Post by Chris Card on Aug 18, 2017 15:31:25 GMT
Inside an upscale hotel room in downtown Shanghai, a cellphone rings. The early morning light bursts through a crack in the curtains and illuminates the room’s comfortable looking bed with it’s glow. The covers are slowly peeled back as the muscular figure huddled beneath them emits a drawn out yawn. Chris Card extends an arm out to his phone, looks at the picture on screen of an attractive, dark haired woman in her 30s, answers the call, flicks on the speaker phone and retreats back to the shelter of his bed covers.
Chris Card: D. Why so early, honey?
The voice on the other end of the phone is about as soothing as you could possibly achieve with the distinctive nasal twang of the New York end of New Jersey.
Diana Card: It’s about 9pm here, Chris, baby. That means it’s 9am where you are. Which means you should be up and training.
Card yawns again.
Chris Card: You’re right, dear. I’ve got a match to prepare for.
Diana Card: Who have management got you up against this week?
Chris Card: Mr. Happy.
Diana Card: Mr. Happy? What’s a “Mr. Happy?”
Chris Card: He wants to spread love. With violence. Once faked his own death to make a point.
Diana Card: Sounds like some level of sociopath.
Chris Card: Indeed. Well I’m used to dealing with sociopaths in professional wrestling. It’s the sort of business that attracts the occasional lunatic of some description. I’ve worked with enough.
Diana Card: Don’t…
The warning tone in his wife’s voice causes a note of contrition in the response.
Chris Card: I’m not going THERE, dear.
Diana Card: Good. We have an agreement on that. Are you filming today?
Chris Card: Heading out into the city this evening. I’ll buy you a present!
Diana Card: Oooh! A present for me? What are you going to get me?
Chris Card: It’ll be a surprise, dear. I’m sure you’ll like it.
Diana Card: Well make sure you get down to the gym. And watch some tapes on this Happy dude.
Chris Card: I’ve tried. It’s kind of hard watching someone so enthusiastic and simultaneously so god damn awful.
Diana Card: Well. Don’t let your training slip just because you’re facing someone with less skill than yourself.
Chris Card: How many people have you ever seen me face who are on my skill level, dear?
Diana Card: That’s a fair point.
Chris Card: But that won’t slow my training regimen down. I treat all the wrestlers I face with the same pinpoint focus.
Diana Card: Well, you’d better get on with it. I’ll see you when you get back off tour. I might have a present waiting for you.
Card cracks a smile and reaches over to the phone.
Chris Card: I’m looking forward to it already. Love you! Buh-bye!
Diana Card: Love you too! Bye!
The phone call ends with a satisfying plip sound. Card rests his head back against the plush pillows and sighs contentedly.
Chris Card: It really is good to be me.
~~~~~
Later that day. The skyline of the Pudong area of Shanghai is lit up with the glow of offices from every direction, pinpoints of light on the skyscrapers against the evening sky. Neon signs and scrolling Hanzi characters advertise every product conceivable. What 30 years ago was merely Science Fiction is the every day cityscape in the beating heart of a very modern Chinese city. And striding down the centre of the artfully shot scene is the exquisitely dressed figure of Chris Card. Smiling for the camera, Card begins to speak slowly and carefully.
Chris Card: Welcome to Shanghai. Welcome to a special administrative region of the People’s Republic. And that means that here, business is free to flourish. And my business is certainly picking up. First I disposed of Gibberg exactly as I said I would. Then I get to follow up my triumph with a follow up match against Mr. Happy. Let’s just say that offers a different kind of challenge. As in statistically more than none. Not a great deal more than none, but a nonzero amount of difficulty.
Card takes a moment to pause, watching a young couple walk past.
Chris Card: Look at them there. They’re happy. And I’m happy. And you, Mr. Happy, are happy too. Aren’t we just all the happiest bunch? And you just want to spread your happiness through random acts of violence. Which, quite frankly, a man should find a little disturbing. But as a professional wrestler I’ve learned to become accustomed to such personality quirks. Maybe I’m jaded. Maybe I should be more disturbed by you than I actually am. But I think the fact that I’m not will serve me well in our upcoming match. After all, without the underlying menace that you are attempting to generate, well, you’re a little short on bullets left in your clip.
