Ties That Bind.

Hayes, it was winter 2021. I had just walked out of Alcatraz Prison with my dreams in my grasp. My life was mine again, my future wasn’t going to be determined by a ghost  from Chicago. That was great, it was all well and good. Being able to choose if my next breath happened was fantastic.

But I had something else.

I’d done it.

Fifteen years. Fifteen years, Hayes.

I’d been wrestling for awhile, trips across the big ocean were biweekly at points. The back and forth, days, hours, time in general, it all becomes a blur. You sleep and eat, any type of routine is impossible. I didn’t have it like my old man always had it; I couldn’t have coffee and a newspaper. I traveled the world working in every cesspit you could imagine. Working out there in my purgatory. Suffering away, grinding, trying to get better, trying to get someone to see what I really could do. And all I wanted to do was come home. I wanted my friends, I wanted my family. I wanted to be close to my father. After he passed I wanted to be near what he had built. And I wanted to be respected. I wanted to say I made it, that all this time, that all this effort, that all this suffering, I wanted to know it was worth it. I needed to know if it was worth it.

Fifteen years. Fifteen years and I finally got to find out the answer to my question.

I walked out on that next television show in Chicago, ready to fight the man I’d been paid to protect. He was supposed to be my ally, this was going to be about respect, this was going to be about two men standing toe to toe and figuring out who the better man was. We were on the same team, if I win, the belt stays home. If he wins, the belt stays home. We’d fight, and we’d try to hurt each other, but at the end we’d have respect for each other.

It’s safe to assume that wasn’t how that went.

Cecilworth made sure of that. Snippity-snap, that’s what he says right?

Snippity-snap and it was over, Hayes. In an instant, everything was gone. Sure, there were a few lead pipe shots, a knee to the temple, and yeah, all that hurt. But he had my future in his hands, Hayes. He had the answer to the question in his nimble, agile little fingers. His little talons were hooked in, the legs had wrapped around my arm and chest.

He’ll tell you I could have walked away, that I could have gone and fought Conor.

Maybe I should have, Hayes.

But I’d waited fifteen years, and it was finally right there. The one thing I always needed. I had to know. There wasn’t any other way. I couldn’t live with myself if I woke up the next day and it was all gone. If it vanished in an instant.

He’ll tell you that he didn’t have a choice.

But he did. He could have stopped. He could have walked away.

Snippity-snap.

He broke my arm.

He took it.

Fifteen years.

—----------------------------

December 3rd, 2021 London, England The Second Most Depressing Extended Stay Hotel in Greater London

“Hello, is Mr. Byrd there?” The whiny shrill voice on the other end of the receiver caused The Behemoth to wince. He hadn’t recognized the 702 phone number, but it was the second time it had called in the last week. He couldn’t just sit there and watch the phone ring, he was on his fourth time through the full extended director’s cut of every Cecilworth Farthington and Dan Ryan match. You can only stare at that diaper for so long.

“Ye-eurgh,” Clay croaked out, his voice hoarse from a lack of use. He held his hand over the microphone and cleared his throat. “Sorry, yeah, this is him.”

“Hi, yes, Mr. Byrd, my name is Melvin and I work for the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Nevada,” the shrill voice on this little gremlin. He didn’t want to come look at timeshares at the MGM. Hell, Vegas was the last place on the planet he wanted to be.  down at his phone, shocked at the time.

“I don’t need nothin’ ta do with Las fuckin’ Vegas!” He was going to hit the red end button, but that little flicker of hope that this wasn’t some stupid fucking telemarketer hung in the air. Like when you get the Publisher’s Clearing House letter for the sweepstakes, maybe you just magically won. His arm should have been a sign that things like that don’t happen for him, but he let the man rebuttal.

“Well, I'll reach out to my team then and let them know to strike you from the list for the revival of PRIME Wrestling,” he hadn’t heard that name in almost a decade. Big arenas, big payouts, big fights. PRIME had led the industry for a long time.

“Who is this again?” The Behemoth put the phone on speaker and shuffled his free thumb across his web browser. He had a feeling who was behind PRIME, but he couldn’t quite remember all the details.

“Melvin Beauregard. Liaison from the MGM Grand to PRIME Wrestling,” The Behemoth grunted in agreement, he was more interested in the web browser though. Just like he thought, she owned it. “We’re reaching out to prospective wrestlers that we would love to see PRIME contact…”

“Well Melvin, I don’t think yer boss is gonna want anythin’ ta do with me. Last time we talked I’m pretty sure I told her I was gonna kill her boyfriend with a hatchet for throwin’ me off an aircraft carrier ‘cause I brained her with a chair after she beat up some guy I hardly knew. There’s more ta it but it’s a long story.” Clay reached out for his phone on the coffee table in the extended stay hotel. Before he could get to the button the shrill voice returned.

“Now, Mr. Byrd. I don’t think you understand the relationship Ms. Troy has with my company. We're partners, she is not and will not be my boss. We could sign you to a deal tomorrow,” The Monster smirked at the phone. The balls on this little corporate suit jerk off, he was almost stunned.

