Bison hadn’t settled in yet to his new position in life. He missed his old life. He missed his family. He missed his ex-wife. He missed the simplicity of lifting weights. Well, he still found some enjoyment in the latter, but the hotel gyms never seemed to be equipped well enough for him to feel like he was in his natural habitat. Pumping iron, the burn in strained muscles, he could lose himself in that, block out all the crazy in his life. Madness embroiled his life now. No denying that. Somewhere along the way, he lost his way, became entangled with the Russians, and found himself in servitude to a bad lot of people. To shield his family from his terrible mistake, he walked out the door and never looked back. The divorce came quickly when he finally revealed to Katrina that he was alive but gone. He never gave her the true story. He didn’t need any sympathy or support. He wanted her to be able to move on and hating him might be the only way.
And then they paired him with this dumbass, Bison failed to see any genius in his tag team partner. Especially when each day offered a new situation, some in which Bison couldn’t determine that Adam displayed the full extent of his stupidity or his insanity.
Today was no different.
“What in the hell… are you doing?” Bison questioned.
Adam didn’t stop. He continued to drag a razor blade across his already hairless chest. In the wake of the blade, redness in the form of a scrape followed. “I’m doing some performance art.”
“You’re doing something kinky weird again, aren’t you? Not only you’re a textbox pervert, you’re also a masochist. Whatever floats your boat, but do you have to do it in our hotel room? I have to sleep here.”
“I need you to take a picture.”
“Of what?”
“Dude, come on. Obviously, this,” Adam motioned towards his crimson chest. He looked like he had a bad rash. He placed the razor onto the side table. He handed Bison the phone.
“Is this for the site?” Bison took a snapshot of Adam’s chest.
“No, for SCW. I’m going to tell them I suddenly came down with a bout of leprosy.”
“Leprosy? You are crazy. They’ll cancel our match!”
“Exactly. That’s what I’m hoping for,” Adam tapped his forehead as if this was another one of his genius ideas. Adam supposedly always had genius ideas. Every idea was genius if it came from the head of Adam Allocco, Wrestling’s So-Called Enlightenment. Bison didn’t know if Adam actually believed his own hype or if he was just trying to pull a fast one on everyone. Either way, Bison found himself in the role of a babysitter. The Russians better let him go after he completed the mission. He never signed up for watching after a manchild.
Bison deleted the photos, tossed the phone back towards Adam. Adam juggled the phone before going to check the images. “You didn’t take any pictures. Don’t you know how to work a camera phone, you brute?”
“We’re not ducking Dark Fantasy.”
“Oh, yes, we are! This is Sasha trying to get back at me for never giving her the proper attention her young beauty deserved. Of course, she feeds us to the BEST tag team in the history of SCW, if not the entire sport. I’m not going to let her way, trying sabotage our upwards trajectory. She’s not going to kill our momentum before we ever got going. We’ll get out of this match, save us from any setbacks,” Adam explained. He extended his arm, trying to get a good view of his chest. He kept turning, obviously trying to find the right lighting. Bison smirked, he looked like an Instagram model with the way he was posing.
Bison slapped the phone out of his hand. “That shit doesn’t even look like leprosy. There are scabs and shit. Besides, I said, we’re not ducking Dark Fantasy. We’re going to pull off the upset. If they’re as touted as you made them out to be, then a win will only accelerate things. And I’m all for getting this chapter of my life over as quickly as possible.”
“You don’t understand a damn thing about this business. Leave the decision-making to me.”
“I know how competitive sports work. The bigger they are, the bigger they fall. We need this win. I’ll get you those titles. Stop being such a wuss, will you?” Bison leaned over Adam. Adam stared at him. Bison went a step further. “If you email them, saying you have leprosy. I’m going to expose you as a liar and fraud. That will definitely lose some trust with the bookers. They’re not going to give us as many opportunities if they think you’re a flake. Isn’t that right?”
“When Petya said you were my muscle, I hoped you’d be dumb as him. Instead, you’re smart enough to be a problem but stupid enough not to understand that I’m the expert,” Adam lamented as he snatched his phone off the floor. He shook his head before retreating to the bathroom. Bison heard the shower running, believing he won this round.
