Sarah stands at the edge of the balcony, her eyes staring downward.
“Often.”
She licks her lips for a moment.
“People talk about learning from their mistakes, but I literally do it. THIS is my biggest failure. I don’t just think about it, Beloved. I DWELL on it.”
Okay, this might seem like a weird time to do an interview for Kenzi's World, but you're here and I'm here, so lets go!
How do I feel about finding out that Sarah dwells on this moment so much? I find it touching. I have always known that it bothered her, it is the Lacklan way to take God’s favorite sport’ seriously...to treat it like a religion. Me, I had brushed off the loss and looked forward to our next opportunity to become Cooperative Champions, but it never came...and now I know why.
Kenzi comes up behind Sarah as she stands there, silently contemplating that moment. She slips her arms around Sarah’s slender waist, and rests her chin on her shoulder.
“You and I have always won and lost as a team...even though it usually you taking the pin...cuz you suck.”
Sarah tenses for a moment, so many of her fears becoming reality...not to mention the glorious return to Kenzi Brand Ellipsis Overuse...but then relaxes when Kenzi follows the dig with a playful nibble of her ear.
“...bitch...”
Kenzi smiles as she whispers under her breath and presses her body even closer to her wife.
“We have both failed so many times, but we’ve never let failure stop us from trying to do and be better.”
She pauses, smiling as Sarah’s hand reaches up and slips into her braids at the back of her head, and looks at the moment their reign came to a premature end.
“Come here as often as you like...but don’t leave here sad, leave here determined.”
Kenzi kisses Sarah on the cheek and pulls away, leaving her wife to contemplate her words.
“no need to stop there”
Thunder’s booming voice threatens to ruin the moment, but then Sarah motions her towards her.
“Look, Thunder. Look at the ONE FUCKING TIME Dave Rydell had any success against my House.”
Thunder looks down to see Angie and Dave being handed the Cooperative Championships.
“This match right here? The, literally, ONE time he got one over on my House...well, before he shocked everyone by putting away my baby sister, but you and I took care of that last month...and he had next to NOTHING to do with it. Dude spent most of his time getting his face kicked and knee’d in by the 5’2” Mafia. It was only MY hubris that brought us down. Of course, HE doesn’t understand that, certainly not at this moment, because this is one of his VERY FEW moments of success. Dude literally only wins a third of his matches, and do NOT even get me STARTED on his shitty-ass ability to win on Synergy!”
Thunder’s eyes shift left and right.
“me not very good at winning on Synergy”
Sarah rolls her eyes again.
“We have been through this! YOU are brand new! Still getting used to things! But this guy? Jesus FUCK he’s terrible. Seriously legitimate, you could pick and random Synergy and there is an overWHELMING chance that he’s going to end up at the Loser’s Window. And Raab-”
“me know Raab”
“-is just as bad! Literally the new version of Rydell. Well, minus the title reigns, anyway. At least Dave knows how to win a title now and again. Not the World Title, of course, but he CAN get some wins with the others.”
“Babe?”
“Hmmm?”
“Before you bore us with statistics...freakin’ NERD...you can’t be serious about that whole ‘any random Synergy’ thing. Dave wins matches! He’s a jackass, and deserved you, I, and Rox fucking him up a few weeks ago, but he’s not THAT bad. And Konrad tries really hard!”
Sarah narrows her eyes as she turns toward Kenzi and away from her greatest failure below.
“Any. Random. Synergy.”
“shame we don’t have some way to go look at any random synergy and prove you right. me think that would take some kind of time travel machine or something”
Silence.
Silence.
“Actually!”
Sarah throws her finger into the air and stomps towards the TARDIS.
“HellOOOOOO, computer!”
“YES, ALBINO PRINCESS”
A robotic voice comes from the modified phone booth.
“There have been…”
She closes her eyes for a moment and her eyelids move rapidly as she reaches into her vast statistical stores.
“...three hundred and four Synergy events since the Coalition was founded. I want you to choose a random Synergy, literally any of them, and take us there. Oh, but eliminate any Synergies from the pool that neither Dave Rydell nor Konrad Raab were on.”
After a few seconds, the computerized voice fills the air again.
“DESTINATION CHOSEN.”
Sarah smiles and takes in her three companions.
“Let us not dawdle! I have statistics to prove!”
The four again pile into the TARDIS and shoot off.
This is the WEIRDEST gig I have ever had. EVER! And I was the cameraman for Maria Salvatore's third blacked.com group scene! Yes, the one in the vegetable patch! Working for the two lezbos is even weirder than THAT! Is one of them a vampire? I think one of them is a vampire. And the spider! There is a SPIDER living in the black one's hair!
A FUCKING SPIDER LIVES IN HER HAIR!!
Maleek told me that his doc was going to be easy money. "Its to lesbians, dude," he said. "They'll probably just make out in front of you," he said. I've been following Kenzi around for this doc for WEEKS and there has been NO girl-on-girl action out in the open! Bitches always slam the door and tell me to go away.
And now this? THIS?! I'm time traveling?!
IS THIS EVEN CANON?!
Monday
October 15, 2015
Synergy #172
Once again atop the balcony, Sarah smiles down at the scene below. Gordo is outside of the ring and-
“Oh shit!”
Kenzi’s voice pierces the air as Larry pops to her feet with a large jar of marmite in his hands and slams it down onto the unsuspecting head of Dave Rydell. A particularly disgusting combination of blood and yeast-extract pours down Rydell’s face and he collapses to the mat. As he falls prone, Larry turns to Barnes and applies a joint lock and just a few seconds later, the bell is ringing. Sarah points down at the mess that was the Queen’s Bedlamn Invitational and shakes her head.
“Look at that nonsense. Dave Rydell, Mister I Wanna Be a Grandslammer, got his ass BEAT in that Chaos match. We’re talking like he was so out of it that it was almost as if he wasn’t even THERE.”
Sarah turns to Kenzi and shakes her head again.
“Our family has brought prestige to the Chaos Championship. First Mumsie makes it the most important title in the company, then shatters every record with it, and now YOU have become THE longest-reigning champion there is to date. But this crap? This bullshit? Dave couldn’t beat freakin’ LARRY, and THAT guy was a member of Hastings’ Dungeon of Pain. I think. Honestly, it gets a little muddled during this time.”
Sarah turns back to the action down below.
“Hmmmm. If this is 2015...you’re shooting The World According to Kenzi...I’m being Daddy’s valet…”
“Thunder was master of the universe”
“...I’m sure you were, Thunder...I wonder if Sloane is literally watching this episode of Synergy?”
Sarah reaches into her pocket and pulls out her iPhone.
“Chop chop! Onto the next randomly selected Synergy!”
Monday
September 15, 2014
Synergy #140
"Good Lord, would you just LOOK at that, Thunder? A MASSIVE part of Dave's identity is being a super-badass Cross-Hemisphere Champion...not to the point of self-identifying as it, as Fear does...and HERE he is with a contendership on the line in this match to get his Precious back and WHAT does he do?"
Down below them, Dave Rydell is unable to control his anger and attacks Ezekiel Pax with a chair while Holden Orson lays lamely on the outside in a foreshadowing of himself in 2019.
"He gets himself disqualified! His chance of getting the title back? Poof! Gone! All because he couldn't control himself. Oh, sure, he gets to look like a badass in failure, but that doesn't do DICK for him in the end, does it?"
Thunder rubs his face.
"him keep attacking me and hitting me with cutters. me am tired of him looking like a badass."