“Well, I don’t think that works ‘cause I ain’t a free agent and they ain’t ‘bout ta let their meal ticket walk without putting their money where their mouth is. When I beat the breaks off the boss’ kid and his buddy, I’ll be champ and there ain’t no amount of money they won’t gimme…” He looked at his arm again. The sign of the fractured relationship between himself and Lee Best. Maybe with the World Championship that could all be repaired.

“Oh.” Melvin’s sarcasm and surprise came through the phone.

“Thought ya said ya were partners with PRIME?” The Behemoth had picked up on the sarcasm as well, and well, he didn’t like it much.

“We are.” The shrill voice of Melvin shot back. He wasn’t wrong, his confidence was unwavering. Less experienced men would fall for the trap, but The Cowboy Colossus would sidestep this particular pitfall.

“Then why the hell are ya goin’ behind her back?” Clay smirked and readied his thumb over the end call button. He’d found a snake in some tall grass.

“Well, we’re willing to do what’s necessary to get what’s best for PRIME…” The Behemoth cut him off before he could finish the line.

“I’ve heard that before.” His thumb pressed the red button and he immediately started scrolling through his contact list.

—---------------------------

U got a rat

Clay

Ur partner ain’t ur partner. 

MGM called, guy named Melvin something. Offered me a job. 

I fucking hate backstabbing suit fucks. 

Yeah, so do I. Got a minute? 

Gimme 5.

What the hell does all of that have to do with you though?

That was just Cecilworth right? And he’s got his own enemies just like you have your own. Just because you two are bonded together with the sticky adhesive doesn’t mean that you’re one in the same. You both have your own interests and desires. Your acts of self sabotage are your own, just like the enemies he’s made in the past are his. And you’re not wrong, Hayes.

But you have other sins.

It was the winter of 2022. Another year, another Iconic. See, after your buddy broke my arm in two I ended up getting medically cleared if I was wearing a cast. So I went out, and tried to claim my match wearing the cast. As normal, a series of unfortunate bullshit somehow ended with a 7 man tournament and I got beat by the video game kid. But that’s pretty much par for the course, I’m pretty sure if you talk about Chicago and me, it always ends with losing to the video game kid.

I digress, 2022, another year older, that relationship with the bossman? It never got better. That question? It never got answered. Figments and bullshit, I found a friend though. Well, I found a few of them. We’d all felt like we had been discarded, ya know? When the kid came back, and then America, it was all about them. We were just the guys there floating along. Forgotten toys left to toil with the other forgotten toys, hockey sticks, eye patches, I guess boys would be boys or something.

One of them though, he was a good friend. We got pretty close, I hadn’t had a role model in a long time, and I guess he helped me figure some things out about me. And that meant a lot. No longer were we two men that were stuck together by an adhesive, our crucible had fired, our friendship, I thought was unbreakable. He was the closest thing I thought I had to an older brother.

Not like the junkie fuck you got for one, think more like grumpy old ass Phil. Sour as hell, permanently pissed off, but deep down he cared. Right and wrong mattered to him, and he knew what happened to all of us, it was wrong. The rest of us, we didn’t have a choice. Another alliance of convenience. The enemy of my enemy is my friend, you know, that type of stuff. But he was different. He gave something up to be there.

I had faith in him, he was the right hand. When we moved as a unit, he was on the frontline. He was a warrior, and a leader. We could follow him, and we did. We fought like hell, Hayes. And that fight, that’s what starts to define you. That’s what molds a bond, forges something that can’t be broken. It’s not glue, it’s the fire of conflict and struggle. The shared trauma and compassion for your fellow man.

You were pretty busy yourself that winter. You ascended Mt. Coolympus. You conquered Cancer Jiles and won the Universal Championship. You found the answer to the question. You achieved the ultimate reward. I was trying to answer my own question, I was getting ready to walk to the ring at Iconic 2022. Christopher America, and me, heads up, one on one. The two of us facing off for the first, and only time.

You did it all by yourself.

Nobody went into that battle with you. It was just you, it was just Jiles and all of his wit and guile.

We were fighting on so many fronts, it was impossible. I was trying to stay focused on my task, the final leg of the marathon. Beat Christopher America, it was our last chance, just beat him. That’s all we worked on, that’s all we practiced, that’s all we did. The four of us, our final heat. And see Hayes, when you’re forging a bond, sometimes too much heat makes the bond brittle.

Sometimes that brittle bond breaks.

Snippity-snap

Before I walked out to that ring we were betrayed. What happened the rest of that night didn’t matter. My best friend had decided the outcome before the battle had even started. He walked over to the other side, I think some guy wearing a diaper showed up and hit me with a chair. But the betrayal. He didn’t believe we could win, he didn’t believe in me and he walked away.

He damned me before I got the chance.

—----------------------------------

September 9th, 2023 Byrd Townhouse Houston, Texas

“Look at that!” The Behemoth smirked at the television and spun the remote in his massive grip. He leaned back on the couch, his arm outstretched, his leg kicked up. Black basketball shorts and a snugly fitting blue t-shirt. On the television an aerial view of Soldier’s field shot across the screen.

