Bluff City 11: The Grapplers Down at Promenade Arena Pt. 3

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Episode description[edit | edit source]

Aqua Illusion vs. Black Jack at The Promenade Arena - ★★★★★ (5 Stars) Reviewed by Cecil L.

I’m gonna start by saying that before last night, I hadn’t been to a wrestling show in fifty five years. The last time I went to a wrestling show this website didn’t exist and neither did the web and neither did a whole area of town. I went to see two men fight and they were just something, let me tell you that. Round about that time I worked as a floor assistant in a general goods store but on the weekends I’d go out onto the boardwalk and draw caricatures of the folks who were out that day. When I ran out of paper, I’d call my friend Lou and we’d go down and watch a fight. There’d be flyers up on the sides of buildings, they still do that.

There was this one wrestler, an out of towner, called Magnificent Rex. He’d come out and chant “Rex! Rex! Rex!” - hold his hands over his head like an emperor, but he was an out of towner and he was a real piece of **** so we’d shout and boo and hiss. Over this one long summer, he fought a Bluff City boy called Daredevil Duke Draymond, a high-flier who could hit as hard as anybody. And they’d fight and one of them would go down, and there’d be a rematch the next night, and the other would go down, and Lou and I would get ticket after ticket with the money from selling caricatures. It was a hot summer. They had to put up signs on the boardwalk saying “DRINK MORE WATER!” Saw folks falling over. Seagulls all sitting in the ocean since the sand was too hot.

Anyway, one night Rex beat Duke real bad. It was rough to see. Lou and I were furious, left the arena chanting “kill the king” and all that, went and got drunk at a bar on Sockeye that’s a sports goods store now. Next morning, woke up with a hangover and went down to the boardwalk with an umbrella for shade. I’d got two or three caricatures done and who should walk up with one hell of a black eye but Daredevil Duke Draymond himself. He sat down in the chair and I didn’t say anything for fifteen whole seconds, just out of shock. In the end I told him that I knew who he was, that I saw him get beat last night, that the whole thing stank. He listened, nodded his head, didn’t say a word. I got to drawing. My friend Lou, I said, my friend Lou heard that you’re gonna move to Trenton. Leave the Bluff City circuit. That true? Duke shook his head. Not true, he said. Your friend Lou’s been telling tales. There was a long moment of silence. The sound of the beach. But, the Daredevil said slowly, if I was to go to Trenton, it’d only be to put that no-good piece of crap to bed in his own town. He looked at the back of my easel. You’re takin’ your time, he said.

I finished the drawing and handed it over. There was Duke, standing tall in the middle of the ring, arm outstretched like an old fashioned actor, with Rex flat on the ground in front of him. Wham. I drew the lights and the flashbulbs going off, I even got figures in the front row looking shocked and awed and scared. I’d even added a caption that I was pretty proud of, that I thought Duke would like. It was good as hell.

Pretty neat, kid, he said. Pretty neat. He flashed a smile and one of his teeth was chipped.

That night, Lou and I went down to the arena in the middle of a storm. His car broke down on Bowfin Avenue and we ditched it and ran with newspaper over our heads to get in before the show started. Rex came out and chanted and the arena erupted. I thought folks were gonna storm the ring. You could hear thunder through the walls. And then out comes Duke, climbs up onto the top rope, and lightning comes through the little windows. Lit the ring up white. I thought it was the best damn thing I’d seen in my life. And Rex goes over and pulls him off the rope and they get to it, Duke taking hits, throwing Rex off the ropes, somersaulting, hitting spot after spot. And then you could see that he started getting tired. Rex would just stand there throwing punches but Duke had been leaping all over the place, the lightning catching him frozen in the air, it was wearing him out.

I think Lou and I saw it coming before Duke did. Right out of nowhere. Square in the jaw. And down he went. One, said the referee. “Rex! Rex! Rex!” Two. Lou and I standing up out of our seats. And then I swear to you, the thunder roared and the lightning flashed at exactly the same time. Storm right overhead. And up rose Daredevil Duke Draymond, like the devil himself had sent him back from hell. One foot. Pivots into a spinning kick like a tornado. Down goes Rex, bounces hard against the mat. The crowd deadly silent.

