"Doctor, I'm faced with two options here, and I've got this sinking feeling that I'm not going to make the right one..."

The 'Doctor' was Dr. Heinz Ketchup, on-the-road and generally behind-the-scenes psychologist for GZW2K1. Alongside Mia Norrick, he was one of the few employed to keep GZW workers 'sane'. That his patients would frequently crack each other over the head with whatever they could find, often directly after a session with him, Ketchup's anonymity was unanimously agreed upon as a good thing. He was a short man in his mid-fifties, whose only physically distinguishable characteristic was a thinning mop of carrot-red hair.

 The patient, obviously, was Lord John Taylor. The tall, lean thirty-four-year-old now lying flat on his back on Ketchup's office couch was by no means a regular client. In fact, this was their first meeting. For reasons beyond Ketchup, Taylor had insisted that this meeting be recorded and prepped for immediate release onto the screens of GZW TV.

"Tell me about these options," Ketchup encouraged with a disappointingly average American accent.

"Well," Taylor began, "It's about Seth Raide. And Heatwave. And..."

"You're having second doubts?"

Taking the sympathetic accusation in his stride, Taylor said, "No. Not at all. I've got every belief that I can beat Raide on Thursday night. But there's more to a win than that for me."

"You want to kill this man?" asked the 'good' doctor, clearly a professional.

"Nothing that epic. I'm talking about the infamous post-match build-up. Taking wrestling ability for granted, out-talking and verbally dissecting an opponent is what I do better than anybody ever has in this company. Sean Fiery, Sincere, Vernon Vanderbilt, even James "Monarch" Corbin, they've all been well and truly silenced at one point or another..."

"And now with Seth Raide, you think you've met your match?"

"Seth Raide thinks I've met my match," he corrected. "But I haven't. I know I haven't. Whatever about these 'capabilities' of his... They won't matter until Heatwave. Right now, I'm just finding it a little tough. To be blunt, he's about as receptive as a brick wall. It's getting to a stage where watching these arguments of his and picking them apart piece by piece is just routine. It's becoming a waste of my time."

Ketchup looked right at his client and pondered, "Perhaps that in itself is a tactic of his. Forcing you to waste your time. Trying to divert your attention by talking nonsense, in the hope that you'll pick it apart, take great pride in that and be extra susceptible to him in the ring."

"No way, Doctor," Taylor said with a sigh. "Not Raide. If there's one person totally anal about his each and every word, it's that dickhead. Whilst I like to shoot from the hip and improvise when dealing with this sort of thing, he's the polar opposite. He looks too far into everything and literally 'picks it apart' - scissors, compasses and whatever else - with the idea that each and every word leaving his mouth is immaculate. He wouldn't sabotage himself like that. As sloppy and shape shifting as it is, Raide genuinely believes what he says."

"So then what's the problem? He's got his own idea of the world, and he's not going to drop it. You say it doesn't make sense... Maybe it doesn't. But there's no point in serenading a dead horse, John. I can call you John, right?"

Taylor nodded.

"Good. So he's not going to budge... You've done what you can, but he's shown that he's not going to listen. Don't get stressed over it."

"I'm not getting fucking stressed," Taylor fired through unusually clenched teeth.

"That's not how it looks from here," said the doctor with a warm smile whose sole purpose was to cushion his words for Taylor's benefit. This was a tactic he used very frequently. "It looks like this is getting to you, for whatever reason. It looks like-"

"Enough. This isn't what I came here for."

"John, I've been doing this for a lot of years. It's a common occurrence that a worker will come to me about one particular problem, only to reveal a greater one indirectly. I think that's what you've just done."

Taylor clicked his tongue, irritated. "This is different."

"It is? John, I'm going to ask you a question and I want as direct and honest an answer as is physically possible."

"What?" Taylor asked, becoming more and more irked.

"Why is it that you feel such a need to isolate yourself from everybody around you? Why-"

"You said a question, Doctor. Leave it at that."

