Post by Donnie Harris on Sept 13, 2023 15:57:26 GMT -5
It finally happened, and it was a fight to get it to happen. After all this time, and Donnie hated how it came about, SYNN was dethroned as champion; it was an act of management that made it happen, but Donnie was getting his match for the title regardless. It was to be against BRADDOCK.
He was named RISE’s #1 contender for the belt. Was it rightfully so? The man was as undefeated as Donnie; their records were basically running in parallel. Especially with the pinfall victory in the tag match, where SYNN had been dealing with an... effective Konstantine, Donnie was able to display his professional wrestling diversity, having changed his game up in such ways to reflect his opponent, something that BRADDOCK would get to see, being 100 pounds over Donnie’s lithe frame.
The words that came out of Britlyn’s mouth, he could feel their sting, and he looked at SYNN as she said them; he could see Juniper, not SYNN, absorbing the brunt of each calculated statement. The news was a bitter pill for everyone, and Donnie took it the hardest.
As grateful as the MMA standout was, he didn’t want to face BRADDOCK, an untested opponent. He wanted to face SYNN: the champion. He wanted to face the woman who held the belt. It was never a matter of past tense to him.
He saw SYNN as the undisputed champion of both Anarchy and RISE, but management had other plans.
The show goes off the air, and Donnie has his shower in the locker room. Halfheartedly, he hammer-fists the tile wall, more of a feeling of despair than anger ripping through him. As the soapy water ran off his body into the drain, the joint aches and stiffness locked him up. It felt like the very idea of facing BRADDOCK was nerve wracking, almost intimidating, to him. What was going on? It wasn’t right.
Even though Donnie was the villain of this story, the hero of the story was... forcefully eliminated from the battle and from the war.
Now who was to be the hero of this story? Who was the villain? The concepts of old-school wrestling were turned on their head, as there was no clear-cut winner in the fans’ eyes.
What’s more, BRADDOCK has a posse.
Yes, after everything was said and done at the John Paul Jones Arena in Charlottesville, Donnie was packed up and on a plane in short order; where he was going, well that is for him to know and the fans to find out.
And, once settled into his hotel room, Donnie was watching RISE’s taping from the 3rd. It wasn’t a surprise to see BRADDOCK in his match, but then, there was SYNN, bearing the title the way she should have been into AJFB, at least in a triple threat match to keep things interesting and competitive: to let the champion rise or fall properly. As he watched the attack by the Asylum, he growled to himself.
He wasn’t at the RISE taping on the 3rd of September, otherwise the hero side of Harris would’ve kicked in, and he would have leapt blindly in to save his rival. However, he wasn’t there. He couldn’t help his Anarchy compatriot; he couldn’t throw down with his rival at his side.
Donnie, sighing, pulls out his cell phone and makes a call.
“Hey,” he says, his body tense. “It’s Donnie; hopefully you get this message, one of you, and listen. I just watched RISE; I know this is, quite literally, out of character for me but, with him having Asylum possibly in his corner at And Justice For Brawl, I want one of you or both of you on my side. Call me back when you get a chance. Bye, and good luck in Philly; I’ll be watching.”
It wasn’t like Donnie to ask for help, but there was no way that he was going to give BRADDOCK the advantage walking into that show, not for how important that show was going to be, not for how much of a priority Donnie has put on winning this time around. Walking into his matches, he always had one goal in mind: winning that title.
Beating SYNN was supposed to be icing on the cake, but now Britlyn got in the way, in a bad way. His target, while unchanged, lost its importance. His target did not have the same... Donnie struggled to find the words to illustrate what it meant to beat SYNN for the title. It had a hell of a lot to do with her placement in Online Championship Wrestling, for sure, but there was more to it.
It was as if he had something to prove to the demon and her charge, to prove to SYNN, Juniper and Brooke that Donnie deserved his place, earned his spot... Was that it? He still wanted to prove himself.
Of course he did. There is that much left to prove, that much left to do. Winning the World Championship would mark a new beginning, as he would need to keep it around his waist, face any challenge put in his way, on both shows.
However, Donnie knew that it would be his one and only shot for a while. He is going in, not as a champion, but as a challenger; there was no rematch clause, no buffer to keep him in the picture.
IF
he were to lose to BRADDOCK, he would be back at square one, back at the beginning, back at the bottom.
That would not be good enough for Donnie. Taking such a loss, it was unfathomable to think about losing. Donnie, with these ideas in his mind, after leaving a voicemail with the only two people he could trust in the business, was already in the gym, pumping iron, keeping in mind the size and power of his massive opponent.
Honestly, he looked more like a King of the Deathmatch reject than anything, did BRADDOCK. As big and burly as the man is, the fact that he has been plowing through the RISE ranks was ridiculous. In the absence of skill, power can do just as much, and this was never more evident than in BRADDOCK.