"Trust me on this, Thunder: Its all he CAN do. Slipping into the ring and catching you in your match with the Zucchini Warrior? Attacking us after our match last week? Going the EXTRA step of bullshit by taking out Monsieur Ooley? Its the desperate final attempt at relevancy that might as well be the sixth sequel of an 80's horror film: Everything has been seen before, the unstoppable villain has already been killed five times, and the only way for it to even get a pop of notice is by doing something stupid and over-the-top. THIS Rydell was bad enough. OUR Rydell has fallen into a place of pity."
Thunder stares down at the then-Red Fusion thrashing and causing trouble in the wake of his loss.
"me go crush him now"
"No! Do not EVEN get me started on what something like that would do to the timeline! I swear to God, if we have to sit through another six hour WalBerts Excellent Adventure I will KILL you!"
Thunder stops his motion towards the stairs leading below and gives a slow nod.
"but me will crush him soon. me will hurt him bad."
"Wonderful to hear! I am sure you have been studying the UGWC User's Manual I made for you."
"ummmmm yes. yes me have"
Thunder looks directly at the camera, grimaces, and shakes his head in clear negation of that idea.
"and me will be ready for him. me will crush him and squish him and pull off his baby arms like wings on a fly"
"...keep going..."
"and when the time comes, after Thunder has powerbombed him seven times...me love powerbombs...me will lift him up on my shoulders, bring him over to you, and powerbomb you both down like we did in Boston"
"There we go! Okay, lets keep moving. Next random Synergy!"
Monday
October 10, 2016
Synergy #202
Above above, Sarah shakes her head as Dave gets hit by two flying finishing moves from Mil Vidas and freakin' JK, the man more known for handing granola bars than being a wrestler. Meanwhile, Donovan Hastings is more worried about retrieving his phone so that he can like his own tweet (while "Owen" takes care of it) than he is the outcome of the match.
Annnnnnnd we have new Cooperative Champions.
Sarah sighs and doesn't even bother breaking this one down.
"That's three for three, guys. Lets hope there is SOME kind of victory in the next one, yeah?
Monday
December 2, 2019
Synergy #299
Okay okay okay, at least Raab’s in this one!
Do you guys get the point, yet? SOME of us are GREAT at winning matches, ya know? Some of us CARE. Some of us understand that our records, and our words, and our victories and failures, and our motivations, all combine together to create a TAPESTRY of who we are. ANYONE can cut a promo and talk about how great they are. ANYONE can stand in the back with their head hanging low and promise to do better next time. ANYONE can do these things. But to take full stock of themselves? To be able to answer for EVERYTHING they do? To be able to stand up, straight and tall, their chin up into the air, and say “Yes! THIS is who I am! THIS is my history! THIS is why I am a CHAMPION!” is paramount.
And there is precious little for either one of you to be able to use for such a statement.
Do you understand that this isn’t some stupid bit? This isn’t something I made up? Like, this isn’t Raab busting out his Black Ice mask because he can’t stand face-to-face with me, or Raab just standing there and listing off a bunch of falsehoods dressed as “facts” like how I am a liar or something.
Still waiting for all of that proof, Raabie! Holding my breath!
This isn’t some gimmicky thing where I let someone else come up with the most interesting thing to happen to me in years, as with Dave letting Pierce sell his dumb show that conveniently never actually shows up in his own promotional videos. This isn’t some adventure with Dave where he talks about how he’s got a fake master plan that he is seeing come to fruition in a world of fantasy where he’s Rambo and a badass and all of the co-stars sound the same. This isn’t some piece of fiction.
This is REAL.
These randomly chosen Synergies? They show just how shitty you both are at actually WINNING a goddamn match on the show, whether it be against jobbers the likes of Mizore or against champions in the Main Event. Take this one we just time-hopped to. #299? Right at the end of the year last year? Raab ACTUALLY got a win, one of only eight across twenty seven matches on the show...but that was ONLY because he got teamed up with the (at the time) Cooperative Champions in Team Slebby. Sure, he got the pinfall, but it was on Pierce (ffs) and that was AFTER Slebby had done all the work! Raab’s inability to actually WIN FUCKING MATCHES only finds a home when its basically a Casey Jones swing with the ball on the tee!
Oh! Oh! And DAVE on that show? On this random Synergy? BIG OL’ L! To Hide! Ya know, the OTHER guy I beat one-on-one early this year?
Hey, that makes all THREE of you finding yourselves getting your shoulders pinned to the mat by THE World Champ in just a matter of weeks!
“BUT SARAH! THIS ISN’T FAIR”
Bitch, please. Here, lets time-hop again to some random Synergy and see how we all fair. Can your shitty duo find success in...lets see what the random number generator gives us…#257? Lets find out!
Monday
August 6, 2018
Synergy #257
Well, would you look at this! A Raab singles match! Now, a criticism of the Coalition is that we have comparatively few singles matches amidst our random cooperative and group salvos, but personally, I enjoy it. All of these interpersonal relationships and dynamics build and feuds and one-upsmanship comes into play and then BLAM! You get your chance to put someone’s shirt in the dirt. You get to take someone’s career into YOUR hands, not ANYONE else’s, and squeeze the LIFE out of it. You get the chance to dispense with that “Yeah...well...I didn’t take the pin so THERE” bullshit and just go AT IT.
THIS was one of those times.
Konrad Raab vs. Gabriel Baal
I wonder if there was even a single person in that audience who thought Raab had a chance. I know I certainly didn’t! I can’t say the same for Dave...he was in one of those “I lost seven times in a row and need to go away before I come back by attacking someone and looking like a badass before I inevitably blow my momentum by losing” phases of his...but I sure as hell was there. That was the night my Beloved and I won the Cooperative Championships!
Hey, look at that. Any random Synergy just so happened to have ME winning and Raab
Well
Raabing.
“I WANNA RAAB!”
“I WANT TO RAAB”
“R.A.A.B IN THE U.S.A!”
Yeah, that was in full force that night and every fucking person in the building knew it was going to happen. The Not-So-Good Doctor (more on him next week!) beat you up pretty bad that night, Raabie. But that’s usually the case for you, ya know? Even when you spend a week straight in silent contemplation and focus on your match. Even when you train and expand your boundaries with the SJW journeymen. Even when you reach deep down inside yourself and pull out Black Ice.
You lose
Clean
THAT is likely going to be your professional epitaph. Your story is NOT that of the person who rises above. Your story is NOT that of the Good Guy who ultimately defeats the Big Bad. You are NOT Mario saving Daisy time and again until you finally get to the 9th castle and save Peach from Bowser. YOUR story is of the person who loses over and over and over and over again. Because even when you try SO HARD to be better and different than you were before, you still end up doing and saying the same shit you just did, which means you just end up laying on your back every time you aren’t fighting a squash merchant.
Ya know, there was a certain amount of creative satisfaction when I watched your promotional video before our match last week and learned that I correctly predicted that you would bust out the same Black Ice promo you always do. What did I say?
“Mother fuck bitch lying cunt gonna slit your throat and shit in your stomach you lying whore cunt bitch Sarah stop lying fucking whore.”
Word for goddamn WORD. I am NOT looking forward to hearing the SAME promo for the FOURTH time, that is for damned sure. And another thing, I-
OH DAMN! Baal just FLATTENED you with the Freudian Slip! This thing is OVER.
Hmmmm. Nine minutes and twenty-seven seconds, huh? I beat you almost two full minutes faster than Baal did!
Anyway, I don’t want Dave’s equally pitiful ability to be a successful wrestler feel left out, so lets head to another random Synergy...lets see...RNG gets us to….