“Worked there for three years and didn’t even know the city had a stadium!” The Monster from Plainview exclaimed to nobody in particular. He hadn’t watched High Octane since he left, he’d only heard bits and pieces from acquaintances or the boys in the back. The world had thought he might be in Chicago this evening, Twitter had exploded with a rash of nonsense and garbage that morning. But none of that mattered to The Behemoth. He wasn’t in Chicago, and he wouldn’t be working for Troy anytime soon.

She did put on a hell of a show though.

It’d been a long time since he had been able to sit back and watch wrestling as a fan. Sure, he wasn’t your average fan, but in a lot of ways he was worse. He barely knew some of the people on the screen, there was a dinosaur, a chick trying to play a guy like a controller, metal teeth man, sure he knew the Tsonda’s, the Gamble’s. He’d watched Hanon’s meteoric rise, he’d heard word of Jared Sykes beginning to heat up the singles division.

But he was fifty-fifty at best on who was who. He recognized the guy that beat the hell out of Jace, he heard about the guy that broke Rhine’s neck. But tonight, he was going to sit back and enjoy the show. He was going to relax, and watch wrestling. Like a fan.

That was easier said than done.

The night wound through match after match, The Behemoth laughed, he cried. He enjoyed himself. There wasn’t some overarching story of terrorism and horror reigning down on our heroes, it was just wrestling. People had reasons to fight, they fought, and it was what it was. Sure, they all weren’t good people, but they were making their own decisions. The self determination was evident across the board, the stakes were real, they fought for their own reasons.

Not someone else's.

And he loved it.

This was wrestling, this is what it was supposed to be. Sitting on that couch, watching that show, he could feel the twinge of regret. When he had decided to walk away, she’d called. The offer was still there, it would always be there. He watched another man with a cowboy hat walk onto the stage for the first time and become a star.

Everything lined up, it was right, at the rate the show was going he was going to be faxing paperwork right after it ended. He was excited, he could feel the good flowing through his veins. It was cleansing. A baptism of wrestling, and then.

And then.

Brittle bonds.

Snippity-snap.

On the screen Sykes was exhausted, he’d fought a hell of a battle, and he had finally made his way to Hayes Hanlon. The crowd roared, The Behemoth pumped his fist at home, the bottle of bourbon was half empty, a plethora of snacks surrounded him. And he watched as Hanlon stepped through the ropes. Farthington was going to get what he deserved, it was going to happen. Hayes Hanlon was going to beat the pants off of those two.

“Wha… What the hell?” Nick Stuart’s legendary call of confusion rings throughout the empty living room. The Monster’s eyes are huge as he stares at the screen. He slings his glass across the room, the cleanse is washed away. The dirt and filth return, the little Judas Hayes fucking Hanlon. The glass shattered off the wall, and Clay turned the television off before Turnbull’s hand hit the mat for the third time.

—----------------------------

My friendship with Lindsay Troy is born from shared traumas. We had the same abusive employer, and we fought and raged against the machine until it almost killed us. Sure, we didn’t do it together, and maybe that was the mistake we made, but we had both tried it. There’s a respect that comes out of that, the enemy of my enemy is my friend. And I know why Lindsay Troy gave me this fight, I know why the moment I stepped through the curtain from battering Brandon Youngblood she was pitching your name as my next opponent.

This latest transgression, sure, it’s the straw that breaks the back.

But Hayes, how many times did you stab it first?

The world was yours for the taking, you were a superstar. You were Hayes Hanlon, the god damned Event Horizon. There was no peer, nobody was your equal, you were beyond the rest of them. Something new, PRIME’s past and all of its knowledge coming face to face with PRIME’s future. You had mentors, this place nurtured you, and when you were ready to run on your own, they stepped back so you could run.

But you weren’t ready yet, were you?

You didn’t think PRIME could win against the onslaught. You doubted her, you doubted all of these people in the back. You needed to align with them, for what? Because you wanted people to fight your battles? Who is better to fight their own battles than you are? I get it Hayes, I’ve been there, I’ve been frustrated.

But you stay loyal, Hayes. You always stay loyal.

That’s the code.

I hated Cecilworth Farthington for a long time, Hayes. I thought he took my moment away, but he just delayed the inevitable. I fought my way back, right back to the same place I had been the year before. The biggest show of Chicago’s year, the biggest belt, the main event. I was ready to climb my own Coolympus. And I was betrayed. Again.

What the boy in the bowtie did isn’t why I want to smash your teeth down your throat.

It’s what the boy in the necktie did.

Cecilworth just did what Cecilworth does. I understand it now, he takes what he wants. That night he wanted you, so he took you. But you had a choice, Hayes, you could have decided to fight. But you didn’t.

You chose cowardice, you chose betrayal. You chose to be part of a unit instead of standing on your own. You chose the easy way out, and I’ve been there Hayes, I’ve taken short cuts. I’ve decided to fight for the bad guys, but I never betrayed anyone. I never looked someone in the eye, told them that they could rely on me, that they could depend on me, and walked away.

I’ve never looked someone in the eyes and sent them to the slaughter. I’m just not made that way.

You are though.

And that's the problem.

See you soon.