Donnie could only push himself harder, knowing full well that BRADDOCK would be proving that power over skill concept again at UpRISE, against Mika Attano. But the stipulation seemed to want to force BRADDOCK to use actual skill; while Attano was able to use any way to win, anything in the playbook to get the fall, BRADDOCK would need to submit his opponent, to put her down and make her scream in pain before tapping out. Even a KO wouldn’t suffice this time around.
As Donnie thought about everything on his plate, he considered changing up his arsenal of maneuvers to make things fresh and more interesting. He found a podcast through one of the wrestling schools he had been frequenting, all about how to perform certain wrestling moves that have stood the test of time. Donnie took advantage of the cooldown time by using a stationary bike; tune up his cardio through lower-impact exercise for the time being, all the while listening to this podcast.
It was like a small documentary or a research project about some of the older moves in wrestling: things like Axe Bomber, Emerald Flowsion, the Von Erich Claw and other forms of it, even the Elbow Drop and Superkick. All of these moves, new and old, in its simplest form, were described in detail and discussed in what seemed like a round-table format. He didn’t recognize some of the names, but he was in pro wrestling for a short time, so he hasn’t had the chance to meet these guys and girls.
It was quite refreshing to listen to such an informative piece of journalism from within the industry. It was no Talk is Jerry... something or other, but the way the information was presented was still very much worth the listen.
He would need to practice one of these days, to give it a shot and to add some of the moves to his repertoire, but that will come with time, and, right now, he didn’t have the time; there was a bigger fish to fry, and his name was BRADDOCK.
There was one more week to train, one more week to get his cardio and physical endurance, the latter of which he had LOTS of practice with, and one more week to get into champion’s shape.
He just hoped that his voicemail was heard and his proposal considered. Donnie didn’t want to surrender any advantages to BRADDOCK and the Asylum. How he got to lead the tag team as a mock faction was over his head too. BRADDOCK must have wrested control from Zephyr after whipping his gothic ass on an episode of RISE: just what Donnie needed to worry about.
If it wasn’t the large man who actually was challenging Donnie, it’s the fact that BRADDOCK has an effective tag team to sit in his corner like snakes waiting to strike. Donnie wouldn’t even know where they’d come from, unless BRADDOCK had them ready in some sort of lumberjack setup.
The possibilities ran through Donnie’s head, even as he tried to get to sleep. Even though the MMA fighter had his concerns, he needed to rest his body, carboload with a good diet, and have his own... uprising.
He was named RISE’s #1 contender for the belt. Was it rightfully so? The man was as undefeated as Donnie; their records were basically running in parallel. Especially with the pinfall victory in the tag match, where SYNN had been dealing with an... effective Konstantine, Donnie was able to display his professional wrestling diversity, having changed his game up in such ways to reflect his opponent, something that BRADDOCK would get to see, being 100 pounds over Donnie’s lithe frame.
The words that came out of Britlyn’s mouth, he could feel their sting, and he looked at SYNN as she said them; he could see Juniper, not SYNN, absorbing the brunt of each calculated statement. The news was a bitter pill for everyone, and Donnie took it the hardest.
As grateful as the MMA standout was, he didn’t want to face BRADDOCK, an untested opponent. He wanted to face SYNN: the champion. He wanted to face the woman who held the belt. It was never a matter of past tense to him.
He saw SYNN as the undisputed champion of both Anarchy and RISE, but management had other plans.
The show goes off the air, and Donnie has his shower in the locker room. Halfheartedly, he hammer-fists the tile wall, more of a feeling of despair than anger ripping through him. As the soapy water ran off his body into the drain, the joint aches and stiffness locked him up. It felt like the very idea of facing BRADDOCK was nerve wracking, almost intimidating, to him. What was going on? It wasn’t right.
Even though Donnie was the villain of this story, the hero of the story was... forcefully eliminated from the battle and from the war.
Now who was to be the hero of this story? Who was the villain? The concepts of old-school wrestling were turned on their head, as there was no clear-cut winner in the fans’ eyes.
What’s more, BRADDOCK has a posse.
Yes, after everything was said and done at the John Paul Jones Arena in Charlottesville, Donnie was packed up and on a plane in short order; where he was going, well that is for him to know and the fans to find out.
And, once settled into his hotel room, Donnie was watching RISE’s taping from the 3rd. It wasn’t a surprise to see BRADDOCK in his match, but then, there was SYNN, bearing the title the way she should have been into AJFB, at least in a triple threat match to keep things interesting and competitive: to let the champion rise or fall properly. As he watched the attack by the Asylum, he growled to himself.