Monday
January 23, 2012
Synergy #59
Woah, in the WAY BACK Machine for this one. When THIS match happened, I was 14, had been lifting with Daddy for a few weeks (Monday would have meant squats, bench, and barbell rows), had been doing my blog for a couple of years (more on THAT for Sarah Appreciation Night in August!), was great at ballet and swimming, JUST started getting into cheerleading, and otherwise being a legit badass. DAVE on the other hand was still in his shitty-as-fuck Red Fusion military nonsense (do NOT even get me STARTED on Code Red!) and was teaming with About-to-Flame-Out A-Kis against Deimos and Pax. And while, on paper, I would assume that Fear beat the piss out of Dave this night (this was the Year of Fear, though my friends don’t believe me when I say it was a thing), it was actually Paxy doing the honors with the Peace Out.
Ya know, I would feel pretty embarrassed if my opponent did a better version of a reverse DDT than me, right? Or if their chickenwing had a tighter hammerlock. Or if they could aim their poison mist better. And...man...Dave had BETTER be embarrassed by being taken out with a MUCH better version of a cutter. See, Dave does that whole “out of nowhere” thing, and occasionally uses the (admittedly cool) pop-up dealio, but Pax? A crucifix powerbomb INTO a cutter? That’s SO much more badass than Dave!
Which is basically HIS epitaph. Much like how Konrad tries SO HARD to come up with some Ws, Dave tries SO HARD to be badass. He tries SO HARD to be taken seriously. But, also like Konrad, he also fails to do so on a regular basis. Sure, he looks cool when he’s making some big return by taking some random dude out with a cutter (more on that in a bit!), and he gets to scream and holler when the guys in suits are trying to hold him back from attacking after his match, but then everything ELSE he does just shows how low he is on any possible scale. This inability to translate those solitary, and rare, moments of badassary into victories will forEVER hold him out of the Hall of Fame and will forEVER keep him away from hoisting MY World Championship into the air. Because much like how there are people who do his bit and moves better than he does, there will always be people like ME who do the entire WRESTLING thing better than he does.
Dave Rydell will NEVER be a winner when Sarah Lacklan is on his booking sheet.
Alright, I think we have time for one more hop before I need to get this to Sloane. This one won’t be random, though, because I have a point to make. Remember how Thunder and I started this whole thing with trust issues? About how we’re trying to figure each other out and translate our social compatibility into a professional one? About how we understand the need to trust one another and work together?
You two will NEVER be able to do so, no matter WHAT anyone says.
And here’s why:
Monday
August 20, 2018
Day of Reckoning
Recognize this? We were all in Minnesota. The day started off with an IN-FUCKING-SANE Chaos Match between Mumsie and my baby sister (seriously legitimate, those two tried to kill each other for WAY too long in the opener for some reason!), saw Kem pull one of MANY el oh el moments with a PPV job to freakin’ Mizore (hey, I beat BOTH of them in singles matches that year!), Baal have an EXCRUCIATINGLY BAD over-the-top entrance that ended up with him STILL losing an important match to Jet, Roxy getting Pierce’D, Necron getting murdered by Eden, and Vain becoming Double Champ. But in the middle of all of that?
I picked you up, Raab. Got you up into a suplex and held you there.
Kenzi springboarded off the ropes.
She grabbed you by the legs and drove us both down.
I covered you after the Star Maker.
We successfully defended the UGWC Cooperative Championships.
And after we were gone? Hell, we were probably already making out in the back. You and Fear argued over who sucked more. And then
OUTTA NOWHERE
Dave decides to do one of his OMG EPIC RETURNS by sliding into the ring and bringing you down with a Virus of Life.
Why?
Why, Dave? Why?
Simply because of his insatiable need to be seen as a badass by his peers in a way which is above the place he has earned.
Dave dropped you on your face...after we dropped you on your head...because of his selfish NEED to be seen as something he is not. And you know whats going to happen when you end up losing THIS match? He’s probably going to hit you with ANOTHER cutter because he’ll have ANOTHER need to “win” after losing.
A shame you never got a chance to pay back that Day of Reckoning receipt. You guys got to brawl a bit the following week...before Mumsie won the match you were all in...but that was it. I wonder how much Black Ice would love to “accidentally” return that sneak attack? What a deliciously convenient chance for that to happen in a way you never could do on your own! Just make sure it doesn’t happen to you first!
You guys WILL be losing this match, of course. Over the last few days, Thunder and I have been working on our shortcomings, working on what went wrong. We're learning to work together, to anticipate each other’s needs, to WIN. We’ve worked on figuring out the balance of what a Sarah/Thunder team means, which is THE World Champion doing the lion’s share of the work and the big man coming in to wreck shit like Wreck-It Ralph on a bender when I need him to. And between us? Between his power and my expertise? Victory is assured. Especially in the face of two people who can’t work together, don’t trust one another, and likely haven’t even SPOKEN to one another all week!
Listen, your “oh shit, what am I gonna do THIS week? I didn’t even know what I was going to do LAST week!” way of preparation is why BOTH of you such so much on any random Synergy. I knew WEEKS in advance that Thunder was going to be in the crowd in Boston. I know at ALL TIMES how I feel about my peers and opponents and don’t need to wait to know my plan for a match with them. Hell, THIS entire cycle is about how I am taking the future of the businesses into MY HANDS, and not ANYONE else’s, so that I may give the business the match that they have earned. And THIS match is no exception. I knew from the MOMENT Dave decided to start doing his “PLEASE LOVE ME” routine of attacking Thunder that it would lead to more matches, and I have been preparing my partner. I knew IMMEDIATELY that you, Raab, would be DUMB ENOUGH to take my challenge of literally “put up or shut up” and now have to find some sort of creativity (that you don’t possess!) to avoid saying my name forevermore. I LITERALLY set all of this up by taking actions into MY HANDS.
And now YOU GUYS get to lose on yet another random Synergy.
Now, if I may close with an insanely timely and relevant song lyric from Hamilton about your lack of skills and my amazing strategies:
Such a blunder
Sometimes it makes me wonder
Why I even bring the Thunder
February 27, 2020
“Hot DAMNIT!”
“me am sorry”
Sarah Grey-Lacklan, THE UGWC World Champion, clutches her head in her hands. The albino’s pale hair is pulled back into a tightly braided bun, and her equally pale face is flushed with a mixture of pain and anger. Both her eyes and her jaw are clenched as she takes one of her hands, balls it into a fist, and slams it down on the ground below, the impact causing her body to jump in an odd way.
“We have been THROUGH this, Thunder! When I go HIGH, you go LOW!”
The two are situated in the middle of the boxing ring of L.A. Fitness Sport Hollywood, not exactly the ideal place for wrestlers to train their craft, but suitable enough. Sarah, sitting upon the mat, is wearing her most recent workout gear, with the unnecessarily tight sports bra and shorts now bearing black and white spiderwebs in place of the old flames, along with her heavy leg braces and black boots with the red and green firebird flames. Standing a few paces from her is Thunder, the massive slab of man nearly as wide as he was tall, wearing long shorts and his black wrestling mask. Even through the mask, a feeling of unease from the brute can be felt.
“me am-”
“Sorry. I know. I KNOW.”
Sarah stomps one of her feet down onto the mat and then growls as she gets to her feet. She runs a hand over her abdomen where the pale flesh has been turned bright red.
“That clothesline was supposed to take out someone’s feet as I came in with a spinkick, Thunder. Too high and BLAM! I go down again.”
She lets out a sigh and then sets her feet, her body falling into a fighting stance where her heels lift up slightly from the mat and her balance is poised on the ball.
“Again!”
Over and again, Sarah and Thunder run through basic training exercises, working on timing, speed, power, and technique. And over and again, Sarah finds herself slammed to the ground, or Thunder gets a knee to the face, or some other form of miscommunication.
“Oh come ON!”
Sarah pulls herself up to her feet by pulling on the bottom rope and stomps angrily back and forth in a tight pace.