And then Duke turns, draws himself up to his full height. The king is dead, he says, and he stretches his arm out like an old fashioned actor, and I turned to Lou with fire in my eyes. I knew what he was going to say next, and I knew how good it was going to sound, because I’d written it myself along the bottom of the caricature I’d drawn the day before. Long live the king, shouts Duke, and the crowd explodes, and as the Daredevil stands there, drinking in the sound, he turns his head just slightly and meets my eyes up in the top row. Long live the king, I shout. Long live the king!

That was the last wrestling match I went to for fifty five years. The next summer, the first big tourist boats started coming in, you know, the real big ones, so I was kept pretty busy on the boardwalk. That was also the year that Duke went to Trenton, I guess.

But last night I went to see Aqua Illusion fight Black Jack at the Promenade Arena. Sat in the top row, listened to the crowd. Picked up the chants pretty quickly. It wasn’t Daredevil Duke Draymond knocking Magnificent Rex out cold in the middle of the thunderstorm that broke the hottest summer on record. But it was damn good. And I am glad that I went.

Contents[edit | edit source]

Plot[edit | edit source]

As a painting cage match wraps up in the ring, Aqua Illusion and Charley Cupid are called to Simeon’s office and are surprised that the interaction will be on camera. They pass Blackjack in the hallway, coming out of Simeon’s office. Simeon pours them both a glass of sparkling water and himself a glass of champagne and toasts to “choices”. He tells them that although Aqua has been booked in a match against Blackjack, he would like her to take the tag team match against The Protocol.

Aqua says that she has enough confidence to herself that she can do both matches, and win both. Simeon pitches her an All The Gold match, a three-way tag team match where the winner will get the mid-Atlantic championship belt and the tag team belt. Aqua enthusiastically agrees, as does Charley (“just don’t try to steal the spotlight, okay?”).

Meanwhile, away from the camera, Jake checks in with Mantruck to make sure he’s ready for anything that might happen in the ring.

Count Faustolfe is hanging out with the rest of the Monster House group, when a man Lenny has never seen before walks up to them. He greets the rest of Monster House and they address him as “Mr B” and do not make eye contact. He asks Lenny to come see him in his office, and Lenny agrees, following him through the back halls to a small door with a key code. Mr B enters the code, opening the door to the centre of the Promenade casino floor. He leads Lenny to the middle of the slot machines, and tells Lenny that he is the “mind behind the mind” of Monster House, and implies that he is from, or at least has strong ties to, Old Dominion Wrestling.

Mr B tells Lenny that the contract offered by CSE isn’t all that it appears to be - the winner would leave with a large amount of attention and get to wrestle with CSE but within a few weeks they would be involved in an “invasion angle” and losing matches in order to push one of CSE’s new indie stars. Lenny asks why Mr B is telling him about it, and Mr B says the contract will bring an empty space in Promenade, and that he could step into the spotlight. He leads Lenny back to the halls of Promenade via a different way that he took him into the casino originally.

Jake sees Mr B and, notably, doesn’t recognise him as anyone from Old Dominion Wrestling and gets a “capital W weird” vibe from him. Lenny asks Mr Sasquatch about Mr B, and Mr Sasquatch tells him that Mr B is someone who has helped out the members of Monster House multiple times, even if he can sometimes be a little odd.

The Consecrated Cage match starts. The whole of Monster House accompanies Mr Sasquatch and Count Faustolfe to the ring. Jake and Mantruck enter and do Mantruck’s “honk” arm motion, which the crowd responds to favourably. The cage is then lowered around them and priests enter and throw holy water on the cage.

The match begins slowly, with Jake and Count Faustolfe trading blows and trying to get the advantage on one another. Jake gets a pretty big hit on Count Faustolfe and grabs a cross off the cage and holds it up to Count Faustolfe. Count Faustolfe fakes being affected by it, and then Count Faustolfe bites the cross and pulls it out of Jake’s hand.