"Fine, but can you answer me that?"

"Of course," Taylor began coolly. The nonchalant facade soon dropped, however. He stuttered for a moment, unable to verbalise what he felt. "It's... This is bullshit. They're... I didn't come here to make some mental fucking breakthrough with you, I..." Taylor flipped onto his side on the couch, now looking right at the doctor. Suddenly composed, he said, "Alright. You want an answer? It's because the people that I work with on a day-to-day basis are subhuman fucking scum. Parasites. Worms. Consumers that contribute nothing to the greater good. If these people aren't going to chip in and help build the GZW of the future, then fuck them. I'll do it all by myself. I've done it all by myself, and now that I'm getting places, they can go fuck themselves if they're going to reap any of my rewards. Fucking Nathan Williams and Shane Ryder, two miserable representatives for the once glorious Old Guard. Yeah, they laid a couple of bricks each in their time, but what've they done for us lately? What has Nathan Williams done for anyone lately? That fucking sack of shit, he-"

"John," Ketchup interrupted in a way both pleasant and firm, "I want you to just relax for a moment. Calm your breathing. We're getting somewhere here. The fact that you even mentioned Nathan Williams' name invoked a huge guttural reaction from you. There's something there."

"Look," Taylor said, making sure to keep his tone of voice civil, "This isn't about Nathan Williams..." 

"Something sure is. Tell me about him."

"You know him, Doctor."

"Of course I do. From an objective standpoint. I want to see him through your eyes. Do that for me, John."

Taylor exhaled deeply, like a singer readying his voice. "He's a plank of dull, unimaginative fucking wood. His claims to fame include such highlights as losing to Sean Fiery in the heatless, years-too-late disaster that was their 'Final Encounter' and two runs as EWO Heavyweight Champion in the space of a few weeks. For being around so long, he was by default put in the Ring Of Honor. He hasn't done a fucking thing for this company in years. Nobody cares about him, nobody wants him, but he won't go away. Actually, he does go away. For months at a time. After I made an example of him last year, he 'retired' out the back door, wrestling what was apparently his testimonial match against Kid X. Months later, he comes back, 'with video evidence' that Seth Raide was involved in my match with him in the Lord Of The Coliseum tournament... Big fucking deal. Fifty billion people saw it worldwide and didn't seem to mind. I saw it and used it to speed up the proceedings. He knew there wasn't a chance he could beat me, at least by shortening the proceedings I allowed him to keep a little bit of his 'pride and respect'. A little bit is good enough for him, Doctor. He can just fuck off-"

"Stop right about there, John. So would you say this man gets 'under your skin'?"

"What's that, the buzzword of 2005?" Taylor asked bitterly. "Not that the fat bastard would even fit under there - No. To genuinely get under somebody's skin, you've got to possess the intelligence and means to do it. That man has nothing. His empty, rotting trash talk is a joke. It's the sloth and underachievement that he represents that gets to me."

"Have you any idea why that gets to you?"

"Have you?" Taylor asked dryly, knowing the answer already.

"I think so, yes. You're not going to want to listen to this, but just hear me out."

"Alright," Taylor agreed with a rare uncertainty.

"I think that Seth Raide was right in his assessment that you love this company, that you're a true patriot to it..."

All Taylor could do was laugh out loud.

"It's nothing to be ashamed of, John. There have been many-"

