Holding off on making that decision had been wise.

It was barely a few hours since he'd come up with the damage control plan when a return match between himself and Pimp Bizkit had been announced for an upcoming Sunday Storm.

It was still a risk, taking on a steadily improving Pimp, but it was one that he had to take.  The whole thing should have ended at Against The Odds.  It should've been clean, decisive and efficient.  What did happen was not.  He told himself that Sunday Storm was his last chance to finish it all.  To finish Pimp.

Rumours of it being labelled an "I Quit" or "Retirement" match, or both, had been running rampant for almost twenty-four hours.  The prospect widened that glimmer of hope (the shady finish at Against The Odds) for John Taylor considerably.  He wouldn't let it get away this time - He simply couldn't afford to.  The worms were getting closer to him.  Some had their new titles to ride up a few places in the rankings - others had the recent losses of their titles to rely on.

Depending on his performance in the return match, he'd either rise totally above them all once again or, unthinkably, get dragged down to their level.  He couldn't bare the thought of becoming one of them again.  It made him sick to his stomach that the line between immortality and the rest was so miniscule for him now.  He wouldn't allow himself drop down into the ant farm.  He'd spent far too long around those people already...

....

"It seems to me that Pimp Bizkit's recent improvement in terms of ring ability has come at the expense of time on the microphone.  Formerly the most prominent talker in GZW2K1, you'd be hard pressed to go through the last month of GZW TV and find five minutes of him.  Perhaps it can be reasoned that he's had the technique and strength in him all along, but simply not the mental capacity to cut promos and actually wrestle at the same time.  Is it a true case of 'one or the other'?"

"I've beaten Pimp Bizkit the talker, but thus far as a full-on 'wrestler', victory has eluded me.  But that doesn't really matter...  Whatever he is, I can beat him.  My major mistake last Sunday Night was underestimating his ability to evolve and adapt to his surroundings.  I'll give him credit that he's coming on, slowly but surely.  Not by leaps and bounds and certainly not enough to justify such a lengthy title reign without nearly enough title defences, but he is learning.  Of course, a newborn baby has the capacity to learn, so this really isn't a remarkable occurrence, but I'll admit it's one that I overlooked.  I will not be repeating my mistakes..."

"...And that's why everything has to end on Sunday Storm.  Has to.  Before the announcement of the stipulations, I believed heavily that this was to be the big one.  That it'll be the fifth singles encounter - over the World Heavyweight Championship - between "I, The Living Legend" and myself in less than a year also means that the goldfish filling the seats will begin to get bored.  They'll grow tired of it soon, if they have it in them to even fathom the concept.  Booking a one-match event proves that the booking committee still has faith in us - not that they've got anywhere else to turn - but it's as clear as day that this one'll be the decider.  Winner takes all.  Every last drop of it.  It wasn't until it was formally announced that both of our careers would be on the line that 'heavy belief' became a 'must-win' situation.  Failure as an option was shot dead the second the thing was signed."

"Perhaps you simply should've resigned yourself to the proverbial 'back-seat', given up your belt and walked away from me at Against The Odds.  Perhaps then things wouldn't have come to this.  But of course, Pimp Bizkit's not going to do that...  It'd be too much of a show of respect.  You decided to carry on, self-confidence overcoming you and telling you that you were well on the way to the clean win over the Lone Gunman."

"Self-confidence is a killer, Pimp.  Self-confidence is what spurred corpses like Justin Sharp and Kid Kaos to challenge me during my reign.  It's what encouraged Sean "Magic" Fiery to keep fighting me at Crimson's "At Our Best" - tooth and nail - when he knew he'd already been beaten.  It's what convinced him that pissing me off would be alright.  It told him to overstep his bounds and simply not give in.  That's what cost him.  If he hadn't believed so strongly in himself, when he really hadn't anything substantial enough to believe in, then maybe I would've spared him the embarrassment and humiliation that followed the Match Of The Year and would go on to torment him for months.  Self-confidence told him to run blindly into the night.  It told him that he was unstoppable and that he was at John Taylor's level..."

"It lied it's ass off to him, Pimp.  And it's wriggled it's way into your thick skull lately.  My advice: Don't listen to it.  Don't believe a word it says.  Remind yourself that you're not all that great.  Remind yourself of the losses to Tonya Glory and Chris Cairns.  Remind yourself of the senility of your title reign.  Believe me when I say that you don't want to step into the ring with me with the possibility of you, actually getting the decisive win over me, lingering anywhere you."

