Joey Crash: Distractions

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Joey is lounging on the couch in his with his feet resting on the coffee table, arms spread across the back cushions. He always liked to do this whenever he and Scott were in the apartment together. It is still Joey’s apartment after all, even if he didn’t live there anymore. Between the travel schedule and recent injury, Crash spent less and less time in the brand new apartment he’d bought straight after winning the Final Boss Championship from Bert at The Last of Us II. Despite all it’s comforts it just didn’t feel like home the same way a cheap, run down motel room did. So, Joey became a landlord.

There was a rigorous vetting process to find someone who could look after the apartment in his stead. They couldn’t be a super fan. He didn’t need people rifling through his stuff to report weird things to TMZ. They needed to be employed - this one feels fairly obvious, but not full-time. This was because of the final stipulation: They couldn’t have any other major commitments such as family, pets or relationships. Joey’s ideal tenant would be available to do favours for him whenever he was in town. After a lot of rejected applicants, Scott came in.

Scott initially reminded Joey of Bert which almost struck him out of contention immediately. His small frame and weed habit didn’t go down well in Joey’s books. But he only worked two nights a week, had almost no friends to speak of and his family were a couple states over. Since Scott moved in he’d been true to his word and more. Scott was more than happy to be Joey’s chauffeur, sort out his post and merch orders and keep the place relatively clean for a discount on the rent. The times Joey has come round the place has been immaculate. Apparently Scott loves to deep clean when he's high.

“Can you hurry up? I need to watch this so I can figure out how pissed I need to be at the station.” Joey shouted from the couch, not looking at Scott who was in the kitchen behind him.

“Yeah, yeah just a second!”

A ding from the microwave heralded a hot snack and Scott became giddy. Joey turned around and saw Scott take a bag of popcorn out and shook the kernels out of the bag over a bin before pouring them into a giant bowl. Scott arrived at the table and placed the bowl down with a flourish as if it were a Michelin star meal. It was the evening which meant Scott was already buzzed and ready to get comfy - Joey had to wait another two minutes for him to grab the perfect blanket before plonking himself down on the other side of the couch.

“Hello wrestling fans! Hope you’re having a fantastic Thursday so far and we have a lot of news and updates to get into - But before that! We’ve got something very special indeed. An exclusive interview! An interview with one of the biggest bad guys in Level Up today, I’m of course talking about none other than The Low Blow Officionado, The Master of the Loaded Glove and of course, The Man Who Beat the Man who beat the Power Champion, Joey Crash! Come on out here!”

Joey walks out to the stage from behind a curtain designed to look like a shortened wrestling ramp from the 1990’s. He’s wearing black trousers and Chelsea boots, a tucked in white t-shirt which says ‘Maladjusted’ across the left breast along with his Morpheus shades and fisherman's beanie. He shakes hands with the host and sits down in an armchair that’s patterned with a steel print. It looks like a classic set-up for a late night talk show.

“Joey Crash, welcome to the show!”

“It’s good to be here. I like how you included my very long moniker I used after I beat Bert but you forgot to mention that I was the Final Boss Champion.”

“Ahaha, all in good time! I uh didn’t want to rub any salt in the wounds by saying you’re the FORMER champion - but let’s start there. You lost the Final Boss Championship in your first defence at DOOM against Duncan Shepard in a Last Man Standing match. After fighting so hard to earn the title shot and defeat Bert McAlroy, what went through your mind when you fell at the first hurdle? Or to put it plainly - where did it all go wrong?”

"I was expecting a ‘How are you’ or something. But this is good. Let’s get down to business. Duncan had a lot of momentum, I can’t deny him that. He won that enormous battle royal at The Last of Us and he’d had his eye on the Final Boss Championship for a while - just like I’d had my eye on his Power Championship when I first joined. A lot of people looked at his ascent as something that was inevitable. Like he had been finally called up to the major leagues and he certainly believed his own hype. You gotta have confidence in yourself but… With Duncan it was different. I think he looked at it like he was destined for it. That sort of determination can do a lot for your psyche."


"Nice question, love that question. Don’t put words in my mouth, that’s what I’m here for. That belt was mine and I believed it would still be mine today. I admit underestimated Duncan… But I don’t blame myself for doing so. He was the nearly-man of Level Up. He’d been putting on solid performances with the Power Championship. He was a real workhorse and you know what, good for him. That belt looked like a good fit for him. Of course it would have been even better around my waist, but that was the niche he carved. He was a big fish in a small pond and that’s where he liked to play. But whenever he went to the deep end, he sank. There’s no two ways about it."

"He tried to become the first TriForce Champion - and he failed. Dunky Boy put up a good fight as he always does - but he came up short. And that was the pattern with Duncan for a while. Duncan Shepard would always fail to win the big one when it mattered. I don’t take anything away from him for that because he’s a fantastic competitor, truly! You can’t compete in Level Up and not be among the best this sport has to offer. But where he failed, I succeeded. And with every victory I introduced a new reason for people to fear Joey Crash."

"I beat Bert McAlroy after he became TriForce Champion only a week after Duncan Shepard failed to capture that belt. At Final Fantasy I beat Lord Raab, Emily Simms and Kat Jones all in one night while Duncan lost the Power Championship to a banged up Larry Tact, who had already gone to war with Centurion the previous night. Duncan was in my rear view mirror. And after I won the Final Boss Championship it stayed that way regardless of what he did. I thought of him like the England football teams of my youth. They can put on stellar performances when there’s nothing on the line. But when push comes to shove and the stakes are raised, they collapse. That was Duncan Shepard."

"But now, he’s the Final Boss Champion. He beat you for that belt on the first time of asking. I feel like you’re dancing around this question, Joey!"

