Licking his wholly forgettable wounds directly after Travesty, John Taylor sat in his spacious skybox within his Coliseum.  The majority of the crowds had gone, but he wouldn't leave until the only sign of life was his reflection in his own pale eyes.  Exactly how long that would be, he knew not, but that mattered little to him.  He had just been dealt his first loss in over a month and a half, and it was a little discouraging.  The last person to have beaten Taylor, in any capacity was James Corbin.  Taylor still saw no shame in losing to the only man besides himself to hold the CCW Unified Heavyweight Championship and the only man, full stop, to hold the CCW Triple Crown Championship.  But to lose to Pimp Bizkit, in what Taylor assured himself was a match never designed to be anything other than a throwaway stopgap...  Tapping out to anyone was disreputable enough, but to tap out to this snivelling coward that Taylor had come to abhor since the restart - Taylor could barely stomach it.  He could've thrown up.  He wanted to.  He wished he had some way to vent some of his frustration, to shift the embarrassment and humiliation onto to some lesser competitor than himself.

He hadn't.

It was an omen.  This irrelevant tag team match served as a fore-warning of what was to come.  A somewhat paranoid Taylor convinced himself that this was true.  The entire month of November, John Taylor hadn't lost a match.  The entire month of November, John Taylor had defended his newly won GZW World Heavyweight Championship against whoever was lined up before him, without fail.  The entire month of November, John Taylor broke records - he became the first person to simultaneously hold the GZW World Heavyweight Championship and be crowned Lord of the Coliseum.  The entire month of November was John Taylor's.

Sitting, still in a mild state of shock after tapping out to Pimp Bizkit's Final Choke, on the carpeted floor of the skybox with the lights down low, Taylor juggled with the possibility that it had all been a lucky streak, and if it was, was it now coming to an end?

"Get up off the floor, man."

A gruff voice startled him.  For a moment, he thought it had been Ramon's.  He quickly dispelled that irrational theory as he stood up and scanned the dimly lit skybox.  There was nobody there, least of all a paralysed Mexican convict.  He relaxed, truly believing that he was slipping out of the hazy, late-night daydream which had become all to familiar to him lately.  He switched on the main overhead lights in the large room, but the room quickly turned squalid.  The plush carpeting became stained concrete, the expensive paper covering the walls became torn and clawed at and the whole room shrank to something a fraction of it's actual size.  Taylor swallowed hard as he found himself sitting in the middle of this room, once again on the floor.

"Get up off the floor, man." Repeated the voice, although it was now much louder and clearer.  There was no doubt about it, it was Ramon.

Exactly how it was Ramon mattered little to Taylor.  Regardless if this was but a fantasy, he had questions that only Ramon could answer.  Ramon had all the answers and Taylor wanted to wring them out of him.  Opening his eyes a little wider, the Lone Gunman looked up.  His jaw dropped to see Ramon standing his full 5'11, his long brown hair intact.  Ramon looked well.  He looked considerably better than Taylor had ever remembered him looking.

"Juan, we're up.  This is it, bro'."

Taylor could come up with no verbal response as he tried to figure out where he was.  Ramon was in his wrestling gear.  Taylor was sitting on the hard floor of a makeshift changing room.  He'd been here before.  He tried to shake away the cobwebs and wake up, finding to his surprise that his hair now reached halfway down his back.  Greasy, stringy strands danced in front of his eyes as he tried to comprehend the situation.  

"Ramon...?"

The eerily youthful and enthusiastic Ramon smiled and extended his right hand.

"Come on, buddy.  It's the big one.  Let's go."

"Big...  One...?"

Out of his own control, a confused Taylor found himself speaking in slow motion.  What was Ramon talking about?  Only then did Taylor realise that Ramon's hand was still extended.

"Come on, man - up you get."

Taylor promptly accepted Ramon's assistance and the wrestler once again known as the Speeding Bullet helped him to his feet.  Taylor wiped the dust from what he now recognised as his old wrestling apparel of a pair of light blue tights and a matching fingerless gloves.  They were both in their wrestling gear.  It began to come back to Taylor.  

"Come ON, Juan!  The Junior Heavyweight Belt isn't gonna win itself!"  Exclaimed Ramon, a certain urgency now apparent in his previously calm, upbeat voice.  The tinny sounds of about two hundred screaming people somewhere in the distance became more and more apparent.

That was it.

