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| The End Of John Cena | |
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| Tweet Topic Started: 29 Feb 2016, 04:10 PM (128 Views) | |
| Stone Cold | 29 Feb 2016, 04:10 PM Post #1 |
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![]() Technicians were already busily checking the lighting and sound, the ropes were being fixed to the ring and checked for tension, and superstars and ladies were all completing their final rituals and warm ups ahead of the battles they would face later in the night. The only man absent, and perhaps the one man above all others who should have been in attendance, was FWI’s Texas Rattlesnake, Stone Cold Steve Austin was not checking the ring rope tensions. He was not discussing the sound board or overseeing the displays of the merchandise stalls. Stone Cold Steve Austin was in a local bar, sat alone and staring at the far wall. The Rattlesnake was out. The bar was dimly lit and empty. It didn’t seem like one of Dallas most popular night spots, but then that seclusion was perhaps exactly what Austin needed right now. He didn’t even have a drink. He just sat, gazing distantly at the wall, facing away from the bar itself. Eventually the eerie silence was broken by footsteps and an unfamiliar voice. “Can I get you that drink now?” Austin was unmoved, heedless to the fact he had been addressed at all. “Sir? The drink?” Now he stirred at last. He nodded vaguely and slowly shifted his body around to face the bar. The clinking of glass and hissing snap of a bottle top popping off were followed by a beer being offered into the shot by the unseen barman. Austin took it, raised it to the man in salute, and then drained half of it in one gulp. The barman had evidently been studying him closely throughout the gesture, and perhaps for some hours. “Rough day, friend?” Austin snorted an ironic laugh and beckoned for another beer, finishing his first with a second gulp and sliding the empty bottle across the bar. Stone Cold: “Rough month.” The barman didn’t press him any further. He handed him the fresh beer and then there were more footsteps. He had evidently moved away to busy himself with some other duty, but Stone Cold was waking from his trance now and beckoned the man back. Stone Cold:“Did you ever take a job and then realize ‘Man, this job just sucks ass!’?” It was the barman’s turn to laugh now. “Friend, if we’re going to go that way I’m afraid we’re going to need a lot more beer.” Stone Cold:“Seems to me my life was great. I had TV gigs, I had my own show… a podcast… movies for god’s sake! And now I’m lucky if I get to shoot once or twice a year. I got sucked in.” (Austin shook his head in disbelief at his own weakness) “I was out, and I let myself get pulled right back in by a friend I owed. And I was a damn fool for ever agreeing to it.” “This, uh… this all something to do with the pro wrestling we got in town? You sure look like one of them action hero types. I’m sorry, friend, but I don’t watch a whole lot of TV and I feel I should be a bit more… in awe.” Austin laughed again and shook his head. Stone Cold:“Nothing to be in awe of here. Not anymore. I’m just a washed up… I mean, I’ve had my time. I’ve done all there is to do, I’ve won everything there is to win, and as of last week I’ve beaten them ALL. I got no business getting back in that ring except it’s the only way to do the job that I’ve been given. But do people understand that? Do people respect that? You’re god damn right they don’t! All I hear is how I’m corrupt, I’m leading a conspiracy, I’m holding down this guy or that guy. It’s PATHETIC. When did everybody turn into such whiny, complaining, cry baby son’ bitches anyway? If they think they can do this job better, then by all means take it.” “So you don’t enjoy your work?” Stone Cold: What's there to enjoy? “That the road you took?” A gleam of excitement flashed in Austin’s eyes. Stone Cold:“Hell, I tell you… the road I took? There wasn’t an authority in our company in the ninety’s that isn’t now in therapy or the drunk tank, and that’s down to me. I didn’t take bullshit from any of them and I don’t expect the guys now to take it from me. But this happy, smiley, disingenuous crap I have to deal with… I’m not made for it. And I sure as hell don’t enjoy it.” “Then change it. Change the workplace environment.” Stone Cold:“It ain’t as simple as that. I got a boss just like everybody else. If I start opening a can of whoop ass and tossing bodies out the door, how long before I bring the heat down on me and my boss? I got into this gig to help him out, I can’t rock the boat and lower the share price or else the suits are going to be banging their damn dinner spoons on the table and calling for our heads. And whatever else I do. I’ll just… I’ll have another damn beer.” The depression was setting in again as Austin revisited the hopelessness of his situation. The barman set a third beer beside him and The Rattlesnake studied it with that vacant gaze of his. Stone Cold:“Let me give you tonight as a ‘for instance.’ Tonight because I chose to make a stand for this business and do what had to be done, I have no choice but to step into the ring with one guy, neither of whom have any time for me whatsoever. I have to stand in that ring and I have to go toe to toe with a guy with movie star good damn looks who has made his living for the past ten years on winning against the odds. Does that job sound fun to you?” The barman took a moment of thought before his measured reply came. “I think… it’s a job that sounds fun to you.” Stone Cold:“Well it don’t. Let me tell you, in this business of ours they come at you two ways: they try to break your body… or your mind. And tonight I’m going in there against a master of each art. And I’m too old, I’m too beat down, and I’m just too damn stubborn to be able to walk away from this thing. My name is Stone Cold Steve Austin, I am the Texas Rattlesnake and I am the LAW. If I don’t make a stand then you tell me, who will?” (No answer came) “And I don’t want to sit here and just blame the younger generation and say it’s all their fault and nobody gives a damn these days because that’s bullshit. This seven foot monster? Kane? He’s been around as long as I have! And he was always a sorry, selfish, crazy son of a bitch. But now he’s my problem and he’s a problem that I can’t control because, like I said, I can’t fire him, and I damn sure can’t beat him for strength. So if I can’t lay the guy out in the ring and I can’t toss his ass to the roadside, do you think he fears me? Do you think he respects me? Instead what I get are accusations that I’m behind some damn conspiracy to take away his title when the fact of the matter is that he just wasn’t GOOD ENOUGH to get the job done. All people want to do is look to the Sheriff for answers, and when I can’t give them then I become the problem. Kane has decided in that twisted, broken up mind of his that I’m responsible for everything bad happened to him since I got here, and ain’t a damn thing that I’m going to be able to do other than beat sense into him.” (Austin took another gulp of beer) “And like I said, ten years ago maybe. But not tonight.” (A bottle on the top shelf caught Stone Cold’s eye. He pointed at it) “Bring that down here would you?” “This fight might be beyond you friend, it might not. But it’s sure going to be if you start reaching up there for the top shelf. That’s a monkey you need to get off your back.” But Austin beckoned for the bottle again and the barman handed it to him. It seemed though that he was less interested in drinking its contents than he was reading the label on the back. Stone Cold:“Smoke-matured… extra strength… contains traces of nuts.’ You know what this is? Right here in this bottle?” (The barman gave no reply) “This is John Cena! This is what I’m dealing with. Extra strength… smoke damaged… and you can be damn sure he’s nuts! Now see, ten years ago? I could have sat here with this bottle and I could have drank it down shot by shot. And then I could have got the next bottle. And hell, I’d have drank that down too. But now I’m the wrong side of forty. And guys like Cena, like shots like this? They just keep coming at you. I drink the shot, you fill her up again. I knock him down, that son’ bitch gets right back up. And I’m not the man I used to be. Before long I’m flat on my back in that ring, or right here on your floor. That extra strength? It’s more than I got in the tank.” Austin handed the bottle back and returned to his beer. The barman’s hand wandered into view, mopping the counter down with a rag. Austin’s face was caught in the now-cloudy reflection, blurred and distorted as though unrecognizable from the man that he once was. There was a long, awkward silence before the barman dared speak again. “Alright so, maybe this guy is a tall order. But you said there were two, right? The physical battle and the psychological battle? Why not beat the other guy? If his attacks are all in your head, just beat him instead.” Austin finished what was his fourth beer of this segment and beckoned for another. A wry smile crossed his face as he took a drink and then set the bottle down beside him. Stone Cold:“Beat John Cena? Well don’t misunderstand me now, he’s every bit as strong as Brock Lesnar is. But