Removing a cigar from a tube in his suit pocket, Card carefully clips the end off, lights it and takes a draw, puffing a small cloud of thick smoke out into the Chinese air.
Chris Card: Wrestling never changes. That’s what I thought, Mr Happy. And then I realised it already has. Not the nature of our great sport itself. It’s still a fight, a struggle for survival, a chance for masters of the mat or purposeful purveyors of power to showcase their superior skills. See, I can have fun with alliteration, too. No, what has changed in this industry is the nature of the fans. And this is the one thing, the only thing, that links us as people is in those fans. Think back ten, fifteen years ago. If you presented a sociopathic, violent individual in some twisted greasepaint adaption of the traditional clown you would have been booed out of the building. And I know from personal experience that if you presented a fabulously wealthy, technically superior gentleman with a penchant for stretching the rules well beyond what a less morally ambiguous wrestler would attempt, much the same reaction would result. I’m sure the hardcore fans that cheer your violent antics came as a surprise to some at first. Personally, I remember my moment of realisation very clearly...
~~~~~~~~
Smash cut to a medium sized wrestling venue. The fans are abuzz as the night is drawing to its climax. Standing in the centre of the ring is a jacked looking wrester in short blue tights, smiling broadly. Over the top of the footage, Card provides additional narration.
Chris Card: Tom Jackson. Collegiate wrestling stand out. A man who presented a unique set of problems for me as his power and technique were difficult to match. A hero to all men. At least that’s what the commentator’s notes were as they desperately tried to follow management’s instructions to get the fans to love the guy.
Jackson flexed. The screams of a few young women in the crowd drowned out by a huge chorus of boos from the more hardcore wrestling fans in the building. The smile on Jackson’s face was unwavering, even in the face of such hostility. The crowd is on tenterhooks, waiting for his oponent to begin his entrance.
Chris Card: And who is this devilishly handsome rogue who he has to face in this little promotion? Yours truly. And you’ll hear the chant in a second, watch for the look of amused surprise on my face and the “deer in the headlights” look of confusion on his face.
Card strides out down the entrance ramp. The chant starts slowly at first and then picks up momentum as the crowd catches on.
“CHEAT, CARD, CHEAT! CHEAT, CARD, CHEAT!”
As promised by the narration, Card walks down the entrance ramp while attempting to place Canada as the world’s largest exporter of smirks. In the ring, Jackson’s smile has fixed into a sort of rictus grimace as if he is attempting to maintain a smile while several incredibly un-smile related emotions are surging through his very soul.
“CHEAT, CARD, CHEAT! CHEAT, CARD, CHEAT!”
Chris Card: The guy in the ring had been presented so solidly as a hero, the man was so upstanding and nice, my God was the man nice, drew out so much ire from the fans that they were asking me to cheat. Openly. And as we will see from later on it the match they damn well meant it as well.
Cut to later in the match. Jackson has Card up against the ropes and fires off a couple of elbows. Card blocks them by raising both hands over his face while, when the moment presents itself, taking a sneaky peek around his own defences to check on the referee’s position. Jackson moves his hands down for a second, looking to grab a hold of Card’s waist...
Chris Card: Now this moment is very important to my career. Just listen for the crowd’s reaction.
...and seeing the referee is unsighted by Jackson’s bulky frame and sensing his moment Card strikes. With lightning quickness Card drives his knee upwards right into Jackson’s groin sending the bigger man sprawling across the mat, curled in agony. And. The. Crowd. Explodes. It may be a smaller building than the massive arenas that the IWF plays but it’s an almighty cheer. Card drops quickly onto the prone form of his opponent and the referee, none the wiser as to the groinal attack, drops to count.
ONE!
TWO!
THREE!
Celebrating their newly appointed hero, the crowd cheers wildly.
Chris Card: I have to admit that felt good at the time. That is the first time in my long career I’ve received that kind of reaction. And all for kneeing some poor schmoe in the family jewels. I did kind of feel sorry for him. Kind of. Weeeeellll... not really. But I’m sure he’s gone on to have a decent career. And learned to stop smiling. Speaking of people who are always smiling, back to, I presume, me.
~~~~~~
Cut back to the streets of Shanghai where Card has smoked a little more of his cigar and is smiling confidently for the camera.