He wasn’t at the RISE taping on the 3rd of September, otherwise the hero side of Harris would’ve kicked in, and he would have leapt blindly in to save his rival. However, he wasn’t there. He couldn’t help his Anarchy compatriot; he couldn’t throw down with his rival at his side.
Donnie, sighing, pulls out his cell phone and makes a call.
“Hey,” he says, his body tense. “It’s Donnie; hopefully you get this message, one of you, and listen. I just watched RISE; I know this is, quite literally, out of character for me but, with him having Asylum possibly in his corner at And Justice For Brawl, I want one of you or both of you on my side. Call me back when you get a chance. Bye, and good luck in Philly; I’ll be watching.”
It wasn’t like Donnie to ask for help, but there was no way that he was going to give BRADDOCK the advantage walking into that show, not for how important that show was going to be, not for how much of a priority Donnie has put on winning this time around. Walking into his matches, he always had one goal in mind: winning that title.
Beating SYNN was supposed to be icing on the cake, but now Britlyn got in the way, in a bad way. His target, while unchanged, lost its importance. His target did not have the same... Donnie struggled to find the words to illustrate what it meant to beat SYNN for the title. It had a hell of a lot to do with her placement in Online Championship Wrestling, for sure, but there was more to it.
It was as if he had something to prove to the demon and her charge, to prove to SYNN, Juniper and Brooke that Donnie deserved his place, earned his spot... Was that it? He still wanted to prove himself.
Of course he did. There is that much left to prove, that much left to do. Winning the World Championship would mark a new beginning, as he would need to keep it around his waist, face any challenge put in his way, on both shows.
However, Donnie knew that it would be his one and only shot for a while. He is going in, not as a champion, but as a challenger; there was no rematch clause, no buffer to keep him in the picture.
IF
he were to lose to BRADDOCK, he would be back at square one, back at the beginning, back at the bottom.
That would not be good enough for Donnie. Taking such a loss, it was unfathomable to think about losing. Donnie, with these ideas in his mind, after leaving a voicemail with the only two people he could trust in the business, was already in the gym, pumping iron, keeping in mind the size and power of his massive opponent.
Honestly, he looked more like a King of the Deathmatch reject than anything, did BRADDOCK. As big and burly as the man is, the fact that he has been plowing through the RISE ranks was ridiculous. In the absence of skill, power can do just as much, and this was never more evident than in BRADDOCK.
Donnie could only push himself harder, knowing full well that BRADDOCK would be proving that power over skill concept again at UpRISE, against Mika Attano. But the stipulation seemed to want to force BRADDOCK to use actual skill; while Attano was able to use any way to win, anything in the playbook to get the fall, BRADDOCK would need to submit his opponent, to put her down and make her scream in pain before tapping out. Even a KO wouldn’t suffice this time around.
As Donnie thought about everything on his plate, he considered changing up his arsenal of maneuvers to make things fresh and more interesting. He found a podcast through one of the wrestling schools he had been frequenting, all about how to perform certain wrestling moves that have stood the test of time. Donnie took advantage of the cooldown time by using a stationary bike; tune up his cardio through lower-impact exercise for the time being, all the while listening to this podcast.
It was like a small documentary or a research project about some of the older moves in wrestling: things like Axe Bomber, Emerald Flowsion, the Von Erich Claw and other forms of it, even the Elbow Drop and Superkick. All of these moves, new and old, in its simplest form, were described in detail and discussed in what seemed like a round-table format. He didn’t recognize some of the names, but he was in pro wrestling for a short time, so he hasn’t had the chance to meet these guys and girls.
It was quite refreshing to listen to such an informative piece of journalism from within the industry. It was no Talk is Jerry... something or other, but the way the information was presented was still very much worth the listen.
He would need to practice one of these days, to give it a shot and to add some of the moves to his repertoire, but that will come with time, and, right now, he didn’t have the time; there was a bigger fish to fry, and his name was BRADDOCK.
There was one more week to train, one more week to get his cardio and physical endurance, the latter of which he had LOTS of practice with, and one more week to get into champion’s shape.
He just hoped that his voicemail was heard and his proposal considered. Donnie didn’t want to surrender any advantages to BRADDOCK and the Asylum. How he got to lead the tag team as a mock faction was over his head too. BRADDOCK must have wrested control from Zephyr after whipping his gothic ass on an episode of RISE: just what Donnie needed to worry about.
If it wasn’t the large man who actually was challenging Donnie, it’s the fact that BRADDOCK has an effective tag team to sit in his corner like snakes waiting to strike. Donnie wouldn’t even know where they’d come from, unless BRADDOCK had them ready in some sort of lumberjack setup.
The possibilities ran through Donnie’s head, even as he tried to get to sleep. Even though the MMA fighter had his concerns, he needed to rest his body, carboload with a good diet, and have his own... uprising.