Jake hits a powerslam, puts a fake pumpkin on Count Faustolfe’s head and kicks it. He tags Mantruck in, and he throws Faustolfe into the turnbuckle, throws him around the ring. Mr Sasquatch swaps with Mantruck, who tags Jake in briefly and then Jake tags Mantruck back in, indicating that he should use the sledgehammer hanging from the cage on Mr Sasquatch.

Instead of hitting Mr Sasquatch, Mantruck swings it at him, narrowly avoiding hitting Mr Sasquatch. Mantruck tags Jake in and Jake puts Mr Sasquatch in a leg grape vine/rest hold, quietly apologising to Mr Sasquatch for the near miss.

Mr Sasquatch hits Jake, crawling away to tag Count Faulstolfe back in, who gets some good offence in on Jake, hitting him with a DDT. He turns to taunt Mantruck, who hits Faustolfe over the head. Jake picks up Faustolfe to hit his finisher (The Weight of The Heart) and Mr Sasquatch runs in to stop him. Mantruck hits his finisher (The Runaway) on Mr Sasquatch in order to stop him. Faustolfe whispers to Jake not to take the deal. 

The audience loves it, “consecrating” the cage (throwing water and soda/beer on it). Jake and Mantruck stand on the turnbuckles at either end and yell at the remaining members on Monster House outside. The cage comes up and Monster House rushes forward to pull Mr Sasquatch and Faustolfe out of the ring.

Mr B is in the audience and makes eye contact with Jake, and Jake momentarily “feels as though his soul is at stake”. Once he’s backstage, Jake calls Alexa on a payphone to discuss the possibility of a ghost at the arena, and she says that she will send a team if she can.

The partnerships for the three-way tag team match are announced: The Protocol, Charley and Aqua, and Blackjack and Dione Gabro. The Protocol enter the ring first, then Aqua and Charley with her lighting and his music and wearing matching sunglasses. Dione enters by herself, and then Blackjack enters alone as well. The crowd is excited to see Blackjack “but not as into it as they could be”.

Blackjack tells Dione to wrestle first, and she enters the ring along with TKTK and Charley. Charley gestures for the other two to wrestle, and Dione and TKTK both attack Charley. Charley does an arm drag to Dione and does a drop to TKTK, displaying his technical prowess. TKTK goes for a big kick on Charley. Charley catches TKTK’s leg and throws him to Dione. She catches TKTK, and then Charley picks up her leg and does a drag and screw so that she does a drag and screw to TKTK, leaving them both on the ground.

Charley, worried he won’t be able to take on both Dione and TKTK, looks towards Aqua. Charley does a powerbomb into TKTK and sends Dione into the corner to be hit by Aqua. Aqua and Dione test their strength against one another. Aqua falls back, but stays in longer than people would have thought she would. Aqua gets pushed down on one knee and then pulls Dione down with her.

Dione locks eyes with Aqua and pushes herself up slowly. She pushes Aqua across the room using big power moves (Blackjack gets the crowd into it, clapping and cheering for Dione). She’s getting ready to do her finisher (The Flashback), and Blackjack asks for the tag and the two begin arguing. While they’re distracted, Aqua gestures to Charley to go for Blackjack while she goes for Dione. He gets Blackjack’s attention, and Dione turns around to face Aqua. She climbs the ropes to do a dropkick on Dione from above. Aqua tries to go for the pin, and The Protocol both rush in, causing chaos in the ring.

The camera cuts to Charley and Blackjack, who are mainly just chopping each other in the chest. Charley’s chest turns red very quickly and his chop motions begin to slow. Blackjack pushes him against the side of the ring, and locks eyes with Charley before sliding into the ring. Blackjack pulls Dione out of the fray and tags in with her.

Aqua is now in the ring with Blackjack and both Protocol members. She pushes one of The Protocol members against the ropes and pushes the other member towards them so that they hit each other. She puts her sunglasses on S99, confusing them and causing them to fight TKTK. The announcers explain this technique to the audience.

