Post by Gravedigger on Nov 18, 2016 0:34:32 GMT -5
(A few hours after Michael Sterling left “Mother’s Tavern”, the man once known as Gravedigger, John Thomas, ends his shift tending bar. After cleaning up the bar area, he grabs the trash and takes it out to the dumpster behind the building. As he is putting the trash inside, he hears a voice behind him…)
(Voice): Hey! We’ve got business with you….
(John turns around, and sees a group of 8 men standing in front of him, all wearing a cut from a local motorcycle club. As he stands there, the man in the middle, who’s voice he heard a moment ago, begins to speak, and seems to be the leader of the group.)
(Man): You cost us a lot of money tonight, asshole. You took out one of our top earners in there tonight.
(John): He got out of line. I took care of it. End of story.
(Man): Not so fast…. We need a new revenue stream to replace what you’ve cost us. How do you suppose we make up that loss?
(John): Not my problem.
(Man): Actually, it is…
(The group makes a circle around John, and they appear ready to fight.)
(Man): Either you pay us what he would have earned for us, or we get our restitution in another way…
(John): Well, I don’t owe you assholes a god damn thing, so I guess it’s going to be the other way.
(Man): Fair enough…
(The leader signals one of his guys, who steps forward and takes a big swing at John. John moves enough that it turns into a glancing blow, and after absorbing the hit he counter strikes, landing a square hit on the man’s face, knocking him to the ground. Another group member steps forward, but John knocks him down before he can even take a shot at him.)
(Man): GET HIS ASS!!!
(The rest of the group all rush John at once, grabbing his arms and knocking him down to his knees, as the leader stands over the top of him, smiling.)
(Man): Like I said, we will get our restitution…
(The leader begins raining down direct blows to John’s face, one after another, which bust him open, spraying blood all over the place. After a dozen or so shots, he suddenly stops, and looks quizzically down at John.)
(Man): What the fuck?
(He looks down at John, who is smiling, his white teeth starting to get covered in bright red blood, and he begins to laugh.)
(John): Is that all you got, pussy?
(John enrages the man, who walks over to a nearby motorcycle, and grabs a switchblade.)
(Man): Rip his shirt off. Time to make our mark…
(They rip open John’s shirt, and expose a multitude of scars on his upper body. Some are fresh, some are older, but they cover a good portion of the exposed flesh.)
(Man): What the hell are you into, freak?
(John): I’ve already been to hell, you piece of shit. This is a walk in the park…
(Man): You think this will be easy? I’ll make those scars look like child’s play.
(John): Bring it on. I’m ready for whatever you’ve got.
(John extends his chest outward, taunting the man into going through with the attack. As he initially plunges the knife into John’s skin, just below the collarbone, a
gunshot is heard. The man turns about to see two men standing behind him. One has a pistol, which was the weapon that was fired, and the other a shotgun.)
(John): Mark, Damon…. Good timing….
(Mark, the man with the pistol, walks a few steps closer, and looks dead at the leader.)
(Mark): Alright, gentlemen. Time for tonight’s festivities to end…
(Man): Over my god damn dead body, you son of a bitch. We outnumber you 8 to 2….
(Mark): And we’ve got guns…
(Damon pumps his shotgun, and steps up to Mark’s side.)
(Mark): Maybe one of you gets to us and takes us down Maybe you don’t. But the reality of this situation is that we will shoot more than one of you if you attempt to attack us. And trust me, we’re good shots. So decide amongst yourselves… Is it worth it? Is it worth the reality of more than one of us dying for this fight? You can walk away, right now, and let John go with us. We’ll leave, and you won’t hear from us again. Everyone lives, and you can find some other way to make money off of this town. Or, we can fight, people will die, the survivors most likely will go to prison, and no one comes out a winner. It seems like a pretty easy choice, at least logically, to me. But how we play this is up to you…
(The leader stares Mark and Damon down, looks like he’s going to lunge at them, but instead puts his switchblade in his pocket, and signals his followers.)
(Man): Let’s get out of here, boys. This fucker isn’t worth the hassle.
(Mark): Good choice.
(Man): We better not see any of you three ever again. Leave tonight, if you know what’s good for you…
(Mark): That is the plan.