"The ladder match..."  Taylor recalled, aloud.  Ramon appeared more than a little confused.

"...Right.  Juan, are you OK man?  You sure you're up to this?  You know how risky this could be for both of us if we stray away from what we went through, right?  The Junior Heavyweight strap is an achievement, but above all else, we're going out there to protect each other.  You know how serious this is, right?"

What a fucking question.  Of course Taylor knew how serious it was.  He'd known that the first time around, the 10th of January 1992.  In fact, he'd known that it was too important to stick to he and Ramon's guidelines, and so he had strayed from them.  Staring the fantasy image of a youthful, healthy Ramon in the face, Taylor repeated, word for word, the same lie he had spoken back then.

"Of course, Ramon...  You've got nothing to worry about."

The former duo shook on it and headed out to the lousy little ring.  All the way, as Ramon rambled on about nothing, Taylor thought about how he'd stared his chance at redemption in the eye and blew it off.  He'd repeated the depraved lie that ultimately cost Ramon Amador his career and, although it was but a dream, Taylor all the way salivated over the prospect of doing it all over again in the fictional ladder match.  For that, John Taylor knew he was going to Hell.  Back then, the thought had kept him awake at night in a constant cold sweat.  From the vantage point of the skybox, however, he really couldn't have cared less.

Cloaked in a heavy black duffel coat with the hood up, Taylor stepped out of the elevator and into the V.I.P. underground car park of the GZW2K1 Coliseum.  Over four hours had elapsed since he had tapped out to Pimp Bizkit's Final Choke, but Taylor knew what the select few official GZW interviewers were willing to do in order to get the scoop.  In an effort to sidestep any such employees, Taylor moved quickly but quietly, not unlike the movements of an actual assassin approaching his target.  He sighed as he reached his new car - a large, crimson SUV.  As he opened the passenger door and tossed his gym bag inside, he remembered urinating on a similar car owned by John Profit after a particularly frustrating HKWF Show back in the late '90s.  The thought had left him just as quickly as he'd shut the door and climbed in the far side.  Satisfied that he'd avoided the crowd, Taylor removed the heavy hood, stuck the key in the ignition and reversed out of his personal parking space.

Eyes fixed on the road in front of him, Taylor cruised the SUV down some empty, unimportant street.  It was the middle of the night and the streets were bare.  There might have been a junkie a few blocks back, but Taylor probably wouldn't have noticed.  All he cared about was shifting all of the excess weight from his shoulders.  He saw just one way of doing so.

"You'd think the second-ever CCW Unified Heavyweight Champion would have a little more to say, having three separate title defences lined up in the next twenty-six days, with the possibility of two more on the horizon...  Wouldn't you?"

Not averting his gaze from the road, he went on.

"As the figurehead of the GZW Locker Room, you'd think I could pick and choose from an exclusive list of outlets to vent my rage, joy, frustration and generally rattle a few cages, wouldn't you?  Truth be told, I could, but I don't.  Any time throughout this evening's Travesty, I could've clicked my fingers and been handed half an hour of airtime to cut a promo about anything.  The more I say, the happier and richer these fuckers get.  That's not what I want.  As much as I'd love to have seen the disappointment on the faces of any given competitor in the Six-Man-Battle-Royale after being told that their match had been cut from the show to be replaced by a John Taylor monologue, it just isn't worth.  I've got things on my chest, but I've also got all the time in the world to get them off.  I don't need to scratch desperately to be let in the door of the media spotlight - I'm already there.  If I want to cut a promo during a match, I'll do it.  If I want to cut a promo after a match, I'll do it.  If I want Weston Bentley to trek up a mountain to get a few words from me, I'll do it.  For fuck's sake, if I wanted to cut a promo in the bath, I'd do it..."

He took a left turn.

"...The bottom line is that I've got from here to eternity to trash talk and pass down judgement, why rush it?"

Stopping at a traffic light, Taylor only now looked away from the road and checked his watch.