"You're not going to beat me again.  You're not going to get close enough to show me up.  You're not going to have the audience doubt me for half a second - I'm not going to give you the chance."

"As I said, my mistake was overlooking your amorphous interior and forgetting that you have what it takes to progress even a little.  Yours, however, was far more severe.  You made the mistake of forcing Lord John Taylor to question himself and his abilities.  You burrowed your way into my peace of mind.  You...  You were downright stupid enough to believe that what was near enough to a win over me would shut me up.  You anticipated that I'd second-guess myself post-match, of course.  But you were thinking far too linear...  I am no longer the type to wallow in self-pity and simply disregard my goals.  You thought I'd forget about you and move on.  Not a chance, Scott."

"The analogy of the caged animal is one misused far too much, but it's perfect here.  Not having it in you to physically do it yourself, you had me throw my abilities into doubt so I'd cage myself.  So I'd back myself into a corner.  The thing about cages and corners, though, is that there's only one way out..."

"Backtracking.  To get out of this temporary rut, all I've got to do is go back the way I came and undo the damage that put me there in the first place.  Namely, the World Heavyweight titleholder and his unilateral aspirations of evolution and progression.  My 'loss', even if it was simply a pre-agreement between Pimp Bizkit and Senior Official, Richard Dark, sent a shockwave throughout the company.  As such, it'll take an equally sized shockwave for me to redeem myself, if only to myself.  You people have no place to judge me, but I do.  To continue on where I left off - at the very top - I'll need to be at one with myself again.  It's not a question of doubt, but one of misalignment."

"My head tells me that what happened at Against The Odds was a draw turned into a fast-one just to squeeze another week out of Pimp's title reign.  Looking at it totally objectively, that's all it was.  From my own perspective, though, my clichéd heart tells me that Pimp Bizkit somehow managed to pick up a thing or two from me over the past year and, for all intents and purposes, defeated me.  In that scenario, the notion of the draw acts simply as a consolation prize for me.  I don't usually listen to my heart, though.  At least, not when it's telling me the complete opposite of good logic..."  

"To fill the gap Pimp left within me, I've got to get the head and heart back as one.  No disputes, no differing opinions, simply two components of the best oiled machine..."

....

Vernon Vanderbilt was going to be interesting.

At the risk of being accused of overlooking Pimp only to get the chance to overlook "The Furnace Of Fabulosity" in the distance, Taylor decided that (temporary) silence was a virtue.  Vernon had indirectly hinted at 'doing' something on Sunday Storm.  This whet Taylor's interest in the man.

He wasn't as wormy as most of them.  He could string better sentences than most of them.  He could wrestle more times in one night than most of them.  All of these things were noteworthy to the Lone Gunman.

What was not, however, was the fact that he also was trying to write Taylor off better than most of them...

Hardly any of the worms liked Taylor.  He gave them no reason to like him.  Some of them admired him from afar.  Others tried to verbally berate him or sabotage what he did, but in the end simply strived to be him, such as Seven's adorable mimicry of Taylor's self-elimination from the Intercontinental Heavyweight Championship battle royale.  Some of them were afraid of him.  Others genuinely did hate them, and Taylor took great pride in the fact that he'd given them plenty of reason to.

The thing with worms for Taylor was that they fell into a number of distinct categories.

There were those that he ignored totally.  Those so miniscule and so painfully unimportant that he saw no reason to waste his time with.

There were those that he hated with a passion simply because he knew how much they wanted to emulate him.

Then there were the ones that had burrowed through the barrier between himself and "The Rest" and paid for it.  People like Sean "Magic" Fiery, Nathan "T-Rex" Williams and - just about - Pimp Bizkit.  These were men that tried to push harder than they could go, and ended up failing, collapsing at the feet of the Lord.  These were men whose careers had taken such a nosedive after being defeated by Lord John Taylor that they'd simply retire before long.  They simply fizzled into obscurity before too long.  It was going to happen to Pimp at Sunday Storm.

Taylor had quite a time trying to categorise Vernon Vanderbilt, though.  He didn't hate him...  He was too intriguing to ignore but too self-absorbed to want to emulate anybody.  It was a tough one, alright.  Vanderbilt reminded John Taylor of somebody, but he couldn't quite put his finger on it.

Whoever it was didn't seem like a worm.  Taylor couldn't picture whoever it was trying to challenge him.  Taylor didn't picture whoever it was as a threat to himself.  Thinking about it again, Taylor decided that whoever it was definitely wasn't a worm.

Maybe Vernon wasn't a worm, either.