(The group gets on their bikes, and they leave the parking lot. John is still kneeling, blood all over his face, and a small stream flowing from where he was stabbed. Mark and Damon help him up, and they all walk toward their motorcycles.)
(John): I had that under control…
(Mark): Sure you did. We saw that he did, right Damon?
(Damon): Yeah, under control.
(John grabs a rag he’s got on his bike and wipes away the blood from his face. He puts a coat on over his torn shirt, and gets on his bike, ready to leave.)
(John): Wild night, boys, even for this place.
(Mark): What the hell set this off?
(John): A man in a suit.
(Mark): At this place?
(John): Yeah. I’ll tell you all about it, when we get wherever we’re going.
(The three men fire up their bikes, and head out, leaving the town and setting a course eastward.)
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Life for the man known to most as Gravedigger has been different the last few years, so say the least. The man that helped form a faction seeking the “truth” behind CRW, Veritas, and amassed a sizeable fortune with his manager/financial advisor, Lou Manson, at his side, has retreated to a simpler life. A life closer to the one he lived before CRW. After his somewhat disastrous time in SCW, the man now known by his birth name, John Thomas, bought a custom chopper from a shop in Las Vegas, and hit the road, basically vanishing from the public eye. Roaming the country, he moved quite frequently from place to place, before coming across “Mother’s Tavern”, a place where he felt at home.
Each day was pretty simple. Get up, grab a six pack from the fridge, head to the bar after finishing, work his shift, and end the day with a hearty meal of a few burgers from the local 24 hour fast food joint, washed down with a bottle of whiskey. During those shifts he’d occasionally have to deal with an unruly customer, and once in a while one of them would puff out their chest and challenge the big man, thinking they’d show their toughness at his expense….
It never worked.
Not once.
A few would grab a beer bottle or a glass from the bar and smash it on him, but normally those his would get him in the hands as he blocked the blows, and then he’d blast the offender with his bloody hands, more often than not knocking them out cold. Time has weathered John, and most of his body has at least one ailment. Scars all over his hands and body, bruising from the hits he’d inflict, joints that are on their way to replacement…. This is a man who isn’t the vicious phenom who destroyed his opponents in cage fights for years before joining CRW. John Thomas is still a vicious, powerful man, but one who picks his battle more prudently these days.
While working at “Mother’s Tavern”, John met a couple of guys who he considers some of his closest friends: Mark Gannon and Damon Carr. Mark and Damon are drifters, much like the life John has led recently, and aren’t afraid to mix it up, also much like the big man. They also saved his ass big time that fateful night that Michael Sterling showed up. Would John have died that night? Probably not, but that gang would have torn him to shreds, and John would have taken all of it.
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(It’s the night after John, Mark, and Damon left town, and they’ve settled down in another small town. After going to the local bar for a few drinks, they head back to their cheap motel, and John gets a call from his old friend, Lou Manson.)
(John): Hey, Lou… Yeah, he found me… Yeah, I heard… Yeah, I’ve got a job if I want it… Because I’m not sure I want to go back… What? You already signed a deal for me? What the hell, Lou… Yes, I understand what power of attorney is, but our agreement was for financial matters… No, this isn’t a financial matter, it’s my life… Let them fucking sue me, so god damn what… Wilkinson probably can’t afford the legal fees right now anyway… Fuck, Lou… Fine, I’ll honor the fucking deal… Yes, I’ll be there.
(John hangs up the phone, clearly pissed off by the conversation.)
(Mark): Problem, John?
(John): Yeah. Lou signed me to a new contract. Code Red Wrestling is returning, and I’m on the roster again.
(Damon): That’s a bad thing?
(John): I don’t know yet. I wasn’t planning on getting back in the ring. The way that asshole just closed up shop last time really pissed me off. It took a lot out of me at the time. I thought I was the one who was supposed to shut him down, to expose his lies and corruption. Now, I don’t know if I was right, I just know that at the time it did a number on me.
(Mark): So you’ve got a fresh start, a chance to go back and right the wrongs you didn’t get a chance to change last time.
(John): True. You boys feel like heading to New York?
(Mark): Sounds like a plan.
(Damon): Yeah, let’s do it.
(John): Good. We’ll hit the road tomorrow…
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(John is standing in a wooded area, just outside New York, and has a camera set up on a tripod. He’s got all of his old ring gear, and it’s piled on the ground.)
