#RealImperial

[Roberto Verona]

{ Our scene opens in the legal department of IWF Headquarters, a few lawyers sit quietly at their desks as our view quickly pans to the head office of Hannah Reed. Hannah stands behind her desk as IWF COO Roberto Verona sits carefully balanced on one of the edges. Hannah rustles a few papers in frustration before looking up at Roberto. }

Hannah Reed: Do you honestly think provoking Cable even further is a wise idea?

Roberto Verona: Sure, what’s he going to do? Throw another tantrum and peddle idle threats?

Hannah Reed: He may start acting on them.

Roberto Verona: Then he’ll be giving me what I want, if he strikes me down, he’s demonstrating to the world that everything I’ve ever said about him may have a grain of truth in it, why else would he so ruthlessly look to silence somebody he claims is spreading misinformation about him and living a delusion?

{ Hannah sighs. }

Hannah Reed: I wish you could prove your point without creating yourself as a target of violence.

Roberto Verona: Everybody wants to kick their bosses ass, I just make it work for me.

{ Hannah ponders for a moment. }

Hannah Reed: There are time I just want to slap you…

{ Verona smiles. }

Roberto Verona: See, there’s method to my madness.

{ Hannah laughs before a sullen look comes across her face. }

Hannah Reed There was something I needed to discuss with you?

Roberto Verona: Go ahead.

Hannah Reed: Spike has been rejecting the grief counselling he was offered.

{ Verona sighs. }

Roberto Verona: I didn’t expect he would be overly keen on it, he’s hardly one for processing his emotions healthily.

Hannah Reed: I know, but we have a duty of care to him.

Roberto Verona: That duty ends when he refuses the aid offered to him. I gave him the chance to take time off, I offered to pay for the funeral, we’ve gone above and beyond to encourage him to go to counselling, if he wishes to keep refusing that it’s his choice.

Hannah Reed: Maybe you should speak with him?

{ Roberto shakes his head. }

Roberto Verona: If you’re worried about me being the recipient of a beating from Cable Arcane over some gentle bruising of his pride, how do you think pushing the buttons of a grief fuelled Spike Kane would go?

Hannah Reed: Touché… I just wish there was more we could do.

Roberto Verona: So do I, but you can’t help people who don’t want to help themselves.

{ Verona lifts himself up. }

Roberto Verona: If it makes you feel better I’ll try to talk to him if I feel the opportunity rises, but otherwise, just accept he will seek out help when he wants it, it’s not the companies fault he has little interest in confronting what he’s going through yet.

{ Hannah nods reluctantly. }

Hannah Reed: I suppose you’re right. Listen, I need you to speak to Jess.

Roberto Verona: How come?

Hannah Reed: She’s enjoying the house shows and everything, but I think she’d like to get back on the horse again before it becomes another long hiatus.

Roberto Verona: Sure thing, she seems settled in the cabin now, she may as well get back into the routine she was craving.

{ Hannah kisses Verona affectionately on the cheek. }

Hannah Reed: Thank you. Maybe I don’t want to slap you all the time.

{ Verona laughs. }

Roberto Verona: You might change your tune after this Sunday, you know how the paperwork piles up after a pay-per-view.

{ Hannah groans. }

Hannah Reed: And you were doing so well.

{ Roberto extends his arm. }

Roberto Verona: How about I make it up to you? You, me and a copious amount of red wine.

{ Hannah smiles. }

Hannah Reed: You just read my mind.

Let’s get one thing straight.

Gable Arcade is a joke.

Just like our reigning, defending, illegitimate Imperial Champion. This is hardly some sort of demonstration of my own over-inflated sense of confidence in my own abilities to prove some inane point, this is about demonstrating just how much contempt I, and frankly a large section of the roster, have towards the man who is parading around declaring himself “the best in the world.”

The man who thinks he is above everybody else.

Let me ask you, Cable, did you feel big and important when I booked your last appearance in a dingy craphole miles away from the real event? Was your wounded ego soothed when you saw the place packed out, lining my pockets?

You may have won the match, but there is no doubt that at the New Years Special, you were a loser.

Just like you will be this weekend, when you go up against three mystery competitors for your little leather bound prop, the only downside is that when you inevitably eat humble pie the poor bastard that wins will be picking up counterfeit goods, a shame, an illusion. You’ve built your little empire on quicksand and regrettably, it’ll only drag whoever lays you out on your back down with you.

Into an illegitimate position.

There’s little honour in defeating a paper champion, but I have to be honest, there’s plenty of satisfaction watching them beat the arrogance out of you. You’ve spent weeks equating your colleagues to nothing more than jokes, unworthy opponents who aren’t even deserving of gracing the same ring as you.

You’ve demanded challengers, you’ve bigged yourself up and placed yourself on a pedestal, parroting the same old trite garbage you’ve built this entire lie upon.

Anybody who doesn’t get a kick out of watching you get knocked off your perch doesn’t even know they’ve been born.

Even if by some miracle you manage to claw yourself out of this weekend, this is only the beginning, Cable. I’m going to make sure that every given moment this roster has every opportunity to be the ones laughing, rather than your own personal laughing stock. Don’t get me wrong, many of them are feckless and lazy, but when you nail your colours to the mast you’ve got to be prepared for the ensuing storm.

You have to be ready to stand up and back your words up.

Though, we both know you believe that you’ve already done that, right? After all you’ve put away all challengers sent your way, you’ve climbed over every hurdle and marched on, but you’ve hardly legitimatised your ill-gotten gains yet.

Not yet by a long shot.

You may think, feel and believe yourself every inch a champion, but we both know you never beat the man who was undefeated, the real, legitimate champion. The Board of Directors can scrap whatever drivel they like in the record books, but you know, I know and everybody else knows that you’re only able to call yourself a champion because they offered you the opportunity on a silver platter.

Defending something you never earned doesn’t get you respect.

It doesn’t create a legacy to be proud of.

Do you honestly think that in decades time people will look back and think of Cable Arcane as one of the true greats of professional wrestling when he self-admittedly defending his undeserved Imperial championship against a rank and file of men he considered nobodies?

Champions are defined by their challengers, as much as themselves. Surmounting molehills when your predecessors toppled mountains means you’ll barely have a foot in the door of the argument of “greatest of all time.”

You’ll be nothing but a perennial joke sniggered around the desolate forums of eternal virgins with nothing better to do.

Of course, that could change, if you put your mind to it, if you actually started taking your role seriously and accepted the fact that you’ve not earned a damn thing yet. Although I severely doubt your ego will allow for such an eventuality, stranger things have happened. I mean if a worthless, ego driven delinquent like you can walk into a free Imperial championship, then anything can happen.

Right?

Use this opportunity with three of your colleagues to demonstrate your more than just a mouth and maybe, just maybe, you may start to earn some of that respect you so desperately crave, perhaps you may even fool a few people into thinking you’re everything you say you are.

Perhaps.

It’s time for Cable Arcane to start doing some of his talking in the ring, to prove his bold arguments rather than simply running down his opposition at every turn and demanding the respect he hasn’t even come close to earning yet.

Is he capable of that?

I’m sure he’ll tell you he’s got nothing left to prove.

Those are words coated in deceit.

Your journey isn’t over yet.

It’s only just beginning.