"Doc, you're way off. You hear me out this time. I don't love 'this company'... At all. This company is made up of obnoxious, selfish little assholes. Like me, if we're being honest. It's also got a board of directors that would rather spend millions on Vernon Vanderbilt merchandise than actually look out for me, their top man. What I'm proud of is what I've done here. I'm proud that I signed with this company exactly when I did. I'm glad that it was John Taylor and John Taylor alone that made The Restart work. I take such pride in being so key, so integral and so important to this company. It's all my handiwork. If I hadn't come back, this place would be the fucking mess than Williams, Fiery, Raide et al left behind in 2003. What annoys me... What really fucking annoys me is that, now that the getting's good, all these people are coming out of the woodwork. No, it's not a sudden thing. We saw the return and subsequent retirements of a handful of veterans over the last year even. But right now, we've got new guys and old guys, every single one of them trying to claim a piece of my handiwork as his own. Don't you see that, Doc? Nathan Williams and Zachary Sharp and whoever else might love this place, but as I've said before, I'm a realist. Love doesn't work. Love doesn't generate fan interest or get big matches signed. Love doesn't do the grunt work. Love doesn't do a fucking thing, at the end of the day."

Ketchup tried to hide a grin, feeling that they were on to something far bigger. "Love, John? I'm sensing a lot of animosity toward the word 'love'... Tell me about-"

"No. We're not going there. One type of person loves something while another breathes life into it and makes it work. I'm the latter. Nathan Williams coming back in the faint hope of getting a glimpse of my gold isn't going to do a thing for the company he loves. Zachary Sharp gunning for the Triple Crown isn't going to do a thing for GZW, despite his professed love for this place. You see, it takes a realist to make a place like this work. It seems like I'm the only one. Or, at least, it seemed like it up until recently."

"Seth Raide?"

"Partially. Seth Raide. Vernon Vanderbilt. Zac Sharp. Whoever. All of these people are being built up to take over from me before I've even peaked. Or, worse yet, they're here to share the burden with me. The thought of it makes me sick to my stomach. Call me selfish, call me whatever, but I've put too much into this and built too high for some slick fucker to waltz in and leave his mark on it. Call it selfishness, and you'd be right. But it's something that's rightfully mine. I've earned my position at the very top of the proverbial mountain. I've hiked from the ground. Now I see people like Raide and Vanderbilt sharing a cable-car up, with Nathan Williams and Jon Kellar in tow. And that can't happen."

"Well," began Dr. Ketchup, for once at a loss for words. "It's quite clear that you're experiencing something not unlike claustrophobia. You've built this wall around yourself - Reached the top of the mountain - and now you're truly beginning to feel the restrictions of it. There are hordes of men inching ever close, and you can imagine nothing worse than any and all of them in there - or up there - alongside you. Before long, one of them is bound to break through. It could be as early as this Thursday night, with Seth Raide. Keeping that feeling focussed inward is a bigger waste of time than arguing back-and-forth with Raide. What you need to do is use that anger, fear, dread, whatever it is, and turn it outward. Break it out during Heatwave's main event. Use it to either prevent anybody from truly breaking through to your side or to have a contingency plan ready should somebody make it through. For your own sake, do both."

"Maybe you're right," Taylor conceded, "But I didn't come to you to be typecast."

"That's not what I'm doing, John. You came to me with a problem and I'm trying to get to the root cause of it."

"In all fairness, a root cause isn't going to shut Raide up. If you want to compare this little predicament to a plant, then think of Raide as the flower... The head. In the grander scheme of things, he's not that important. But he's here now. In plain view. In a year, he won't be a problem. In a few days, he will be. At Heatwave, he'll be a problem that I can deal with, but right here and right now, his stubbornness has to be neutralised."

The doctor asked, "And how exactly do you plan on doing that?"

"Earlier on, when I told you I had two choices. One was to keep playing this game. Back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. Glorified ping-pong. I don't know about him, but I'm sick of it already. There are certain people that I would gladly verbally spar with until the end of time, but over the last week I have come to realise that Raide isn't one of them."

"Why not?"

"He doesn't listen. He refuses to - or simply can't - argue reasonably. All he's got going for him is the slight irritation factor and the fact that his arguments are a catalyst to boredom for me. I just..." Taylor trailed off.

"Okay, let's not get hung up on that. That's your first option. What's the other one?"

"In short: Denouncing him as the complete and utter fraud that he is."

Taken aback, Ketchup blinked. "Excuse me?"

"Switch off the cameras..."