Adam had been told to train Bison. Bison thought that months out of his life would be tossed aside to learn this sport that he had no particular interest in. Instead, Adam did a boot camp that lasted a whole of a weekend. Adam immediately showed Bison some moves on a test dummy that he needed to do to opponents. There didn’t seem to be much complexity, most of the tosses and slams were straight forward enough. Basically, Adam wanted him to be a bulldozer, a bully but didn’t part with any strategy, no nothing. Bison was told to be aggressive and that was it. By the first time he went against some sparing partner, Bison found himself nervous. He never watched wrestling. He never wrestled before. But if there was one thing Bison always had going for him, he was always the strongest motherfucker in the room. He decided that he was going to treat this like he treated bouncing for the bars and nightclubs. Be aggressive. Be a bully. Yes, he could do that for sure.
“What are you doing?” Bison questioned as he entered the hotel room. He didn’t hide his annoyance. The previous night, Bison forced Adam to agree to a time to continue his training, or practice wrestling, or do something productive and proactive together to build team chemistry, something they were sorely lacking. Instead, Adam never showed up for continental breakfast in the lobby and he didn’t show up in the weight room either.
Bison suspected Adam to be hungover, as the night before, Bison left him at the hotel bar with a few floozies. Adam didn’t return to the room until the crack of dawn. He figured Adam tried to be stealthy, but he stumbled about, tripping over everything possible on his way to the bed. Bison simply rolled over and went back to sleep. If the man wanted to live his life that way, Bison wasn’t going to criticize. He had his own morality, let the next man have their own. But Bison did expect promises to be kept, and if Adam broke promises because his bad habit inhibit from following through, Bison will beat some discipline into him.
“Hold on a sec- Damn it! Damn it! Damn it!” Adam screamed into his laptop’s screen. He went to throw the device but held on last second, bringing it down hard onto his lap. He fumed.
“What happened?!” Bison found himself worried.
“Argh. One of my brilliant plans ended up not producing the outcome I had hoped. You see, over the weekend, when I was a little deep in the bottle, this idea hit him. I decided to have some fun with it, so I went on the twitters and tried to cross some lines. That way SCW can suspend us; however, SCW decided that I only deserved a fine,” Adam explained. He breathed heavily, itching the stubble on his neck. The dude literally had a vein popping out of his forehead. His face turned bright red with anger. “Five thousand dollars! Five thousand fucking dollars! At least with the suspension, I’d be without pay but hell, I’d treat it like a vacation.”
“Hold on, why are you trying to get us suspended? Don’t tell me you’re still trying to duck Dark Fantasy?!”
“Listen, there comes a time in a man’s life when he knows he must do right. This is one of those moments for me, big dog. Don’t you concern yourself with these things; after all, everything I do, I do for a reason,” Adam stood to his feet, trying to act all defiant towards Bison. Bison approached him, came to stop some inches before the shorter man. He leaned over, breathing heavily. Adam seemed a little nervous, a lot less determined in his stand.
“I thought we agree. We’re facing Dark Fantasy, no matter what. We’re not going to chicken out. Now, go give you balls a tug to assure they’re still there because right now, I’m seeing a little bitch,” Bison pointed down towards Adam’s crotch. Big mistake as Bison’s head filled with the traumatizing image of the man’s package, dangling there like a shriveled-up mushroom. He stuttered at the thought.
“You don’t understand.”
“I don’t care.”
“Fine. You be glad to know that you’re probably going to get your wish. Who knew SCW had some fight in them, given today’s cancel culture and everything! You should have seen the hate mail and bad press I got! I am a little proud of myself.”
“What exactly did you tweet?”
“Oh. I told someone, who I hate with all my guts, that I hoped they find his nephew in a ditch somewhere, face-down,” Adam chuckled, evidently pleased with his despicable jest. Bison shook his head. He didn’t know the circumstances surrounding the tweet, or Adam’s hatred with this man, but regardless, you don’t tweet stuff like that. It wasn’t right. He understood having rivals and enemies in life, but to publicly tout such pettiness, left Adam in a whole new light. Not only was the man a prime example of a moron, but he simultaneously the epitome of being a dick.
“No more twitter until after this match,” Bison decided. “If I catch one whiff of you tweeting some bullshit, I’m going to smash your laptop and your phone.”
“Have it your way,” Adam responded, crossing his arms, like a petulant teenager being scolded by his parent. “But I’m telling you, you don’t understand a damn thing.”