“I FULLY understand that this is not the BEST ring in the world...its just some old boxing ring...but we should NOT be having this many problems! Mackenzie and I worked out the Star Maker AND the Into the Abyss in this ring! Angelica and I figured out the crazy-hard timing for our Double Shining Wizard in this ring. Hell, even SHIN and I have been doing some badass training together, and he neither talks OR listens to me! Why is OUR timing SO FUCKING SHITTY?!”
Breathing heavily, Thunder hangs his head.
“me am holding you back”
Sarah waves her hand at him with impatience.
“Nonsense! Sometimes it just takes a little time to get settled. Listen, not EVERYONE can walk into the Coalition and with a prestigious championship on their first foray, or something. That takes the likes of ME. Well, and Sloane, too, but THAT ship has sailed.”
Sarah lets out a long sigh at the fact that, indeed, her hopeful “SloaNder” ship had, indeed, sailed far out of view.
“no. me am Thunder. me CRUSH! But me fail. Again.”
The pain in the man’s deep rumble of a voice makes Sarah stop in her tracks. With a face set with determination, she stomps towards Thunder and reels her right hand back, palm open, but then suddenly stops as she stands before the man with her head cranked as far back as it can go.
“Lean closer, s'il tu plaît.”
Thunder obediently leans forward, his head coming up from its ashamed lowering from before, shortening the 13-inche difference in their heights. But just as he is halfway, his head pushes to the side as Sarah slaps him across the face as hard as she can. The sound of the slap pierces the are of the room and a red print immediately begins to form on the man’s jaw. A finger quickly replaces the open hand, pointing into his nose as he turns back to face her.
“First of all, don’t you DARE act as if my baby sister’s Vaughnemous Kick is anything BUT debilitating!”
Sarah’s voice is filled with a cool anger as she admonishes the mammoth man.
“When Angelica Marie Vaughn, of the House of Lacklan, punts you square in the head with one of her gargantuan, over-sized, freakishly-large, likely loaded with lead, boots, there is no choice BUT to go down for three, do you understand me?!”
Thunder rubs the side of his face and nods at her. Sarah shakes her head and goes back to her pacing.
“YOU are not the problem. YOU are a monster that crushes bugs with every step! YOU are a beast who squishes the infidels! YOU are the creature with the most imposing war tiddies in the business! YOU have been champion all OVER the world, NEVER turning down a challenge, and fighting everything from a bear to robot dragons to the majority of that hillbilly Constantine family!”
With every compliment, Thunder’s posture straightens, ultimately ending with his chest swelling with pride. Though he does narrow his eyes somewhat at Sarah’s continued dismissal of an entire wrestling family because of that one time HER daddy beat up THEIR daddy.
“It must be me. But! BUT! That makes ZERO sense! You see, I am not just THE World Champion, Thunder. I am not just three quarters of my way towards being added to the list of Grand Slammers. I am not just two thirds of the way to winning EVERY regular tournament the Coalition has to offer. I am also a cooperative specialist! I have told everyone around here...though not often, mind you, because I loathe people who constantly bring up their past accomplishments...that I am EXCELLENT cooperative wrestler! Seriously legitimate, I LOVE team-based wrestling, whether it be duos, trios, or more! I love the timing, the back-and-forth, the tandem offense. And in my career, I have wrestled with MANY different partners and have won the VAST majority of those matches. I don’t tell people this often, of course, because I canNOT stand when people talk about themselves ad naseum, but I am nearly unTOUCHable in these environments.
“Honestly, when it comes to this company ALONE, I have won cooperative matches with EIGHT different partners...and that doesn’t include winning last year’s Outlast, though I don’t speak of that too often, of course, don’t want to seem rude. So why...WHY...were you and I unable to make it number nine? WHY was my overwhelming, unstoppable, undeniable, statistically-proven ability to win with everyone, from jobbers like Mathis to future Hall of Fame Ringbearers like my Beloved, yet WE fell to Angelica and Hide?”
She comes to a stop again and stares at Thunder before throwing her arms out wide.
“Well?!”
Thunder blinks several times.
“because Angie?”
Sarah tilts her head to the side and chews on her lips, her infamous “Thinking Dimple” sprouting to life. Thankfully, she does not notice her cooperative partner nearly swoon from its arrival.
“Possibly.”
She puts her eyes back on Thunder and posits her hands on her hips.
“Do you trust me?”
Thunder nods his head, but Sarah shakes hers and walks forward.
“I’m not sure you do. I mean, I’m obviously trustworthy and all...literally everyone in the Coalition will tell you that ‘trustworthy’ is the FIRST thing they think of when playing word association with my name...well, that and ‘humble,’ naturally...but you and I have little to no actual experience together as wrestlers.”
Her face shines brightly when she stands before him and she throws up her finger into the air.
“I know! We’ll do what we used to do in Cheer Camp.”
Even through mask, Thunder’s excitement can be seen. It can be felt.
“really? is it like what me did in
Sarah puts on her best “Pardon?” face.
“No! Now, listen. We need some trust exercises. Like a trust fall! That’s where we-”
“me know!”
Thunder’s enthusiasm fills the ring and he quickly turns around.
Throws his arms out wide.
And falls backwards.
“Shit!”
Thunder’s 380 pounds fall atop the World Champion without any resistance. Sarah squeals as she is squished like a bug.
Ten Minutes Later
Sarah stretches her arms into the air, trying to loosen up the pressure from Thunder’s landing.
“Okay, THAT didn’t go well. Good thing Max was teaching her powerlifters class today.”
“me like being deadlifted by strong women”
“Lets try a different exercise. This is called Helium Stick. Put your hand out and stick out your finger.”
Sarah nods as Thunder puts out his giant paw and extends his finger.
“Good! Now, I do the same and...holy CRAP your hand is massive. Like, Good LORD your finger is, like, the size of my FOOT. Not one of Mackenzie’s feet, of course…’dainty,’ my ass...but sweet MOTHER do they get me going...but yeah, huge hand, dude.”
“you know what they say about big hands”
“You have to buy Kem-sized gloves?”
“........”
“Anyway, we have to balance something between our fingers, right? And go down at the same speed and...one sec...hey, Max! Still need you, buddy!”
THE MONSTER Maxine climbs back into the ring and gently, with the grace of a thousand swans, places a long bar across their extended fingers and slowly releases her grip until it balances between them.
“Now, here’s the deal: We have to lower ourselves to the ground, always keeping the tips of our fingers touching, and keep this yoga bar balanced, okay? We, DAMNIT IT ALREADY FELL!”
THE MONSTER Maxine gently places it on their fingers again.
“Now, listen! We have to work together and THUNDER I SWEAR TO GOD”
THE MONSTER Maxine gently places it on their fingers again.
“Now, slowly okay? Good...good…DAMNIT”
“that was you this time”
“I KNOW THAT”
THE MONSTER Maxine gently places it on their fingers again.
“I’m already squatting, Thunder! Why aren’t you down here yet?!”
“you have tiny legs”
“THEY ARE NOT TINY! They are SHORT, not tiny! These thighs can squeeze out a man’s soul!”
“uhhhhhhh”
THE MONSTER Maxine gently places it on their fingers again.
“I wanna be your bubblegum bitch!”
“...thank sweet Baby Jesus…”
The yoga balance bar falls to the mat, intentionally this time, as Sarah stalks away towards one of the corners.
“...this doesn’t even need to be good...any freakin’ excuse for a break right now…”
Sarah rummages through her exclusive sibling-triggering YSL athletic bag and pulls out her matrimonially-obligated iPhone and reads the messages waiting for her:
THE Cutie, THE
Psst!
Psst!