Chris Card: So you see, Mr. Happy, we have one thing in common. Neither of us is what you would call a good person. But in the world of chaos and disorder who can even say what is “good” any more? Your problem, your big problem for the match we have coming up is that our mutual respect from the massed ranks of the accepting fans with huge moral gray areas is the only thing we have in common.
Chris Card: Mr. Happy. You are bringing what can only be loosely described as a skill set to bear against one of the finest technicians in the modern game. You are playing chess with a grandmaster based off a few good games of tic-tac-toe against kindergarteners. To describe your situation as outclassed implies that you ever went to a class in the first place. I have made a career, a long career, out of using my silky technical skills, my divine striking game, my superiority in mat wrestling against some of the most incredibly talented power wrestlers and fearsome brawlers in this industry. And you, Mr. Happy, are a bumbling buffoon, a mere shadow of some of those who I have faced and some of those I will face further down the line in the IWF.
Chris Card: You talk about squeezing the life out of my body? That you don’t want to pin me clean in the middle of the ring? I think you’re overlooking one basic fact in your plan there. I do not call myself “Technical Perfection” out of some misguided ego trip. I was bestowed this nickname many years ago by a wrestler who saw how good I was and helped me establish my own personal brand. If you think I don’t have a counter for a bear hug then you are even more of a drooling simpleton than you present yourself as. Still, as you presented your strategy for the match to me it would not be fair for me not to offer you the same advice. And you know what? I’ll even do it in a fashion you may understand.
Card passes his cigar off to the cameraman and receives in return.. A BALLOON FIGURE!. Card grins broadly as he holds the humanoid shape in his hand. There is a nauseating squeak as Card manipulates one of the balloon’s arms, twisting it behind the figure’s own back. Card then bends back the figure at the head so its body looks oddly contorted. Holding the figure horizontally now, Card uses his free hand to simultaneously pull the head downwards further at the neck and push the twisted arm into the figure’s upper back. If balloons could squeal in agony it would be doing it right now. Extending his fingers around the figure’s waist, Card begins to squeeze his supporting hand around the abdominal area until…
POP!
Chris Card: Listen, you comical cretin with a clownish countenance. There will be no Chris Card collaboration coming. There will merely be calls causing your chiropractor consternation. This cunning cad shall completely crush you. And how? The only voiceless velar plosives that you need to worry about. The Chris Card Clutch. Better known as the C3.
DEAL WITH IT!
Chris Card: D. Why so early, honey?
The voice on the other end of the phone is about as soothing as you could possibly achieve with the distinctive nasal twang of the New York end of New Jersey.
Diana Card: It’s about 9pm here, Chris, baby. That means it’s 9am where you are. Which means you should be up and training.
Card yawns again.
Chris Card: You’re right, dear. I’ve got a match to prepare for.
Diana Card: Who have management got you up against this week?
Chris Card: Mr. Happy.
Diana Card: Mr. Happy? What’s a “Mr. Happy?”
Chris Card: He wants to spread love. With violence. Once faked his own death to make a point.
Diana Card: Sounds like some level of sociopath.
Chris Card: Indeed. Well I’m used to dealing with sociopaths in professional wrestling. It’s the sort of business that attracts the occasional lunatic of some description. I’ve worked with enough.
Diana Card: Don’t…
The warning tone in his wife’s voice causes a note of contrition in the response.
Chris Card: I’m not going THERE, dear.
Diana Card: Good. We have an agreement on that. Are you filming today?
Chris Card: Heading out into the city this evening. I’ll buy you a present!
Diana Card: Oooh! A present for me? What are you going to get me?
Chris Card: It’ll be a surprise, dear. I’m sure you’ll like it.
Diana Card: Well make sure you get down to the gym. And watch some tapes on this Happy dude.
Chris Card: I’ve tried. It’s kind of hard watching someone so enthusiastic and simultaneously so god damn awful.
Diana Card: Well. Don’t let your training slip just because you’re facing someone with less skill than yourself.
Chris Card: How many people have you ever seen me face who are on my skill level, dear?
Diana Card: That’s a fair point.
Chris Card: But that won’t slow my training regimen down. I treat all the wrestlers I face with the same pinpoint focus.
Diana Card: Well, you’d better get on with it. I’ll see you when you get back off tour. I might have a present waiting for you.