(John): A few years ago, I was literally working as a Gravedigger. So when the chance to step in the ring and become a wrestler arose, I didn’t exactly put a lot of thought into my ring name. But I knew I wanted something that shielded me from the public. I knew I wanted to keep a piece of myself private from CRW. So “Gravedigger” was born.
(John pulls out a bottle of lighter fluid, and pours it all over his gear pile. He then lights a match, tosses it on the pile, and watches as his gear burns.)
(John): But here’s the reality of “Gravedigger”… It’s a façade, a spectre that I created to instill fear in my opponents. And it worked. Win or lose, I made an impact on each and every man I was in the ring with. But they didn’t see me. They saw the man I created, a creation that I put up on a pedestal, a man that was the champion of the truth, a man looking for justice. But the truth is that I was just as concerned, or perhaps more concerned, with the wealth and fame I amassed. I built up this creation to a level that gave me an ego that was massively inflated. Gravedigger was a man that looked down upon the masses from his high horse, judging them when I should have been looking inward.
(As the fire dies down, John takes a moment to watch the flames.)
(John): That is why Gravedigger has died. I am no longer that man. I have fallen down. I have come down from that high horse, and I stand amongst the masses. I have fallen because I stood in a place that was a fantasy land. The spectre that I created was not the man that I am, or even the man I strive to be. I have fallen because I was a man that cared more about vanity and wealth than I did the actual message I tried to convey. Am I interested in exposing the truth? Absolutely, and I always will be interested in that endeavor. But I had an inflated ego that needed to be pushed off a ledge. I am now a man of truth. I am now a man of justice. I have indeed fallen from the castle in the sky where Gravedigger lived his superficial life. I am a man that’s fallen to the ground, and is ready to build himself back up from the dirt upward. I have fallen, but I know who I am.
My name is John Thomas. I’m coming back to Code Red Wrestling.
Linus Stark, I don’t know who you are. I don’t know if you are a man I’ll respect, or one I’ll look down upon. I have no idea if you’re tough, or if you’ll roll over and die. You are a complete mystery to me. But know this…
I’m coming. I’ll be in that ring this weekend. And I’m ready to fight…
(As the fire dies down, John shuts off the camera, gathers his things, and heads back to the city.)
(Voice): Hey! We’ve got business with you….
(John turns around, and sees a group of 8 men standing in front of him, all wearing a cut from a local motorcycle club. As he stands there, the man in the middle, who’s voice he heard a moment ago, begins to speak, and seems to be the leader of the group.)
(Man): You cost us a lot of money tonight, asshole. You took out one of our top earners in there tonight.
(John): He got out of line. I took care of it. End of story.
(Man): Not so fast…. We need a new revenue stream to replace what you’ve cost us. How do you suppose we make up that loss?
(John): Not my problem.
(Man): Actually, it is…
(The group makes a circle around John, and they appear ready to fight.)
(Man): Either you pay us what he would have earned for us, or we get our restitution in another way…
(John): Well, I don’t owe you assholes a god damn thing, so I guess it’s going to be the other way.
(Man): Fair enough…
(The leader signals one of his guys, who steps forward and takes a big swing at John. John moves enough that it turns into a glancing blow, and after absorbing the hit he counter strikes, landing a square hit on the man’s face, knocking him to the ground. Another group member steps forward, but John knocks him down before he can even take a shot at him.)
(Man): GET HIS ASS!!!
(The rest of the group all rush John at once, grabbing his arms and knocking him down to his knees, as the leader stands over the top of him, smiling.)
(Man): Like I said, we will get our restitution…
(The leader begins raining down direct blows to John’s face, one after another, which bust him open, spraying blood all over the place. After a dozen or so shots, he suddenly stops, and looks quizzically down at John.)
(Man): What the fuck?
(He looks down at John, who is smiling, his white teeth starting to get covered in bright red blood, and he begins to laugh.)
(John): Is that all you got, pussy?
(John enrages the man, who walks over to a nearby motorcycle, and grabs a switchblade.)
(Man): Rip his shirt off. Time to make our mark…
(They rip open John’s shirt, and expose a multitude of scars on his upper body. Some are fresh, some are older, but they cover a good portion of the exposed flesh.)
