Post by Duncan Ryder on Oct 31, 2022 18:09:07 GMT -5
1894 - Lancashire, England
The sun was beginning to set bringing the rolling countryside down to a pale half light. It also marked the shift change for the town coal mine. Dozens of men filed out of the claustrophobic hole in the ground, all filthy, streaked with sweat and soot. One of them was Bill Ashworth. Like all the men who worked the mine his body had grown strong and lean from long days of swinging a pickaxe and hauling rocks. Like all the men around him he was exhausted from another long day of punishing manual labour. Unlike the rest of these men though Bill’s exertions for the day were far from over.
‘Big’ Benny Thompson was a farmhand that worked the fields on the Hargreaves farm. There was a reason big had become as much his first name as the one his mother gave him. He was a tall, broad shouldered bastard who made his living being able to sling hay bales better than whole teams of ordinary men. In the pub two nights prior some drunk had proclaimed that there wasn’t a man in town Ben Thompson couldn’t maul like a bear. Bill Ashworth had taken exception to this, because everyone with a lick of sense knew that Bill was the best wrestler in town. A few choice words later and the match had been made. Half an hour from the end of the shift, on the bottom field of the Hargreaves farm.
Bill headed straight there, he didn’t have any time to waste. It took the best part of ten minutes from the end of his shift to get back out into the daylight and fifteen minutes to walk from the mine to the farm. As the miners walked back into town a few peeled off, headed home or to the pub to settle in for the evening but most followed Bill gathering around him like an army escorting their champion.
From a street that stretched off to the right came rapid excitable footsteps and a child, no older than ten ran out and straight up Bill.
“Are you really going to wrestle Big Ben Dad?” the boy asked.
“Aye lad. You coming to watch me?”
The boy nodded enthusiastically and fell into step beside his father, struggling to keep up with the man’s purposeful stride.
A few minutes later the crowd of miners passed through the gate that led onto the field where another crowd was waiting for them. Benny Thompson stood a head taller than any of those around him. He was stripped down to his boots and a pair of trunks. Bill never broke stride, making straight for his opponent, stripping off his soot stained shirt as he did so. The two men came into arm’s reach of one another and locked eyes. Around them the two groups, miners and farmhands traded insults and loudly proclaimed the wagers they were willing to make in support of their man’s skills. Old Jack stood between them and beckoned the crowd back.
“Le’s ‘ave a good clean wres’lin match lads. Best two out of three falls wins. You both ready?”
“Aye,” the two men said in near unison.
“Then get wrestling.”
October 11th 2022 - Indianapolis, IN
It was absolutely bloody typical. Duncan had made the choice to move to Indianapolis and settle once he had signed with Level Up, knowing that the city was the promotion’s home base. They were practically residents of the Farmer’s Coliseum and Duncan always liked to be close to where he worked. He had lived in LA while working for GIW and had upped sticks and crossed the country when the merger that created UGWC took the company to Chicago. Why travel more than you had to right? Since signing the lease on his apartment though there had been no Level Up shows in Indianapolis however, none. That was until the week that Duncan had found he didn't want to be in Indianapolis anymore and had taken the opportunity to get out of town. That was when Level Up decided to make its big return to the Indiana Farmers Coliseum. Sometimes Duncan really wondered if he was the constant butt of some kind of universal joke.
That didn’t matter now though. All that mattered was that another show, another night of EXP action was in the books and with his victory over Bam Miller, Duncan’s record had stretched to thirteen and one.
As he sat down in the locker room taking a moment to drink some water and catch his breath Duncan took a moment to consider the turns his life had taken this past year. Despite the places it had taken him Duncan knew he would always have an affection for his time as Duncan Shepard. He had renewed his career when it could have just as easily come to a whimpering halt. Not only that but it had set him on the path for the very best run of his career, the run that had finally seen him make good on the words he had spoken the first day he had set foot in a wrestling gym, that he would be a world champion one day. There were parts of the last eighteen months Duncan wished had gone differently, that perhaps he could have handled differently, but he couldn’t change any of that now and he chose to look back on that time with positivity and no regrets.
Even so it had felt good to go out there in front of that crowd again, laid bare, in a way he had never done so in Level Up. Gone were all the falsehoods, gone was his armour and the music that portrayed him as the all conquering hero. In their place was the name with which he had been born and music that he felt spoke for him as a human being. With those things and those things alone he had proven that inside that ring Duncan Ryder was everything Duncan Shepard had been Perhaps in some ways he was even more.
Bam Miller, game as he was though, was not the true test. Since Doom on May 10th, Duncan Shepard had defended the Final Boss Championship three times against a total of seven challengers. Now Duncan Ryder was the Final Boss though and to date he hadn’t defended the Final Boss championship once. Like Shepard before him, Ryder’s first title defence would be one on one against someone younger, hungry to etch their name in the annals of these early years of Level Up history, someone who Duncan held respect for, begrudgingly in this more recent case. In a few short weeks Duncan Ryder would face the toughest test of his short Level Up career when he would step into the ring with Sebastian Everett-Bryce and would have no choice but to prove that Ryder could be everything Shepard had been before him.