With the comedy aspect of the match gone, the crowd quiets. Aqua is alone in the ring with Blackjack. They lock eyes. Aqua approaches him with punches, trying to trap him in the corner of the ring but the size difference between them makes the maneuver look much less impressive than it should. The announcers attempt to phrase it as David and Goliath style fight to boost the audience’s opinion of Aqua.

Backjack pushes back against her, moving them to the middle of the ring. Aqua tries the same flurry of attacks again and Blackjack grabs her leg, slamming her to the mat. Each time Aqua tires again, Blackjack does another countermove on her easily, beginning to wear her out. He throws Aqua to his turnbuckle preparing to do his finisher and Dione slaps his shoulder to tag herself in. The two begin to argue in the ring.

While they’re distracted, Aqua tags in Charley. Together, they do a double dropkicker on them, knocking one into the other. Aqua drags Blackjack out of the ring, while Charley goes for Dione. He does a complicated leglock, waving to the crowd as he does so. Dione uses her MMA training, putting Charley into a hold in an attempt to get Charley to tap out. This is against the booking, as Aqua was booked to win against Blackjack, although Charley gets the feeling that this is more frustration at Blackjack than animosity towards him.

Charley reaches up, pretending to poke her in the eye to get her to let him go. They roll up, facing each other, and Dione mouths “sorry”. They grapple for a bit and she gets him in a headlock and then Charley flips them both over and gets her in a bridge. Dione kicks out at two and a half. Blackjack breaks off the fight to Aqua and reaches for her to tag in.

Charley tags Aqua in to do a tag team move and then quickly tags himself back in to do his finisher (The Bloody Valentine). We see a flashback showing that Aqua was originally supposed to win, but then a decision was made last-minute to let Charley win. Charley almost botches the move, getting Dione more with his thigh than his foot, but the announcers sell it hard enough for the crowd to buy it.

The bell gets rung, signalling Aqua and Charley’s win. They get the tag team belts first and Aqua starts to raise both their hands but Charley starts celebrating along first, although he does thank her on the mic before they leave.

‘Hail to the Chief’ plays as The House and Ms Carlisle arrive into the ring. She calls Jake to the ring, and he comes down. Ms Carlisle presents Jake with the contract for CSE, telling him that it’s time for him to “move to the main stage” (“all you have to do is sign”). Simeon encourages Jake to sign, seeming anxious.

Ms Carlisle hands him the pen and holds the mic out to him. Jake takes out glasses, carefully reading the contract. He starts writing something in the contract and hands the contract to him, taking the mic in the process. Ms Carlisle offers Jake her hand, but instead of shaking it he tells her to look at what he wrote in the contract.

Speaking into the mic, Jake announces that he would never leave Bluff City. Ms Carlisle opens the contract to see that Jake has drawn a middle finger on the signature line. Jake tosses the mic (breaking it), and goes to the ropes, flipping back over the ropes to outside the ring, walking away. Simeon yells after him and Jake yells his refusal back (“I like it here! I got a barbeque next month! I’m making wings! I live here! I don’t live in New York!”).

Jake leaves quickly via Syd’s van. He sees Mr B again, who nods to him. Jake points him out to Syd, telling her that that’s “the one he thinks is a ghost”. Syd gets an alert from the CRT monitor in the van, that a demonic presence is near, revealing that Mr B is a demon.

Meanwhile Aqua is celebrating with Charley and Faustolfe, getting a beer with them. Charley is happy-crying. Faustolfe calls his second cousin and asks if he can get into the gym with him, although his cousin turns him down as he’s thinking of getting out of wrestling (“I know what a fight is, I know what a script is… this stuff, it’s too in the middle”).

Cast[edit | edit source]

Other Characters[edit | edit source]

Gallery[edit | edit source]

  • A flyer for Promenade Wrestling by Lily Pfaff

  • A version of Jake's contract with his signature giving the middle finger by Lily Pfaff

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