(Man): What the hell are you into, freak?
(John): I’ve already been to hell, you piece of shit. This is a walk in the park…
(Man): You think this will be easy? I’ll make those scars look like child’s play.
(John): Bring it on. I’m ready for whatever you’ve got.
(John extends his chest outward, taunting the man into going through with the attack. As he initially plunges the knife into John’s skin, just below the collarbone, a
gunshot is heard. The man turns about to see two men standing behind him. One has a pistol, which was the weapon that was fired, and the other a shotgun.)
(John): Mark, Damon…. Good timing….
(Mark, the man with the pistol, walks a few steps closer, and looks dead at the leader.)
(Mark): Alright, gentlemen. Time for tonight’s festivities to end…
(Man): Over my god damn dead body, you son of a bitch. We outnumber you 8 to 2….
(Mark): And we’ve got guns…
(Damon pumps his shotgun, and steps up to Mark’s side.)
(Mark): Maybe one of you gets to us and takes us down Maybe you don’t. But the reality of this situation is that we will shoot more than one of you if you attempt to attack us. And trust me, we’re good shots. So decide amongst yourselves… Is it worth it? Is it worth the reality of more than one of us dying for this fight? You can walk away, right now, and let John go with us. We’ll leave, and you won’t hear from us again. Everyone lives, and you can find some other way to make money off of this town. Or, we can fight, people will die, the survivors most likely will go to prison, and no one comes out a winner. It seems like a pretty easy choice, at least logically, to me. But how we play this is up to you…
(The leader stares Mark and Damon down, looks like he’s going to lunge at them, but instead puts his switchblade in his pocket, and signals his followers.)
(Man): Let’s get out of here, boys. This fucker isn’t worth the hassle.
(Mark): Good choice.
(Man): We better not see any of you three ever again. Leave tonight, if you know what’s good for you…
(Mark): That is the plan.
(The group gets on their bikes, and they leave the parking lot. John is still kneeling, blood all over his face, and a small stream flowing from where he was stabbed. Mark and Damon help him up, and they all walk toward their motorcycles.)
(John): I had that under control…
(Mark): Sure you did. We saw that he did, right Damon?
(Damon): Yeah, under control.
(John grabs a rag he’s got on his bike and wipes away the blood from his face. He puts a coat on over his torn shirt, and gets on his bike, ready to leave.)
(John): Wild night, boys, even for this place.
(Mark): What the hell set this off?
(John): A man in a suit.
(Mark): At this place?
(John): Yeah. I’ll tell you all about it, when we get wherever we’re going.
(The three men fire up their bikes, and head out, leaving the town and setting a course eastward.)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Life for the man known to most as Gravedigger has been different the last few years, so say the least. The man that helped form a faction seeking the “truth” behind CRW, Veritas, and amassed a sizeable fortune with his manager/financial advisor, Lou Manson, at his side, has retreated to a simpler life. A life closer to the one he lived before CRW. After his somewhat disastrous time in SCW, the man now known by his birth name, John Thomas, bought a custom chopper from a shop in Las Vegas, and hit the road, basically vanishing from the public eye. Roaming the country, he moved quite frequently from place to place, before coming across “Mother’s Tavern”, a place where he felt at home.
Each day was pretty simple. Get up, grab a six pack from the fridge, head to the bar after finishing, work his shift, and end the day with a hearty meal of a few burgers from the local 24 hour fast food joint, washed down with a bottle of whiskey. During those shifts he’d occasionally have to deal with an unruly customer, and once in a while one of them would puff out their chest and challenge the big man, thinking they’d show their toughness at his expense….
It never worked.
Not once.
A few would grab a beer bottle or a glass from the bar and smash it on him, but normally those his would get him in the hands as he blocked the blows, and then he’d blast the offender with his bloody hands, more often than not knocking them out cold. Time has weathered John, and most of his body has at least one ailment. Scars all over his hands and body, bruising from the hits he’d inflict, joints that are on their way to replacement…. This is a man who isn’t the vicious phenom who destroyed his opponents in cage fights for years before joining CRW. John Thomas is still a vicious, powerful man, but one who picks his battle more prudently these days.