Sarah is the best, Sarah number one
*****AUTOMATIC REPLY BEING GENERATED*****
UNABLE TO RESPOND TO ANY NON-SPOUSE “PSST REQUEST”
PLEASE REPHRASE
*****AUTOMATIC REPLY BEING GENERATED*****
UNABLE TO RESPOND TO ANY NON-SPOUSE “PSST REQUEST”
PLEASE REPHRASE
THE Cutie, THE
Ugh. I always forget about that. Let me try again.
Hey, Sar! Can I borrow your TARDIS? I need it on Monday!!!!
Ugh. I always forget about that. Let me try again.
Hey, Sar! Can I borrow your TARDIS? I need it on Monday!!!!
Sara blinks at the messages for a moment, her lips curling up in humor at the ridiculousness that was the G-L automatic responses to someone even whispering “Psst!” to one of them, then reads them again. After a few seconds, her fingers fly across the screen of her phone.
Sarah is the best, Sarah number one
Oh snap! I forgot about that. I promised to be there! I’ll make sure its all clean and stuff
See you soon!
……….brobabe……...
Oh snap! I forgot about that. I promised to be there! I’ll make sure its all clean and stuff
See you soon!
……….brobabe……...
She shakes her head as she puts her phone back in her back.
“Baby Jesus’ pock-free bottom, I HATE that Topher guy.”
“me like Topher”
“I KNOW!”
Sarah stands up and slings her bag over her shoulder.
“C’mon, I need to dust off my TARDIS. Off to the Egg!”
*****ACCESS GRANTED*****
*****Bonjour, mon enfant*****
HOUSE OF LACKLAN
-FRIENDS, ASSOCIATES, PEERS
-UNITED GLOBAL WRESTLING ASSOCIATION
-REDD THUNDER
-COLLECTED WORKS
-JOURNAL ENTRIES
- 2020
-FEBRUARY
deer mister diary
me have seen a lot ofwonrus wonderrus onderious cool things since coming to Sarah’s home. they have a basketball court. a pool that is too small for the Thunder’s might. a shoe vault me am not allowed to see. a jawcusi jescuse jarulezi hot tub in their kitchen. but me saw something extra special today
after our amazing workout where the Thunder crushed plates and set new personal records, me and Sarah showered (not together, but me tell Topher we did) and went back to her place. she needed to help her friend Sloane, who wants the Thunder’s war tiddies but tries to hide it, and it was in her garage. their garage has a lot of old stuff it from before she and Kenzi got married (that was way after me made sweet sweet love to Kenzi on top of a tank during WWII) and it was full of dust that made me sneeze. she had me help her pull down a sheet (she was all “OMG THUNDER I WISH YOU WOULD TAKE MY CLOTHES OFF TOO”) but I had to let her down easy and say maybe next time. when the sheet came off there was this phone booth standing there, like something from Angleland, and was black and red and had this weird burning bird and wolf thing on top that looked funny. Sarah said she needed help and texted Kenzi but Kenzi said she was busy with herdocmentry doctermentry duckdynasty movie with interviews, so Sarah had Thunder close his eyes (me peeked through my fingers, though) and she put her phone down her shirt and took a picture of her war tiddies (they are good but might are better) and sent it to Kenzi with a message that said “wanna bone?” a few seconds later and me heard a lot of noise and the door slammed open and Kenzi came running in.
she was mad to see that Sarah was just kidding but me thought it was funny
Sarah had kenzi help her look at her phone booth and me notice that one of Kenzi’s cameramen followed her. they have lots of cameras around and me secretly hope that much of their bedroom gets recorded. as I was thinking about this Sarah yelled at the cameraman to look at something with his camera and the three of them squeazed into the booth. thunder wanted to play too and me ran at them and said “Thunder wants to play, too!” and me got into the booth with them. Sarah and Kenzi yelled at me about being squished like bugs but then someone’s butt, Sarah later blamed Kenzi’s sweet booty and Kenzi later blamed Sarah’s hashtag squat booty , hit a lever or switch and then the phone booth lit up and there was lots of sounds and then we went through the sky and then we landed in the past
me don’t know if this was real or not
me have seen a lot of
after our amazing workout where the Thunder crushed plates and set new personal records, me and Sarah showered (not together, but me tell Topher we did) and went back to her place. she needed to help her friend Sloane, who wants the Thunder’s war tiddies but tries to hide it, and it was in her garage. their garage has a lot of old stuff it from before she and Kenzi got married (that was way after me made sweet sweet love to Kenzi on top of a tank during WWII) and it was full of dust that made me sneeze. she had me help her pull down a sheet (she was all “OMG THUNDER I WISH YOU WOULD TAKE MY CLOTHES OFF TOO”) but I had to let her down easy and say maybe next time. when the sheet came off there was this phone booth standing there, like something from Angleland, and was black and red and had this weird burning bird and wolf thing on top that looked funny. Sarah said she needed help and texted Kenzi but Kenzi said she was busy with her
she was mad to see that Sarah was just kidding but me thought it was funny
Sarah had kenzi help her look at her phone booth and me notice that one of Kenzi’s cameramen followed her. they have lots of cameras around and me secretly hope that much of their bedroom gets recorded. as I was thinking about this Sarah yelled at the cameraman to look at something with his camera and the three of them squeazed into the booth. thunder wanted to play too and me ran at them and said “Thunder wants to play, too!” and me got into the booth with them. Sarah and Kenzi yelled at me about being squished like bugs but then someone’s butt, Sarah later blamed Kenzi’s sweet booty and Kenzi later blamed Sarah’s hashtag squat booty , hit a lever or switch and then the phone booth lit up and there was lots of sounds and then we went through the sky and then we landed in the past
me don’t know if this was real or not
Monday
September 17, 2018
The door of the TARDIS, painted in the general theme of the Grey-Lacklans and with their family sigil adorning the top, bursts open and the pile of bodies spill out with a mass cry. Thunder lands first, thankfully on his back, as his large torso is able to absorb the fall of the cameraman, the expensive movie camera being clutched to his chest with as tight a grasp as the most protective mother and their favored child. Sarah and Kenzi, their hands clasping together unconsciously in their ever-present instinctual need to be together, are able to get their elbows and knees up to avoid landing on their faces.
“Ow!”
“I HATE that part!”
“WHAT’S GOING ON?!”
“me am confused”
The four get to their feet, the Grey-Laklans far better for wear, and both hold out hands toward the cameraman.
“Its okay, mang. You’ll get used to it.”
“C’mon, Nameless and Faceless member of the documentary team!”
They pull the poor man to his feet and he looks around in confusion.
“Where...where are we?”
Sarah and Kenzi share a look, both eyes brown and red filled with a slight spark of mirth.
“Not where-”
“-but when.”
The cameraman looks confused, but no more so than Thunder.
“me know what you are talking about, but please say it out loud so that the Thunder knows that you know what you are talking about”
Sarah rolls her eyes as she reaches out for Thunder. After a second look at the daunting task of pulling him to his feet, she elbows Kenzi in the ribs.
“Gimme a hand. Just pretend we’re doing a low row.”
Kenzi blinks in clear confusion.
“wut”
Sarah sighs and rolls her eyes again.
“The exercise where I’m bent over and pulling a weight toward my body, and you spend the entire time making comments to everyone in the gym about how you ‘tap dat shit e’ery NIGHT!’”
“Oh! Why didn’t you say so!”
Kenzi and Sarah take one of Thunder’s hands, set their feet, pop out their hips backward and then heave towards themselves. Thunder comes to his feet with a bound, and both Grey-Lacklans give pleased smiles at their teamwork.
“Hey Thunder, remember how Sar used to wrestle for fifteen different companies at once?”
“Fight the world, across the world!”
