Tulsa- Adalynn Duncan vs. Max Ironside

[Jana Rikar]

1 RP / 1750 Words
Deadline is 6/5 Noon EDT
Thanks!

[Adalynn Duncan]

The camera rolls in the empty living room of Adalynn Duncan's, Las Vegas, apartment. The camera man is standing in front of a black leather couch that has Adalynn herself laying on it. She is wearing a pair of black yoga style pants and a black t-shirt. Wrapped around her right elbow is an ace bandage and on her forehead she has an ice pack laying.



A lot of things can be said about taking a match on short notice. Especially a match a pay per view that is against someone the likes of a Sarah Lacklan. Some may call me brave. Some may call me stupid. Hell, some and most would probably outright call me crazy for doing it. Absolutely bonkers for knowing the uphill battle that I was asking, yes literally asking, myself to be placed into.



Adalynn removes the ice pack from her head and tosses it onto a small coffee table in front of the couch.



I could have easily been like countless others when they heard the news of a spot needing to be filled. I could have went back to minding my own business and preparing for things that I had already had on my plate. Hell, I could have acted like I was way too busy to do it. But I didn't. I CHOSE to be the one to take the spot. I CHOSE to be the one who was, and is, willing to do whatever I have to do for what is right for myself and for this business! Plain and simple, cut and dry.



Would I do it again if I had the opportunity? My body, and every bone, and muscle screams at me to say nothing but "no". But my heart, my will, my strength and my determination, that parts of me that mean the world to me, would say "yes" in a damn heartbeat! You see I literally, put myself through a baptism of fire to be here. FIRE! What have the rest of you done to prove your worth to this company? This profession? This business?



So many of you out there are doing nothing but going through the motions and enjoying the ride that is the fame we have been given by those before us. Keep your cookie cutter fame, and keep those ways to yourself. I need for each and every one of you to realize that we are not the same, I am a damn monster at what I do! Adalynn Duncan is here to change the game. A complete rewrite! Top to bottom. The pen strokes of this rewrite though won't be written in ink and contain nice stories for the road. Oh no, not at all. This rewrite will be penned in blood and will contain tales that will only be allowed to be spoken in absolute hush tones. The child books and the nursery rhymes that you have all been accustomed to are to be long gone. They are going to be replaced by a declaration of sorts. A declaration of those of us who are done being looked upon as being in a joke profession! A declaration for those of us who are finished with watching opportunities pass us by to those who have shown nothing more than skin, literally in the game. It is a declaration that for those who are ready to stand and be counted as Defiant!



Adalynn sits up from her laying position and stretches out here bandaged up elbow before looking back up at the camera.



You must all understand there are too many who do not belong! Too many just taking up space for those of us who are ready to do what needs to be done to win!



Max Ironside. You, sir, are from what I have seen of those that fall into that category. I saw what you did at the pay per view. You went out there against a very formidable opponent and you first and foremost took care of business. Then on top of that, as all the announcements were being made of the next show, you sir, stuck in there. When others took the buy out rights, you stuck in there. When it changed from a tag team match, to a three way dance to a one on one match, you stuck in there. You didn't look to take the night off, you didn't look to take the easy way out and I can respect the hell out of that. But was it a blessing and a time to show that you are still on your way up? Or do I turn it into a curse for you with my taste for violence and blood lust? Neither of us can really be sure, can we? Do you have what it takes to put out the girl who is walking through fire for this company? Or do I put down the man who has time and time figured out how to turn his adversity into advantage? Your line of course.



When it is all said and done and the dust settles on the main event of TNT, I won't have any words of comfort for the things I will have done to you. Nor, would I expect any in return. All I will be able to offer you is my respect on the condition that you bring it with all of your fiber and all of your being, because I will be bringing nothing less to out fight, that is for damn sure.



The camera fades out to black as Adalynn reaches for her ice pack and places it back on her forehead as she lays back onto her couch.

[Max Ironside]

The video comes to life showing Max Ironside running through a crossfit workout circuit, ranging from pull ups and various other things and ending with some brutal looking box jumps. While he goes through the motions, his face flushed and determined, glasses fogged with sweat, a voiceover begins.