While working at “Mother’s Tavern”, John met a couple of guys who he considers some of his closest friends: Mark Gannon and Damon Carr. Mark and Damon are drifters, much like the life John has led recently, and aren’t afraid to mix it up, also much like the big man. They also saved his ass big time that fateful night that Michael Sterling showed up. Would John have died that night? Probably not, but that gang would have torn him to shreds, and John would have taken all of it.
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(It’s the night after John, Mark, and Damon left town, and they’ve settled down in another small town. After going to the local bar for a few drinks, they head back to their cheap motel, and John gets a call from his old friend, Lou Manson.)
(John): Hey, Lou… Yeah, he found me… Yeah, I heard… Yeah, I’ve got a job if I want it… Because I’m not sure I want to go back… What? You already signed a deal for me? What the hell, Lou… Yes, I understand what power of attorney is, but our agreement was for financial matters… No, this isn’t a financial matter, it’s my life… Let them fucking sue me, so god damn what… Wilkinson probably can’t afford the legal fees right now anyway… Fuck, Lou… Fine, I’ll honor the fucking deal… Yes, I’ll be there.
(John hangs up the phone, clearly pissed off by the conversation.)
(Mark): Problem, John?
(John): Yeah. Lou signed me to a new contract. Code Red Wrestling is returning, and I’m on the roster again.
(Damon): That’s a bad thing?
(John): I don’t know yet. I wasn’t planning on getting back in the ring. The way that asshole just closed up shop last time really pissed me off. It took a lot out of me at the time. I thought I was the one who was supposed to shut him down, to expose his lies and corruption. Now, I don’t know if I was right, I just know that at the time it did a number on me.
(Mark): So you’ve got a fresh start, a chance to go back and right the wrongs you didn’t get a chance to change last time.
(John): True. You boys feel like heading to New York?
(Mark): Sounds like a plan.
(Damon): Yeah, let’s do it.
(John): Good. We’ll hit the road tomorrow…
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
(John is standing in a wooded area, just outside New York, and has a camera set up on a tripod. He’s got all of his old ring gear, and it’s piled on the ground.)
(John): A few years ago, I was literally working as a Gravedigger. So when the chance to step in the ring and become a wrestler arose, I didn’t exactly put a lot of thought into my ring name. But I knew I wanted something that shielded me from the public. I knew I wanted to keep a piece of myself private from CRW. So “Gravedigger” was born.
(John pulls out a bottle of lighter fluid, and pours it all over his gear pile. He then lights a match, tosses it on the pile, and watches as his gear burns.)
(John): But here’s the reality of “Gravedigger”… It’s a façade, a spectre that I created to instill fear in my opponents. And it worked. Win or lose, I made an impact on each and every man I was in the ring with. But they didn’t see me. They saw the man I created, a creation that I put up on a pedestal, a man that was the champion of the truth, a man looking for justice. But the truth is that I was just as concerned, or perhaps more concerned, with the wealth and fame I amassed. I built up this creation to a level that gave me an ego that was massively inflated. Gravedigger was a man that looked down upon the masses from his high horse, judging them when I should have been looking inward.
(As the fire dies down, John takes a moment to watch the flames.)
(John): That is why Gravedigger has died. I am no longer that man. I have fallen down. I have come down from that high horse, and I stand amongst the masses. I have fallen because I stood in a place that was a fantasy land. The spectre that I created was not the man that I am, or even the man I strive to be. I have fallen because I was a man that cared more about vanity and wealth than I did the actual message I tried to convey. Am I interested in exposing the truth? Absolutely, and I always will be interested in that endeavor. But I had an inflated ego that needed to be pushed off a ledge. I am now a man of truth. I am now a man of justice. I have indeed fallen from the castle in the sky where Gravedigger lived his superficial life. I am a man that’s fallen to the ground, and is ready to build himself back up from the dirt upward. I have fallen, but I know who I am.
My name is John Thomas. I’m coming back to Code Red Wrestling.
Linus Stark, I don’t know who you are. I don’t know if you are a man I’ll respect, or one I’ll look down upon. I have no idea if you’re tough, or if you’ll roll over and die. You are a complete mystery to me. But know this…
I’m coming. I’ll be in that ring this weekend. And I’m ready to fight…
(As the fire dies down, John shuts off the camera, gathers his things, and heads back to the city.)