“And how she used to wrestle several times in one week, sometimes twice a day?”
“This one time, I wrestled four matches in two days in three different states. Won them all! Holy FUCK did that trigger people!”
“THIS is how we did it!”
Kenzi gestures to the TARDIS like an ebony Vanna White and Thunder’s eyes light up.
“me love Doctor Who but not the girl because that’s dumb”
“Literally never seen an episode.”
“Don’t even know what they call time traveling!”
“I always assumed ‘hop’ or whatever.”
“Anyway, WHEN we are is probably whatever the last destination was.”
Sarah’s face suddenly grows cold.
“I know when we are.”
Kenzi looks at her with confusion, but Sarah just gives her a nod.
“C’mon.”
Sarah turns and walks down a hallway, with the rest of the group following. Before long, they find themselves opening up onto a balcony. Below them, a crowd of people stand, not a single person sitting in their seat, and cheering on the action at the center. Within a squared circle, a woman with platinum hair is staring down into the face of a blonde woman laying on the mat, a microphone in her hands.
“...babe?”
“AND ANOTHER THING! I-”
Sarah mouths the words with the woman down below before the screaming starts. The blonde woman’s hand jabs itself into the yelling woman’s mouth, and before they knew it, the bell was ringing.
“HERE ARE YOU WINNERS….AND NEWWWWWW UGWC COOPERATIVE CHAMPIONS….”
“Babe...you come here?”
Sarah stands at the edge of the balcony, her eyes staring downward.
“Often.”
She licks her lips for a moment.
“People talk about learning from their mistakes, but I literally do it. THIS is my biggest failure. I don’t just think about it, Beloved. I DWELL on it.”
Okay, this might seem like a weird time to do an interview for Kenzi's World, but you're here and I'm here, so lets go!
How do I feel about finding out that Sarah dwells on this moment so much? I find it touching. I have always known that it bothered her, it is the Lacklan way to take God’s favorite sport’ seriously...to treat it like a religion. Me, I had brushed off the loss and looked forward to our next opportunity to become Cooperative Champions, but it never came...and now I know why.
Kenzi comes up behind Sarah as she stands there, silently contemplating that moment. She slips her arms around Sarah’s slender waist, and rests her chin on her shoulder.
“You and I have always won and lost as a team...even though it usually you taking the pin...cuz you suck.”
Sarah tenses for a moment, so many of her fears becoming reality...not to mention the glorious return to Kenzi Brand Ellipsis Overuse...but then relaxes when Kenzi follows the dig with a playful nibble of her ear.
“...bitch...”
Kenzi smiles as she whispers under her breath and presses her body even closer to her wife.
“We have both failed so many times, but we’ve never let failure stop us from trying to do and be better.”
She pauses, smiling as Sarah’s hand reaches up and slips into her braids at the back of her head, and looks at the moment their reign came to a premature end.
“Come here as often as you like...but don’t leave here sad, leave here determined.”
Kenzi kisses Sarah on the cheek and pulls away, leaving her wife to contemplate her words.
“no need to stop there”
Thunder’s booming voice threatens to ruin the moment, but then Sarah motions her towards her.
“Look, Thunder. Look at the ONE FUCKING TIME Dave Rydell had any success against my House.”
Thunder looks down to see Angie and Dave being handed the Cooperative Championships.
“This match right here? The, literally, ONE time he got one over on my House...well, before he shocked everyone by putting away my baby sister, but you and I took care of that last month...and he had next to NOTHING to do with it. Dude spent most of his time getting his face kicked and knee’d in by the 5’2” Mafia. It was only MY hubris that brought us down. Of course, HE doesn’t understand that, certainly not at this moment, because this is one of his VERY FEW moments of success. Dude literally only wins a third of his matches, and do NOT even get me STARTED on his shitty-ass ability to win on Synergy!”
Thunder’s eyes shift left and right.
“me not very good at winning on Synergy”
Sarah rolls her eyes again.
“We have been through this! YOU are brand new! Still getting used to things! But this guy? Jesus FUCK he’s terrible. Seriously legitimate, you could pick and random Synergy and there is an overWHELMING chance that he’s going to end up at the Loser’s Window. And Raab-”
“me know Raab”
“-is just as bad! Literally the new version of Rydell. Well, minus the title reigns, anyway. At least Dave knows how to win a title now and again. Not the World Title, of course, but he CAN get some wins with the others.”
“Babe?”
“Hmmm?”
“Before you bore us with statistics...freakin’ NERD...you can’t be serious about that whole ‘any random Synergy’ thing. Dave wins matches! He’s a jackass, and deserved you, I, and Rox fucking him up a few weeks ago, but he’s not THAT bad. And Konrad tries really hard!”
Sarah narrows her eyes as she turns toward Kenzi and away from her greatest failure below.
“Any. Random. Synergy.”
“shame we don’t have some way to go look at any random synergy and prove you right. me think that would take some kind of time travel machine or something”
Silence.
Silence.
“Actually!”
Sarah throws her finger into the air and stomps towards the TARDIS.
“HellOOOOOO, computer!”
“YES, ALBINO PRINCESS”
A robotic voice comes from the modified phone booth.
“There have been…”
She closes her eyes for a moment and her eyelids move rapidly as she reaches into her vast statistical stores.
“...three hundred and four Synergy events since the Coalition was founded. I want you to choose a random Synergy, literally any of them, and take us there. Oh, but eliminate any Synergies from the pool that neither Dave Rydell nor Konrad Raab were on.”
After a few seconds, the computerized voice fills the air again.
“DESTINATION CHOSEN.”
Sarah smiles and takes in her three companions.
“Let us not dawdle! I have statistics to prove!”
The four again pile into the TARDIS and shoot off.
This is the WEIRDEST gig I have ever had. EVER! And I was the cameraman for Maria Salvatore's third blacked.com group scene! Yes, the one in the vegetable patch! Working for the two lezbos is even weirder than THAT! Is one of them a vampire? I think one of them is a vampire. And the spider! There is a SPIDER living in the black one's hair!
A FUCKING SPIDER LIVES IN HER HAIR!!
Maleek told me that his doc was going to be easy money. "Its to lesbians, dude," he said. "They'll probably just make out in front of you," he said. I've been following Kenzi around for this doc for WEEKS and there has been NO girl-on-girl action out in the open! Bitches always slam the door and tell me to go away.
And now this? THIS?! I'm time traveling?!
IS THIS EVEN CANON?!
Monday
October 15, 2015
Synergy #172
Once again atop the balcony, Sarah smiles down at the scene below. Gordo is outside of the ring and-
“Oh shit!”
Kenzi’s voice pierces the air as Larry pops to her feet with a large jar of marmite in his hands and slams it down onto the unsuspecting head of Dave Rydell. A particularly disgusting combination of blood and yeast-extract pours down Rydell’s face and he collapses to the mat. As he falls prone, Larry turns to Barnes and applies a joint lock and just a few seconds later, the bell is ringing. Sarah points down at the mess that was the Queen’s Bedlamn Invitational and shakes her head.
“Look at that nonsense. Dave Rydell, Mister I Wanna Be a Grandslammer, got his ass BEAT in that Chaos match. We’re talking like he was so out of it that it was almost as if he wasn’t even THERE.”
Sarah turns to Kenzi and shakes her head again.
“Our family has brought prestige to the Chaos Championship. First Mumsie makes it the most important title in the company, then shatters every record with it, and now YOU have become THE longest-reigning champion there is to date. But this crap? This bullshit? Dave couldn’t beat freakin’ LARRY, and THAT guy was a member of Hastings’ Dungeon of Pain. I think. Honestly, it gets a little muddled during this time.”
Sarah turns back to the action down below.