1930 - Stockport, England
The pub was called the King’s Head. It was a traditional establishment that was popular with war veterans and the lads from the local Lancashire Wrestling gym. Arthur Ashworth was both of these things. On this night he was already four pints deep and his lips were growing looser with every passing moment. All around him men were laughing and joking and though he was seated right in the very middle of it all he was always in a way separated from it all. Everyone in town knew his name. They knew he had a history that demanded respect. From his position of detachment, despite the noise around him he was able to listen in just enough on every conversation going on around him.
To his left Jack was bragging to a group about the girl he’d taken home the night before.
To his right George was complaining to Henry and James about the argument he’d had with his wife this morning.
Down the table were a series of conversations about work, football or training. At the very end of the table, furthest from where Arthur sat were two of the young lads, not yet out of the last years of their teens.
“I don’t think I can keep training all winter. The gym is freezing. I feel like one of these days my fingers are gonna freeze stiff and break right off,” said one of them.
“Ah the cold ain’t so bad,” his friend replied, “I’m just so damn tired by the time I’m done with work.”
“Oi, you lads,” said Arthur. He barely raised his voice but his words cut through the din effortlessly. The two youngsters ceased their conversation and looked over to him with startled expressions.
“Us?” one of them asked.
“Yeah, you two. What’re your names?
All around them conversations were quieting or coming to a halt entirely and people paid attention to the emerging situation.
“I’m Michael,” said the first lad, who had complained about the cold.
“And I’m Charlie,” said his tired friend.
“Right, right, Michael and Charlie,” Arthur said, nodding and pointing to each of them in turn. “What do you boys do for work?”
“We both work for the town council,” said Michael.
Arthur nodded sagely, “oh, you work for the Council do you both hm? Hard work is it?”
The two lads looked at each other. It was like they knew they were being set up but didn’t have any idea of how to avoid the trap they were hurtling forward into. “Yeah, they keep us busy,” said Charlie tentatively.
“Busy?” Arthur asked rhetorically, “busy sitting on your arses I bet.” Neither of the boys knew how to respond to that. “You two want to be wrestlers do you?”
“Yes,” they said, not quite in unison.
“Then don’t let me ‘ear you saying nothing about being too tired to train after a day’s work sat in town ‘all. My dad right, used to work twelve hour days in a coal mine, then he’d walk out that mine, down the road and be wrestling less than an hour later. When I was a boy I once watched him walk outta work, didn’t even break stride then go wrestle and beat a man twice his size. There ain’t no such thing as too tired. You ‘ear me?”
The two boys shared a look then turned back to Arthur, nodding. “We hear you,” Michael said.
“What was your toughest fight?” Charlie asked, seeing the opportunity while they had the man’s attention to pry for a story.
“My toughest fight?” Arthur pondered for a moment and finished off the pint set down near his right hand, bringing his total up to five for the evening. “That’s a day I remember clear as if it was yesterday. It was against this German bloke.”
“At the Olympics right?” Jack, sitting next to Arthur, asked.
“No, in a trench on the border between Belgium and France.”
The pub got noticeably quieter after he said that. Everyone knew where this story was going.
“What happened?” asked Michael, vocalising what everyone in the vicinity was thinking but were all afraid to ask.
“It was 1917,” Arthur began, “we’d been dug in for months. Every couple of days we’d take a run at them or they’d take a run at us. Maybe once in a while we’d take a trench then they’d just take it back. No one was winning. We were all just dying to get nowhere.” As he spoke Arthur drifted off a little, as if he wasn’t just telling the story but was reliving it vividly. “This day it was their turn to have a pop at us and they did, a good one. Got right up to us. I was up on the lip of the trench as they came, shooting. Next thing I knew I was on my back in the mud, dizzy as anything.” He shook his head as if trying to clear the same cobwebs that had afflicted him thirteen years earlier. “When I come back to my senses I tried to get back up but before I can I see this man in a German uniform on the lip, right where I’d been standing. I go for my gun but I’ve dropped it and when I try to crawl over to it the bastard jumps down. He points his rifle at me, right at my face and I think that’s it, I’m dead. He doesn’t shoot though. He looks me in the eye and freezes, so I tackled him. It’d been pissing it down on and off for days at this point. The whole trench was just slick wet mud. I can’t get any grip but neither can he and we both fall over. He’s punching me and biting me, he sticks his thumbs in my eyes. He uses every dirty trick in the book and more besides. I remember what my dad taught me though. It’s hard to get a grip of anything ‘cause we’re both so slippery but I get on his back and get a choke on ‘im and I squeeze it until he stops fighting back, then I squeeze it a bit longer, just to be sure you understand.”