They arrived early at the show. Adam’s reasoning: they could take the opportunity of the ring being set up to practice. Adam assured Bison that the levels of competition between their first opponents and Dark Fantasy were worlds apart. Bison only knew that whoever these two women were, Adam surely held deep-rooted insecurity about facing them. He wondered what happened to cause a man to be so intimidated but decided that he wasn’t going to pry into Adam’s past. He didn’t want to know Adam any more than he already had, and he regretted learning that much. Adam led him in a roundabout way through the back corridors of the arena. He almost became certain they were going around in circles. Adam assured him he knew the way. Finally, as they passed an opened door, Adam fell suddenly to the floor.
Adam instantly reached for his knee. “Argh! Iiiiiiiiiiith arrgghhhh!”
“What just happened? You okay?” The unexpectedness alarmed as Bison knelt down beside Adam to examine the man.
Adam started to rock himself, holding onto his knee, “Iiiiiiith arrgghhhhh!”
“Dude, what happened?” Bison didn’t understand. Suddenly, two women hurried out of the open room. They had both had scrubs on. Bison turned towards them, saw the genuine concern on their faces. “He suddenly fell. I don’t know what happened. You’re with the medical team?”
“Yep, so don’t worry, let us check. We’re trained professionals,” one of them spoke, a blonde who was probably barely out of school. She reached forward and stopped Adam from rocking, placing both her hands on his shoulders. “Where does it hurt?”
“My knee! Iiiiittthhh arrggghh,” Adam winced. She lowered her hands, removing Adam’s from the knee. She started extending the knee gently.
Bison caught a momentarily shit grin on Adam’s face. Bison reached down, softly set aside the medical team member before he placed a hand on the back of Adam’s neck. His other found the inside of the thigh, right above the supposed bad knee. He deadlifted Adam off the floor. He hoisted him, swung him back and forth, sparking panic in the bald man, who now flailed his arms like he was attempting to fly.
“Wait! Wait! What are you doing?” Adam shouted. Adam placed his feet down and dragged his heels to stop Bison. Bison let go, Adam stumbled away but found his feet. He turned, raising his fists. He marched towards Bison, seeming ready to throw fists.
“Oh look, your knee is miraculously cured,” Bison pointed.
“Oh look, my knee is suddenly healed! I thought I wasn’t going to be able to wrestle tonight. Thank god!” Adam tapped his foot, pretending to check the functionality of the knee. Both women seemed very confused.
“Sorry to have bothered you. My friend here is a little bit of a prankster I’m afraid.”
He bet they thought this was some elaborate joke that wrestlers do on the medical staff. Bison wanted to apologize, but he decided he rather drag Adam as far as he could away from the medical personnel as possible. He knew very well what Adam’s intentions were. He once again was searching for a way out from this match!
“Since we’re here, why not go for a massage? I think in all this madness, I might have pulled some muscles in my back. Come on, big guy, don’t tell me you’re not sore from all that heavy lifting this past week,” Adam turned back, trying his damnedest to march back towards the ladies despite Bison having him by the collar at this point.
And this was how Bison and Adam found themselves on the examination tables, getting full-body massages from the two athletic trainers. Bison hummed as hands beaded into his back. He had been sore. Bison always seemed to be a little tense, but this was melting that tension like a warm knife gliding through butter. Maybe Adam sometimes had good ideas. Rare, but this happened to be one few truly brilliant ideas this supposed genius had delivered.
Bison turned his face over towards Adam. He had to ask though, “Why are you so terrified of facing these two women? Sounds like you have some deep-rooted trauma or something.”
“Truth be told, I have tried to win against Dark Fantasy numerous times. Each time, they owned me. Didn’t matter if I changed partners, changed circumstances, changed strategies, they got me every single time. Hell, I even had one of the most prolific wrestlers in the history of this sport by my side and they still found a way to win. I can’t do it again. I can’t lose against them again, buddy. I can’t do it!” Adam revealed. For the first time since Bison met the man, he saw the sincerity in those bright blue eyes. Adam had been honest for a change, enough so that Bison happened to conjure up a bit pity towards him.
Bison reached out from his table with a closed fist. Adam stared at the fist. He hesitantly fistbumped, half-expecting Bison to pull his arm away. Bison then made a boisterous declaration: “Listen here, we might get owned tonight, who knows? But I’m not going to make this easy for those ladies and neither are you. We’re going to fight until the very end. And who knows? Maybe, just maybe we get lucky and catch them off guard or maybe they slip up somehow, someway. Everything is possible. Don’t forget that. And if we lose, then we’ll learn from our mistakes and try again another day.”
Adam conceded, “You know, maybe you do understand… a little bit.”
King of HARDstyle 
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