"You know what? You want my honest opinion of the man? [BLEEP] it, here it is. Duncan has been hiding behind all these gimmick matches that have launched him to where he is now. Every time I knocked it out of the park I did so within all the bells, whistles and confines of Standard Rules matches. Every win I’ve ever gotten in Level Up is definitive and indisputable! Did I lose to him at DOOM? It’ll go down in the record books that I lost, I can’t change that. But did he pin me? Did he make me submit? Was I counted out? The answer to all three of those questions is a resounding NO. I still had some fight left in me! Everything “The Commander” has ever achieved has been rigged in his favour because he can’t get it done when the chips are down and he has to play by the rules. When you look at the biggest moments and how they were won it is CRYSTAL CLEAR that I’m the greater wrestler! I know it, Bert knows it - and whether or not he admits it, Duncan knows it too. And it’s eating him alive, I can feel it."

"Stop right there!" Exclaimed the host, pointing at Crash as if he was prosecuting a witness in court. "Let’s rewind for a minute! You can’t just say wins and losses don’t matter simply because the win conditions are different? And he kept you down for TEN SECONDS! As far as wins go that is pretty conclusive!"

"You could keep me down for ten minutes and I’ll get back up. As far as I’m concerned I might have lost, but Duncan didn’t beat me. He’s the Final Boss Champion on a technicality and the only reason I’m not already the champion again is because he actively tries to put his opponents on the shelf to get what he wants - and then pretends to be the good guy? Give me a [BLEEP]ing break."

"This is all sounding pretty rich coming from the guy who literally broke Bert McAlroy’s neck when he won the belt off him!"

"That’s different and you know it!" Joey ripped off his hat in frustration.

"Well– Well then enlighten me!" The host was exasperated. "Enlighten all of us! Because you’re drawing all these dots that don’t connect!"

"Bert McAlroy is a scrappy dog with no sense of when to stop or when he's outmatched. He puts himself in danger because he doesn’t listen to reason. He doesn’t listen to his body. He can really go in a fight - and I hand that to him. He can dish out almost as much as he can take. But he’s also the most selfish, blind-stupid wrestler I’ve been in the ring with. He puts himself in so much danger needlessly and seems to really enjoy taking endless amounts of punishment and this sonuva[BLEEP] keeps getting back up! He won’t back down and he won’t stop. So if he’s not going to make the right call to stay down, someone has to make that decision to end his suffering."

"So you’re saying," The host clearly finding Joey's logic both flawed but also great for the ratings, "that breaking McAlroy’s neck was in his best interest?"

"He wasn’t going to beat me! He’s tried three times and failed. But that only makes him more determined to go to the furthest lengths, to do what nobody else has and endure even more punishment than ever before. He’s absolutely mental. In a strange, small way… I respect it. But in the way that you’d respect a clown at a circus. They put so much into their craft and are undoubtedly passionate about what they do. But they also scare a good chunk of the audience and you can tell by looking at them that they’re only doing this because they’ve failed doing anything else. Any respect I had for him has been outweighed by the amount of vitriol we share. I hate Bert McAlroy but that’s not exactly news worthy. That’s just human nature. But with everything I’ve gone through with Duncan and Bert, it lines up very nicely for your good friend, Joey C. Have you connected the dots yet?"

"I’d like you to connect them for me." The host challenged Joey and leaned forward in his chair.

"With pleasure," Joey also leaned forwards and held out his left hand to articulate his points, "You’ve got Duncan Shepard, self delusional paragon of virtue. The good guy who lives by a moral code that has far too many grey areas. A champion so driven by validation and pride that he’ll do anything to win regardless of the cost. Duncan Shepard likes to think he’s the protagonist of Level Up and this makes him the de facto good guy regardless of how much he likes to walk on the dark side. He’s a monster in human skin. An angel with a dirty face."

"And over here..." Joey continued, now holding out his right arm; "You have Bert McAlroy, a [BLEEP]ing Stretch Armstrong incarnate. Keeps getting up no matter what you throw at him. He’s like the Terminator. He just doesn’t stop and he never backs down. You can throw him about like a ragdoll - which is fun to do by the way - but he’s never deterred. Bert is the ultimate foil to Duncan’s power fantasy. You have one guy who’ll do whatever it takes to win and another he doesn’t know how to lose. The unstoppable force and the immovable object. There’s rarely a winner in this scenario. They just battle and keep going forever and ever."

"Enter…" Now pointing his thumbs at himself, "Joey Crash. The rightful Final Boss Champion that Duncan has never pinned or submitted. I’m the banana peel. All I need to do is bide my time, let Duncan and Bert kill each other and Joey Crash swoops in to pick up the pieces. I have the smarts to know when I’m beat and stay away. But I have the cunning to know when someone has lost - and steal that victory. I’m going to do what Duncan Shepard did to me at DOOM. Except this time, he’ll have no gimmicks to hide behind. It’s just going to end with a one… two… three. Just like nature intended."

"Now wait just a second!" The host now sounding like he's cracked a game of Cluedo, "There's a flaw here! You’re acting like this is a simple one-on-one match up. But there is a stipulation here and it’s the fact that you’re included! In a Triple Threat, you don’t even need to pin the champion to regain the belt!"


"So let's look at the big picture again. Talk me through what’s going to happen at Combat Evolved? How do you think the main event is going to go down?"


Click.

“Next time you see me, Scotty Boy,” Joey shouted, darting to the front door; “I’m going to be the Final Boss Champion. I’ll treat you to Dairy Queen.”

“But wait what like, if you don’t win? What happens then dude? Am I out or something?”

“Don’t you have any faith in me, Scott?" Joey turned to face Scott with one hand behind his back. "I’ve done it before!”

“But what about Shepard… What makes you think you could beat him when you couldn’t before?”

Joey paused for a second and chuckled to himself.