“Hmmmm. If this is 2015...you’re shooting The World According to Kenzi...I’m being Daddy’s valet…”
“Thunder was master of the universe”
“...I’m sure you were, Thunder...I wonder if Sloane is literally watching this episode of Synergy?”
Sarah reaches into her pocket and pulls out her iPhone.
Sarah is the best, Sarah number one
Dear Sixteen-Year-Old Sloane,
This is Twenty-One Year Old Sloane’s bestest friend in the whole wide world. Please write yourself a note and tell your future self to dump your shitty boyfriend. I really REALLY hate that guy. tysm
Dear Sixteen-Year-Old Sloane,
This is Twenty-One Year Old Sloane’s bestest friend in the whole wide world. Please write yourself a note and tell your future self to dump your shitty boyfriend. I really REALLY hate that guy. tysm
“Chop chop! Onto the next randomly selected Synergy!”
Monday
September 15, 2014
Synergy #140
"Good Lord, would you just LOOK at that, Thunder? A MASSIVE part of Dave's identity is being a super-badass Cross-Hemisphere Champion...not to the point of self-identifying as it, as Fear does...and HERE he is with a contendership on the line in this match to get his Precious back and WHAT does he do?"
Down below them, Dave Rydell is unable to control his anger and attacks Ezekiel Pax with a chair while Holden Orson lays lamely on the outside in a foreshadowing of himself in 2019.
"He gets himself disqualified! His chance of getting the title back? Poof! Gone! All because he couldn't control himself. Oh, sure, he gets to look like a badass in failure, but that doesn't do DICK for him in the end, does it?"
Thunder rubs his face.
"him keep attacking me and hitting me with cutters. me am tired of him looking like a badass."
"Trust me on this, Thunder: Its all he CAN do. Slipping into the ring and catching you in your match with the Zucchini Warrior? Attacking us after our match last week? Going the EXTRA step of bullshit by taking out Monsieur Ooley? Its the desperate final attempt at relevancy that might as well be the sixth sequel of an 80's horror film: Everything has been seen before, the unstoppable villain has already been killed five times, and the only way for it to even get a pop of notice is by doing something stupid and over-the-top. THIS Rydell was bad enough. OUR Rydell has fallen into a place of pity."
Thunder stares down at the then-Red Fusion thrashing and causing trouble in the wake of his loss.
"me go crush him now"
"No! Do not EVEN get me started on what something like that would do to the timeline! I swear to God, if we have to sit through another six hour WalBerts Excellent Adventure I will KILL you!"
Thunder stops his motion towards the stairs leading below and gives a slow nod.
"but me will crush him soon. me will hurt him bad."
"Wonderful to hear! I am sure you have been studying the UGWC User's Manual I made for you."
"ummmmm yes. yes me have"
Thunder looks directly at the camera, grimaces, and shakes his head in clear negation of that idea.
"and me will be ready for him. me will crush him and squish him and pull off his baby arms like wings on a fly"
"...keep going..."
"and when the time comes, after Thunder has powerbombed him seven times...me love powerbombs...me will lift him up on my shoulders, bring him over to you, and powerbomb you both down like we did in Boston"
"There we go! Okay, lets keep moving. Next random Synergy!"
Monday
October 10, 2016
Synergy #202
Above above, Sarah shakes her head as Dave gets hit by two flying finishing moves from Mil Vidas and freakin' JK, the man more known for handing granola bars than being a wrestler. Meanwhile, Donovan Hastings is more worried about retrieving his phone so that he can like his own tweet (while "Owen" takes care of it) than he is the outcome of the match.
Annnnnnnd we have new Cooperative Champions.
Sarah sighs and doesn't even bother breaking this one down.
"That's three for three, guys. Lets hope there is SOME kind of victory in the next one, yeah?
Monday
December 2, 2019
Synergy #299
Okay okay okay, at least Raab’s in this one!
Do you guys get the point, yet? SOME of us are GREAT at winning matches, ya know? Some of us CARE. Some of us understand that our records, and our words, and our victories and failures, and our motivations, all combine together to create a TAPESTRY of who we are. ANYONE can cut a promo and talk about how great they are. ANYONE can stand in the back with their head hanging low and promise to do better next time. ANYONE can do these things. But to take full stock of themselves? To be able to answer for EVERYTHING they do? To be able to stand up, straight and tall, their chin up into the air, and say “Yes! THIS is who I am! THIS is my history! THIS is why I am a CHAMPION!” is paramount.
And there is precious little for either one of you to be able to use for such a statement.
Do you understand that this isn’t some stupid bit? This isn’t something I made up? Like, this isn’t Raab busting out his Black Ice mask because he can’t stand face-to-face with me, or Raab just standing there and listing off a bunch of falsehoods dressed as “facts” like how I am a liar or something.
Still waiting for all of that proof, Raabie! Holding my breath!
This isn’t some gimmicky thing where I let someone else come up with the most interesting thing to happen to me in years, as with Dave letting Pierce sell his dumb show that conveniently never actually shows up in his own promotional videos. This isn’t some adventure with Dave where he talks about how he’s got a fake master plan that he is seeing come to fruition in a world of fantasy where he’s Rambo and a badass and all of the co-stars sound the same. This isn’t some piece of fiction.
This is REAL.
These randomly chosen Synergies? They show just how shitty you both are at actually WINNING a goddamn match on the show, whether it be against jobbers the likes of Mizore or against champions in the Main Event. Take this one we just time-hopped to. #299? Right at the end of the year last year? Raab ACTUALLY got a win, one of only eight across twenty seven matches on the show...but that was ONLY because he got teamed up with the (at the time) Cooperative Champions in Team Slebby. Sure, he got the pinfall, but it was on Pierce (ffs) and that was AFTER Slebby had done all the work! Raab’s inability to actually WIN FUCKING MATCHES only finds a home when its basically a Casey Jones swing with the ball on the tee!
Oh! Oh! And DAVE on that show? On this random Synergy? BIG OL’ L! To Hide! Ya know, the OTHER guy I beat one-on-one early this year?
Hey, that makes all THREE of you finding yourselves getting your shoulders pinned to the mat by THE World Champ in just a matter of weeks!
“BUT SARAH! THIS ISN’T FAIR”
Bitch, please. Here, lets time-hop again to some random Synergy and see how we all fair. Can your shitty duo find success in...lets see what the random number generator gives us…#257? Lets find out!
Monday
August 6, 2018
Synergy #257
Well, would you look at this! A Raab singles match! Now, a criticism of the Coalition is that we have comparatively few singles matches amidst our random cooperative and group salvos, but personally, I enjoy it. All of these interpersonal relationships and dynamics build and feuds and one-upsmanship comes into play and then BLAM! You get your chance to put someone’s shirt in the dirt. You get to take someone’s career into YOUR hands, not ANYONE else’s, and squeeze the LIFE out of it. You get the chance to dispense with that “Yeah...well...I didn’t take the pin so THERE” bullshit and just go AT IT.
THIS was one of those times.
Konrad Raab vs. Gabriel Baal
I wonder if there was even a single person in that audience who thought Raab had a chance. I know I certainly didn’t! I can’t say the same for Dave...he was in one of those “I lost seven times in a row and need to go away before I come back by attacking someone and looking like a badass before I inevitably blow my momentum by losing” phases of his...but I sure as hell was there. That was the night my Beloved and I won the Cooperative Championships!
Hey, look at that. Any random Synergy just so happened to have ME winning and Raab
Well
Raabing.
“I WANNA RAAB!”
“I WANT TO RAAB”
“R.A.A.B IN THE U.S.A!”