Card cracks a smile and reaches over to the phone.
Chris Card: I’m looking forward to it already. Love you! Buh-bye!
Diana Card: Love you too! Bye!
The phone call ends with a satisfying plip sound. Card rests his head back against the plush pillows and sighs contentedly.
Chris Card: It really is good to be me.
~~~~~
Later that day. The skyline of the Pudong area of Shanghai is lit up with the glow of offices from every direction, pinpoints of light on the skyscrapers against the evening sky. Neon signs and scrolling Hanzi characters advertise every product conceivable. What 30 years ago was merely Science Fiction is the every day cityscape in the beating heart of a very modern Chinese city. And striding down the centre of the artfully shot scene is the exquisitely dressed figure of Chris Card. Smiling for the camera, Card begins to speak slowly and carefully.
Chris Card: Welcome to Shanghai. Welcome to a special administrative region of the People’s Republic. And that means that here, business is free to flourish. And my business is certainly picking up. First I disposed of Gibberg exactly as I said I would. Then I get to follow up my triumph with a follow up match against Mr. Happy. Let’s just say that offers a different kind of challenge. As in statistically more than none. Not a great deal more than none, but a nonzero amount of difficulty.
Card takes a moment to pause, watching a young couple walk past.
Chris Card: Look at them there. They’re happy. And I’m happy. And you, Mr. Happy, are happy too. Aren’t we just all the happiest bunch? And you just want to spread your happiness through random acts of violence. Which, quite frankly, a man should find a little disturbing. But as a professional wrestler I’ve learned to become accustomed to such personality quirks. Maybe I’m jaded. Maybe I should be more disturbed by you than I actually am. But I think the fact that I’m not will serve me well in our upcoming match. After all, without the underlying menace that you are attempting to generate, well, you’re a little short on bullets left in your clip.
Removing a cigar from a tube in his suit pocket, Card carefully clips the end off, lights it and takes a draw, puffing a small cloud of thick smoke out into the Chinese air.
Chris Card: Wrestling never changes. That’s what I thought, Mr Happy. And then I realised it already has. Not the nature of our great sport itself. It’s still a fight, a struggle for survival, a chance for masters of the mat or purposeful purveyors of power to showcase their superior skills. See, I can have fun with alliteration, too. No, what has changed in this industry is the nature of the fans. And this is the one thing, the only thing, that links us as people is in those fans. Think back ten, fifteen years ago. If you presented a sociopathic, violent individual in some twisted greasepaint adaption of the traditional clown you would have been booed out of the building. And I know from personal experience that if you presented a fabulously wealthy, technically superior gentleman with a penchant for stretching the rules well beyond what a less morally ambiguous wrestler would attempt, much the same reaction would result. I’m sure the hardcore fans that cheer your violent antics came as a surprise to some at first. Personally, I remember my moment of realisation very clearly...
~~~~~~~~
Smash cut to a medium sized wrestling venue. The fans are abuzz as the night is drawing to its climax. Standing in the centre of the ring is a jacked looking wrester in short blue tights, smiling broadly. Over the top of the footage, Card provides additional narration.
Chris Card: Tom Jackson. Collegiate wrestling stand out. A man who presented a unique set of problems for me as his power and technique were difficult to match. A hero to all men. At least that’s what the commentator’s notes were as they desperately tried to follow management’s instructions to get the fans to love the guy.
Jackson flexed. The screams of a few young women in the crowd drowned out by a huge chorus of boos from the more hardcore wrestling fans in the building. The smile on Jackson’s face was unwavering, even in the face of such hostility. The crowd is on tenterhooks, waiting for his oponent to begin his entrance.
Chris Card: And who is this devilishly handsome rogue who he has to face in this little promotion? Yours truly. And you’ll hear the chant in a second, watch for the look of amused surprise on my face and the “deer in the headlights” look of confusion on his face.
Card strides out down the entrance ramp. The chant starts slowly at first and then picks up momentum as the crowd catches on.
“CHEAT, CARD, CHEAT! CHEAT, CARD, CHEAT!”
As promised by the narration, Card walks down the entrance ramp while attempting to place Canada as the world’s largest exporter of smirks. In the ring, Jackson’s smile has fixed into a sort of rictus grimace as if he is attempting to maintain a smile while several incredibly un-smile related emotions are surging through his very soul.