"There's no easy way out. There's no shortcut home. I'm pretty sure everyone my age knows the words by heart. That movie was so damned iconic, wasn't it? The best underdog story. Everyone knows how it played out. The Russian guy faced the cocky veteran, the guy with the razzle-dazzle James Brown entrance. The whole world was glued to what they were sure was going to be this huge upset - height of the Cold War, America versus Russia and Drago is just standing there all smug because he knew. He knew what was coming. Apollo Creed got destroyed and if the movie had ended there, the moral would have been that things aren't always as they seem. It would have been about not being a show off or something to that effect.

It didn't end there. No, see, Rocky Balboa, punch-drunk still from the fight in Rocky III against Clubber Lang, goes out of his way to get cleared to fight. He's got to avenge his friend, you see. He's got to prove that America has the bigger stick in the measuring contest. We've got the nukes, the power, the glory - the Russians may have the better facility but by the power vested in Rocky by the gods of montage, he ran up that snowy hill and… improved his stamina? I think that was the point, anyhow. It got a little muddied in the middle.

For the first part of the fight, he was getting clobbered. Beaten to a pulp and the Russian was laughing, mocking him. The music was so dramatic and watching at home on VHS, you knew the moment was coming. The Russian crowd was going to turn on their homeboy and start screaming for Balboa like he was the second coming. If you haven't seen it, I'm sorry for the spoilers.

In this business, you're one of those three archetypes: the showman, the villain or the underdog. Most days, you're lucky and you get to choose. If you're not, the universe chooses for you and you get to spend the rest of your time either raging against that injustice or trying to find your moment of acceptance.

People like Adalynn Duncan try to pretend they're above that. She doesn't care about roles. Nope. She wants to just wrestle and live her dream and ride unicorns down rainbows in the magical fairy kingdom - that may be a little unfair, but I'm in a rotten mood. I tried my best not to let it get to me. I really did.

Not sure what I'm talking about?

It's fine, really. I'm not either. And. I don't really have much of a desire to play this game right now with my cards turned around. Any wrestler worth their salt can look up a name on the Internet. Anyone with half a brain, half the ambition could pretend to know what their opponent is about. Do us both a favor though and don't try to pigeonhole me again. You haven't earned that right. 

My first loss in DWF was to Aidan Carlisle. Do you honestly think facing a woman who wears red contact lenses and writes a blog called “The Princess Twilight Sparkle Fang Club" and living to tell about it is on the same level? Please don't, Miss Duncan. Don't insult me. I'm kinda getting the impression that this is one of those acting out things for you. Like this is some passing fad. And that's cool if it is. I'm not judging you. I guess what I'm saying is that I don't want to see you hurt. You know what I mean? Good, 'cause I don't really wanna drag this out into some silly song and dance number. We're above that and it would take me days to find the right songs for that particular soundtrack. 

I guess maybe what I'm saying is that I need this. Another win. Another moment to prove that what happened at Resurrection wasn't a fluke. I don't wanna be known as the guy who broke some schoolteacher's neck because she put on a pair of wrestling boots and decided this company was a good place to try out her new LARP hobby because the picture posing on Twitter was getting old. So promise me that. Promise me that you know at least twenty moves and that you learned how to fall without breaking every bone in your body. Otherwise it's not gonna end too pretty for either one of us."

On the screen, he finishes the last box jump by springing off the edge of the box. He hits the mat, tucks and rolls, cleanly and gracefully before coming to a stop, turning his head to look up at the camera.

"For what it's worth, I hope this company doesn't push you away the way it did Faith Rivers, Patrick Carson and Kasey Summers. I hope you stay. Hell, I even hope you flourish. Just not this week. I'm sure you understand. And if you don't? Well, there's always the hope that a cool montage can save the day like it's 1985 and you're the plucky hero instead of the comic relief, right?"

He winks and the feed fades out, the sounds of Robert Tepper's song bleeding in for a few seconds, playing over the blackness before words appear on the screen, hanging there for far too long to be comfortable. 

IN LOVING MEMORY OF: ADALYNN DUNCAN