Yeah, that was in full force that night and every fucking person in the building knew it was going to happen. The Not-So-Good Doctor (more on him next week!) beat you up pretty bad that night, Raabie. But that’s usually the case for you, ya know? Even when you spend a week straight in silent contemplation and focus on your match. Even when you train and expand your boundaries with the SJW journeymen. Even when you reach deep down inside yourself and pull out Black Ice.
You lose
Clean
THAT is likely going to be your professional epitaph. Your story is NOT that of the person who rises above. Your story is NOT that of the Good Guy who ultimately defeats the Big Bad. You are NOT Mario saving Daisy time and again until you finally get to the 9th castle and save Peach from Bowser. YOUR story is of the person who loses over and over and over and over again. Because even when you try SO HARD to be better and different than you were before, you still end up doing and saying the same shit you just did, which means you just end up laying on your back every time you aren’t fighting a squash merchant.
Ya know, there was a certain amount of creative satisfaction when I watched your promotional video before our match last week and learned that I correctly predicted that you would bust out the same Black Ice promo you always do. What did I say?
“Mother fuck bitch lying cunt gonna slit your throat and shit in your stomach you lying whore cunt bitch Sarah stop lying fucking whore.”
Word for goddamn WORD. I am NOT looking forward to hearing the SAME promo for the FOURTH time, that is for damned sure. And another thing, I-
OH DAMN! Baal just FLATTENED you with the Freudian Slip! This thing is OVER.
Hmmmm. Nine minutes and twenty-seven seconds, huh? I beat you almost two full minutes faster than Baal did!
Anyway, I don’t want Dave’s equally pitiful ability to be a successful wrestler feel left out, so lets head to another random Synergy...lets see...RNG gets us to….
Monday
January 23, 2012
Synergy #59
Woah, in the WAY BACK Machine for this one. When THIS match happened, I was 14, had been lifting with Daddy for a few weeks (Monday would have meant squats, bench, and barbell rows), had been doing my blog for a couple of years (more on THAT for Sarah Appreciation Night in August!), was great at ballet and swimming, JUST started getting into cheerleading, and otherwise being a legit badass. DAVE on the other hand was still in his shitty-as-fuck Red Fusion military nonsense (do NOT even get me STARTED on Code Red!) and was teaming with About-to-Flame-Out A-Kis against Deimos and Pax. And while, on paper, I would assume that Fear beat the piss out of Dave this night (this was the Year of Fear, though my friends don’t believe me when I say it was a thing), it was actually Paxy doing the honors with the Peace Out.
Ya know, I would feel pretty embarrassed if my opponent did a better version of a reverse DDT than me, right? Or if their chickenwing had a tighter hammerlock. Or if they could aim their poison mist better. And...man...Dave had BETTER be embarrassed by being taken out with a MUCH better version of a cutter. See, Dave does that whole “out of nowhere” thing, and occasionally uses the (admittedly cool) pop-up dealio, but Pax? A crucifix powerbomb INTO a cutter? That’s SO much more badass than Dave!
Which is basically HIS epitaph. Much like how Konrad tries SO HARD to come up with some Ws, Dave tries SO HARD to be badass. He tries SO HARD to be taken seriously. But, also like Konrad, he also fails to do so on a regular basis. Sure, he looks cool when he’s making some big return by taking some random dude out with a cutter (more on that in a bit!), and he gets to scream and holler when the guys in suits are trying to hold him back from attacking after his match, but then everything ELSE he does just shows how low he is on any possible scale. This inability to translate those solitary, and rare, moments of badassary into victories will forEVER hold him out of the Hall of Fame and will forEVER keep him away from hoisting MY World Championship into the air. Because much like how there are people who do his bit and moves better than he does, there will always be people like ME who do the entire WRESTLING thing better than he does.
Dave Rydell will NEVER be a winner when Sarah Lacklan is on his booking sheet.
Alright, I think we have time for one more hop before I need to get this to Sloane. This one won’t be random, though, because I have a point to make. Remember how Thunder and I started this whole thing with trust issues? About how we’re trying to figure each other out and translate our social compatibility into a professional one? About how we understand the need to trust one another and work together?
You two will NEVER be able to do so, no matter WHAT anyone says.
And here’s why:
Monday
August 20, 2018
Day of Reckoning
Recognize this? We were all in Minnesota. The day started off with an IN-FUCKING-SANE Chaos Match between Mumsie and my baby sister (seriously legitimate, those two tried to kill each other for WAY too long in the opener for some reason!), saw Kem pull one of MANY el oh el moments with a PPV job to freakin’ Mizore (hey, I beat BOTH of them in singles matches that year!), Baal have an EXCRUCIATINGLY BAD over-the-top entrance that ended up with him STILL losing an important match to Jet, Roxy getting Pierce’D, Necron getting murdered by Eden, and Vain becoming Double Champ. But in the middle of all of that?
I picked you up, Raab. Got you up into a suplex and held you there.
Kenzi springboarded off the ropes.
She grabbed you by the legs and drove us both down.
I covered you after the Star Maker.
We successfully defended the UGWC Cooperative Championships.
And after we were gone? Hell, we were probably already making out in the back. You and Fear argued over who sucked more. And then
OUTTA NOWHERE
Dave decides to do one of his OMG EPIC RETURNS by sliding into the ring and bringing you down with a Virus of Life.
Why?
Why, Dave? Why?
Simply because of his insatiable need to be seen as a badass by his peers in a way which is above the place he has earned.
Dave dropped you on your face...after we dropped you on your head...because of his selfish NEED to be seen as something he is not. And you know whats going to happen when you end up losing THIS match? He’s probably going to hit you with ANOTHER cutter because he’ll have ANOTHER need to “win” after losing.
A shame you never got a chance to pay back that Day of Reckoning receipt. You guys got to brawl a bit the following week...before Mumsie won the match you were all in...but that was it. I wonder how much Black Ice would love to “accidentally” return that sneak attack? What a deliciously convenient chance for that to happen in a way you never could do on your own! Just make sure it doesn’t happen to you first!
You guys WILL be losing this match, of course. Over the last few days, Thunder and I have been working on our shortcomings, working on what went wrong. We're learning to work together, to anticipate each other’s needs, to WIN. We’ve worked on figuring out the balance of what a Sarah/Thunder team means, which is THE World Champion doing the lion’s share of the work and the big man coming in to wreck shit like Wreck-It Ralph on a bender when I need him to. And between us? Between his power and my expertise? Victory is assured. Especially in the face of two people who can’t work together, don’t trust one another, and likely haven’t even SPOKEN to one another all week!
Listen, your “oh shit, what am I gonna do THIS week? I didn’t even know what I was going to do LAST week!” way of preparation is why BOTH of you such so much on any random Synergy. I knew WEEKS in advance that Thunder was going to be in the crowd in Boston. I know at ALL TIMES how I feel about my peers and opponents and don’t need to wait to know my plan for a match with them. Hell, THIS entire cycle is about how I am taking the future of the businesses into MY HANDS, and not ANYONE else’s, so that I may give the business the match that they have earned. And THIS match is no exception. I knew from the MOMENT Dave decided to start doing his “PLEASE LOVE ME” routine of attacking Thunder that it would lead to more matches, and I have been preparing my partner. I knew IMMEDIATELY that you, Raab, would be DUMB ENOUGH to take my challenge of literally “put up or shut up” and now have to find some sort of creativity (that you don’t possess!) to avoid saying my name forevermore. I LITERALLY set all of this up by taking actions into MY HANDS.
And now YOU GUYS get to lose on yet another random Synergy.
Now, if I may close with an insanely timely and relevant song lyric from Hamilton about your lack of skills and my amazing strategies:
Such a blunder
Sometimes it makes me wonder
Why I even bring the Thunder
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