“CHEAT, CARD, CHEAT! CHEAT, CARD, CHEAT!”
Chris Card: The guy in the ring had been presented so solidly as a hero, the man was so upstanding and nice, my God was the man nice, drew out so much ire from the fans that they were asking me to cheat. Openly. And as we will see from later on it the match they damn well meant it as well.
Cut to later in the match. Jackson has Card up against the ropes and fires off a couple of elbows. Card blocks them by raising both hands over his face while, when the moment presents itself, taking a sneaky peek around his own defences to check on the referee’s position. Jackson moves his hands down for a second, looking to grab a hold of Card’s waist...
Chris Card: Now this moment is very important to my career. Just listen for the crowd’s reaction.
...and seeing the referee is unsighted by Jackson’s bulky frame and sensing his moment Card strikes. With lightning quickness Card drives his knee upwards right into Jackson’s groin sending the bigger man sprawling across the mat, curled in agony. And. The. Crowd. Explodes. It may be a smaller building than the massive arenas that the IWF plays but it’s an almighty cheer. Card drops quickly onto the prone form of his opponent and the referee, none the wiser as to the groinal attack, drops to count.
ONE!
TWO!
THREE!
Celebrating their newly appointed hero, the crowd cheers wildly.
Chris Card: I have to admit that felt good at the time. That is the first time in my long career I’ve received that kind of reaction. And all for kneeing some poor schmoe in the family jewels. I did kind of feel sorry for him. Kind of. Weeeeellll... not really. But I’m sure he’s gone on to have a decent career. And learned to stop smiling. Speaking of people who are always smiling, back to, I presume, me.
~~~~~~
Cut back to the streets of Shanghai where Card has smoked a little more of his cigar and is smiling confidently for the camera.
Chris Card: So you see, Mr. Happy, we have one thing in common. Neither of us is what you would call a good person. But in the world of chaos and disorder who can even say what is “good” any more? Your problem, your big problem for the match we have coming up is that our mutual respect from the massed ranks of the accepting fans with huge moral gray areas is the only thing we have in common.
Chris Card: Mr. Happy. You are bringing what can only be loosely described as a skill set to bear against one of the finest technicians in the modern game. You are playing chess with a grandmaster based off a few good games of tic-tac-toe against kindergarteners. To describe your situation as outclassed implies that you ever went to a class in the first place. I have made a career, a long career, out of using my silky technical skills, my divine striking game, my superiority in mat wrestling against some of the most incredibly talented power wrestlers and fearsome brawlers in this industry. And you, Mr. Happy, are a bumbling buffoon, a mere shadow of some of those who I have faced and some of those I will face further down the line in the IWF.
Chris Card: You talk about squeezing the life out of my body? That you don’t want to pin me clean in the middle of the ring? I think you’re overlooking one basic fact in your plan there. I do not call myself “Technical Perfection” out of some misguided ego trip. I was bestowed this nickname many years ago by a wrestler who saw how good I was and helped me establish my own personal brand. If you think I don’t have a counter for a bear hug then you are even more of a drooling simpleton than you present yourself as. Still, as you presented your strategy for the match to me it would not be fair for me not to offer you the same advice. And you know what? I’ll even do it in a fashion you may understand.
Card passes his cigar off to the cameraman and receives in return.. A BALLOON FIGURE!. Card grins broadly as he holds the humanoid shape in his hand. There is a nauseating squeak as Card manipulates one of the balloon’s arms, twisting it behind the figure’s own back. Card then bends back the figure at the head so its body looks oddly contorted. Holding the figure horizontally now, Card uses his free hand to simultaneously pull the head downwards further at the neck and push the twisted arm into the figure’s upper back. If balloons could squeal in agony it would be doing it right now. Extending his fingers around the figure’s waist, Card begins to squeeze his supporting hand around the abdominal area until…
POP!
Chris Card: Listen, you comical cretin with a clownish countenance. There will be no Chris Card collaboration coming. There will merely be calls causing your chiropractor consternation. This cunning cad shall completely crush you. And how? The only voiceless velar plosives that you need to worry about. The Chris Card Clutch. Better known as the C3.
DEAL WITH IT!
Well howdy there pardner.