he tempers that rage and that drive to win with a little bit of intelligence. Not a lot, but just enough to make him what he is.” “And what’s that?” Austin looked around as though to check nobody could overhear him. Stone Cold:“John Cena is very possibly THE greatest in-ring competitor that our company has ever seen and one of the toughest son’ bitches I ever met. But his game now… it’s all in here.” (Austin tapped the side of his head) “He’s getting to where I went ten years ago. John Cena is waking up and his back is aching. His leg is sore. He’s wondering whether that scar on his elbow was always there or if he got it last week. John Cena… is breaking down. And last week I showed him what it’s like when you get to the end of the road. Sure, he’s had a rough few months already and he knows all about losing. But last week? For the first time in a long time, that was a match Cena thought he could win – hell, that was a match he thought he had won before it even started. And when he’s laying there looking up at those lights, I could see it in his eyes. He knew it. He KNEW his place. You know, I can’t blame the younger generation for Kane, but John Cena… he represents everything about kids these days. They don’t just want success, they expect it. They want it handed to them and they don’t want to share the spotlight with anybody. You think I didn’t have to put people over I didn’t think had it coming? You think I didn’t see guys paid no dues a day in their lives climb about Stone Cold on the ladder? But it’s about the business. It’s about being a professional, and John Cena ain’t a professional. He’s a WINNER. Right, wrong, good, bad… Cena is a winner, and he doesn’t care about ratings. He doesn’t care about buy rates. He cares about John Cena. THAT is why he has to be put down. All I hear is how I’m victimizing him, how I’m bullying him. I put him in the damn Road to Stardom didn’t I? Boom! First week, in his name goes. Right alongside Stone Cold Steve Austin . He wants to stand there and pat Stone Cold Steve Austin on the shoulder? Who in the hell does he think he is anyway?! NOW I have to clean up the mess I made. I have to sweep him up and toss him out with the trash.” “And why can’t you do that?” All of the accumulated rage and passion of Austin’s temper dissolved in a moment. He suddenly became once more the gloomy, defeated drunk in the bar. Stone Cold:“Beating John Cena… people brush it off as Stone Cold Steve Austin returning to the ring, but if you want the truth of it I think last week was the greatest match of my entire life. To come back after ten years and to beat the best the business has to offer? That stuff doesn’t happen. And it sure as hell doesn’t happen two weeks in a row. Everybody’s flapping their gums and getting excited about the greatest match in FWI history: Stone Cold versus John Cena. But if we’re getting right down to it, if we’re going in to WHY I’m here drinking these beers instead of across town at the arena getting ready… it’s because I’m the only guy in the world who knows that I can beat John Cena.” On that sombre statement Austin returned to his beer, head bowed. He was evidently in no mood to discuss the matter any further. The life of Stone Cold suddenly seemed slightly more heroic than it had previously. Not merely installing himself into headline matches for his own ego, Austin regarded his upcoming match with Cena. He expected to win, and not even because he felt he had a chance of doing so. He was back in the ring because it was the right thing to do. It was the right thing for FWI and pro wrestling as a whole. The fact that Austin was doomed to defeat was not the issue here, at least he was prepared to stand up for the principles that had taken him to the very top of sports entertainment and now even made him a world-famous movie star. But tonight, for the first time, the mental strains of the toughest S.O.B. role were beginning to manifest themselves. The barman, seeming genuinely interested in getting this particular customer back on his feet, came around to the other side of the bar and stood beside Austin. “If you’ll take my advice, seems to me you have all the tools you need to get this job done tonight. You’re allowing yourself to believe you’re going to lose because that way, if you do, you won’t have let anybody down. It will have been expected. But people must believe in you, friend. They buy your movies, they pay good money to see you tonight. People BELIEVE in you.” It might well have been the case that that barman just gave one of the most inspirational speeches Stone Cold ever heard. It might well have been that, in another life, he would have