"It just so happens that I feel like playing the coveted role of Honest John from my car.  If this isn't already going out live on GZW TV thanks to some candid camera, I'll submit it myself...  The first of three scheduled title defences comes in just a few days at HKWF's Wyldesyde.  The first legitimate HKWF Challenger to my HKWF title comes in the modest form of Cruiserweight Champion Albert Wuchie.  I'd be expected to laugh right about now, but the only thing I find remotely amusing about this whole HKWF situation is Nathan William's idiotic refusal to let the fact that he's finished slide.  That's right, Mr. Williams, I have absolutely no hesitation in calling you an idiot.  Give up this long-dead campaign, old man.  You aren't better than me in any regard, so why should I acknowledge anything different.  I'm not a liar, Rex...  As soon as I realise that I don't belong here, I'll be gone, so it's nothing for you to fret over.  I hope you enjoyed sharing the spotlight with five other men tonight...  You'd be naive to expect anything better from here on in.  If my honesty means that one old man, whose opinion is no longer of any merit whatsoever, will continue to see me as a 'joke', then so be it.  It's a price I can afford to pay.  If you'd excuse me, Rex, allow me to direct your attention to the imminent Final Final Encounter scheduled to take place in two weeks' time, and kindly let me get on with my business.  You've past your prime.  You've proven to be either too thick skulled to realise that or too stubborn to do anything about it.  In either case, you aren't worth the Lord's time of day.  Goodbye, T-Rex."

Taylor drove on and on, his eyes once again in front of him.

"What about Justin Sharp, then?  He had his fun tonight...  He thinks he's in for the ride of his life.  The GZW is his oyster.  His admittedly deserved ascent could begin as early as the tenth of December when he becomes the next to challenge for my GZW World Heavyweight Title.  In it's own way, the stipulation is a fitting one.  A submission match against John Taylor and his itchy tapping hand - a good omen for The Show Stealer, but certainly not for The Lone Gunman...  Actually, it matters little.  John Taylor is more than just the Lone Gunman.  John Taylor is more than just one particular champion.  John Taylor is more than Justin Sharp can possibly expect coming straight in off the rehab list.  The night Justin got taken out back in October, John Taylor was set to go one on one with James Tanner.  If that was Justin's most recent impression of me, then I may have a far easier task at hand than I'd already anticipated.  Not two hours after Justin was hospitalised, I beat James Tanner and Pimp Bizkit to become the GZW2K1 World Heavyweight Champion.  Since then, I've beaten every single one of his contemporaries from back in the day - Kid Kaos, Magic, Pimp, Nathan and Jimmy Williams and counting.  Since then, I've also become the CCW Unified Heavyweight Champion and the Lord of the Coliseum..."

He took a sharp right turn.

"A career's worth of achievements, ten times over, in just over a month.  In that same space of time, all Justin Sharp did was lie around in a hospital bed.  Maybe he worked himself off the white stuff as well, maybe he didn't.  Maybe it was all a stunt to generate some publicity for his waning drawing power.  Who knows?  Regardless, Justin gets his much sought-after title shot this upcoming Crimson.  The last time I shared a ring with Justin Sharp was during our common stay in the Indies.  We battled over some defunct piece of tin and the Lone Gunman came out victorious.  In hindsight, it meant nothing.  I managed to wrestle some gold from around Justin's waist and claim it as my own.  Surely someone would've done the same to me in time had the particular promotion not folded.  My point is that, although in the eyes of CCW, Justin and I have a clean slate, the fact that he succumbed to the Silencer and gave up his XFWF Heavyweight title cannot be lingering too far behind him..."

Slowly he came to a stop.  It was too dark outside for the car's location to be made out, but Taylor's removal of the key would lead one to believe he was home.

"...Justin, I'm not saying that to initiate a petty game of one-upsmanship, but rather as a total opposite.  Frankly, I'm getting bored of my surroundings.  I've outgrown them.  I need a new challenge, if only one to pass the time before Seth Raide gets his act together in the HKWF or if Monarch ever resurfaces.  You'll do quite nicely, Mr. Sharp.  Don't delude yourself, however - you're not winning this match.  You're not making me tap out.  Think of this not as a title shot, but as more of a showcase for the talent we both know you have.  You're a star, Justin.  I'm the first to acknowledge that.  Instead of throwing you the title, though, I'll humour you for a while.  I'll give you the best of both worlds.  You'll be close enough to the belt to be considered main event talent, but just far enough away to be eligible for an 'overlooked, misused talent' card."

Realising exactly how condescending he was sounding, Taylor cracked a smirk.

"...But don't thank me, Justin.  Challenge me.  Spur me on.  Light a fire so hot under me that I'll be forced to jump up and take you seriously.  Come on, man.  We both know you've got it in you.  Let the whole world see it..."

Fade.