inspired the Rattlesnake, fired him up and sent him on his way into the biggest battle of his life. But the world would never know, because immediately after speaking those passion-filled words, he went on to make one of the gravest errors of his life. He placed a hand, as a show of solidarity, onto Stone Cold Steve Austin’s shoulder. Viewers around the world groaned collectively as Steve slowly turned his head to glare with distain at the gesture that he was becoming increasingly sick of in recent weeks. The barman realized his error and removed the hand slowly, but the damage was done. A fire returned to Austin’s eyes and he seemed to sit up, rising out of the defeatist slouch that had characterized his time in the bar. Stone Cold:“Did you… did you just touch Stone Cold on the shoulder?” “Look, friend, I…” Stone Cold:“WHAT? I asked if you just touched Stone Cold Steve Austin on the shoulder?” (The barman could only offer stuttered mumblings in reply) “You know something, friend? You’re just like John Cena. You want to touch my shoulder, you want to offer your sympathies? What? I said you want to offer sympathy to Stone Cold? You think I can’t get this done? You think I haven’t got what it TAKES to get this done? What the hell do you know about it anyway? You don’t even know who I am! You don’t understand what I do! Before I walked in that door, had you ever even HEARD of Stone Cold Steve Austin?” (The barman was backing up now, so Stone Cold got to his feet and followed him) “Had you or had you not heard of Stone Cold Steve Austin? Of course you hadn’t! And that’s the problem. THAT’S what’s wrong with kids these days. They don’t have the first idea who I am. They don’t know what I’m capable of. They just live in this John Cena fantasy land where everybody is hugging and high fiving and ‘the champ is here’. Well it STOPS NOW! Do you understand me? WHAT? I said do you understand Stone Cold? You WILL respect the LAW!” The barman had raised his hands in self-defense now and, wide-eyed in terror, backed around the bar to his own side. But Austin followed him. Now trapped with nowhere to run the barman began to beg, but Stone Cold was heedless to it. He reached back up to the top shelf and pulled down that same bottle from earlier. Stone Cold:“’Smoke-matured… extra strength…’ You know something? I’m not going to go out there tonight and JUST beat John Cena. (He lunged forward and, with his free hand, grabbed the barman by his shirt, bringing him close) “I’m going to smash Cena's little head in.” Realizing a fraction too late what that implied, the barman could do nothing as Austin brought the bottle crashing down on his skull, smashing it into a thousand fragments. The barman crumbled to the floor amidst the wreckage, his and the bottle’s fate symbolic perhaps of what awaited John Cena. The Texas Rattlesnake stood over him with a sadistic, crazed expression written across his face. His grin, in spite of the human suffering playing out at his feet, was spine chilling. Stone Cold:“NOW you’ll remember me, you cowardly son’ bitch!” (He aimed a hard kick at the barman, out of view behind the counter, and his victim groaned in pain) “My name is Stone Cold Steve Austin… and I AM the LAW! And by the time I’m done at Ultimate Fortune… by the time I’ve laid John Cena and I’m cracking open a Steve-weiser right on top of them… EVERYONE will remember my name. Everyone will fear Austin 3:16. And maybe – just maybe – then we can get some god-damn work done!” And with that he stepped over the prone body of the barman, glass crunching underfoot, and left the bar, presumably in the direction of the AT&T Center Arena. The enigma of Stone Cold Steve Austin continued. Just when you began to doubt him, he gave you cause to fall in love again. And just when you let your guard down enough to trust his decisions, he did something as sickeningly repulsive as beating down a defenseless barman. This paranoia had been seen in Austin before, and it now returned in a more dangerous and potent form than ever. The pressure and responsibility of being Stone Cold, the hatred and perhaps jealously that he felt for John Cena, it had all pushed Steve to the brink of madness, exactly where he needed to be to reach his peak in the ring. Now we had a dream match. Now Stone Cold would do everything in his power to ensure a victory that would cement his position once and for all as the unrivalled power in FWI, both in the ring and out of it. Rightly or wrongly, the real Stone Cold Steve Austin had been rediscovered in that bar, and he was marching to war. Let battle commence! Fin. |
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4:25 AM Jul 11