Everyone around Arthur had fallen silent, listening to him speak and they remained that way as if waiting for permission to go back to their conversations.
“You won’t ever fight a man who’ll fight harder than a man fighting for his life. I hope none of you young lads will ever have to.”
October 18th 2022 - Indianapolis, IN
We open up on a sit down interview set. Two comfortable looking chairs have been set either side of a banner displaying the Level Up logo. Around those seats are several chest only mannequins wearing official Level Up wrestling merchandise. Ones to the right are wearing generic Level Up branded shirts while the ones to the left are split between Duncan Shepard shirts and hoodies each marked with bright red labels saying ‘Reduced to Clear’ and another shirt saying ‘I am Fundamental’ with its own bright green label saying ‘Brand New’.
In the seat to the left is Level Up Final Boss Champion Duncan Ryder. Across from him is Level Up interviewer and merchandise salesman, Lenny Brasco.
Lenny: What is up Level Updogs? I’m Lenny Brasco here with a YouTube exclusive interview here on the Level Up channel. My guest today is none other than the reigning, defending Final Boss champion and a man whose latest addition to the Level Up store, the I Am Fundamental t-shirt available in both black or white is on track to be our biggest seller of October 2022, it is of course Duncan Ryder.
Duncan: You guys really didn’t waste any time with this one did you.
Duncan shifts in his seat, twisting to get a better look at the new first bearing his name displayed beside.
Lenny: Strike while the printer is hot, that’s what I always say. Now Duncan we’re two weeks out from Level Up Wrestling’s next Pay Per View, TriForce Heroes, taking place at the PPL Center in Allentown, Pennsylvania, tickets still available. Naturally your mind is set on your defence of the Final Boss title against Sebastian Everett-Bryce but that’s not what I want to talk about first, I’d like to get a little side-tracked, distracted, if you will. You’ve spent many years of your career on the road, competing in many places but upon signing with Level Up, despite our schedule allowing you to pursue further opportunities outside of the company, you have always chosen not to, am I right?
Duncan: Yeah, pretty much, aside from a couple of special occasions.
Lenny: Why is that?
Duncan: It’s simple really. Level Up has given me a great opportunity to establish myself as one of the top names in the wrestling industry today. I intend on making the most of that opportunity by focussing all of my energy into it and into the defence of the Final Boss title and not exhausting myself travelling day in and day out around the country hunting paychecks. So far I think you’d agree that it’s a strategy that’s paid off.
Lenny: I agree, it has. Which brings me to my next question, what made you decide to take on a heavily publicised coaching position with one of the most detested figures in professional wrestling, billionaire villainess Sonya Benson?
Duncan smiles and slowly nods his head.
Duncan: I get what you’re saying Lenny but really these are two entirely different things. The tolls taken on the body travelling and competing are at a whole different level to what it takes for me to go to Atlantic City and train one person.
Lenny: Even with the absolute media circus that has surrounded the announcement?
Duncan: That’s one of the many great perks of my association with Hitmaker-Yamazaki Enterprises. They take care of that side of things so I have more time to focus on the things that I’m good at. That’s winning wrestling matches.
Lenny: What was it that made you want to take on a coaching position while in the midst of what most would argue is the peak of your career?
Duncan: Anyone that argues that I’d absolutely agree with but still I need to be preparing for my future. Look, I'm pushing thirty-eight years old. Not over the hill yet but no young upstart. I definitely have more years of my career behind me than I do in front of it. If I’m lucky I might have eight, maybe ten years left, if I’m not, hell it could all be over two weeks from now. I have to be prepared for what life after competition will look like for me.
Lenny: I understand that but what is it that has drawn you to coaching rather than say, commentating, producing or trying to leverage your name into another field like acting?
Duncan chuckles.
Duncan: I’m no actor Lenny. What you see is that you get with me. More than that though it’s about paying respect to where I’ve come from. I was trained in traditional Lancashire Wrestling, or Catch-as-catch-can as it’s more commonly known. I can trace my lineage from students to teachers back over a hundred years. It’s a big part of what has inspired my decision to shed the Shepard name and go back to who I really am. I have a responsibility to continue on that lineage. I don’t want it to be the one who lets the line die. Are there other people out there I could be teaching? Almost certainly, but I’m excited to see what I can do with Sonya.
Lenny: Now you’ve mentioned catch-as-catch-can, that’s of course a very traditional style of wrestling in the UK and was really the sport that led to the rise in popularity of professional wrestling there too right?
Duncan: Absolutely. These days young wrestlers are being more and more influenced by American, Japanese, Mexican and many other styles but it’s good to know that our British style is still being taught and that’s something I want to keep being a part of.
Lenny: Your opponent for TriForce Heroes, Sebastian Everett-Bryce is another British wrestler, in fact you’re both born and raised in London. Do you have any mutual training roots there?
Duncan shakes his head furciferously.
Duncan: Not that I know of. Sebastian and I may share a homeland but the way we came up was entirely different. Catch wrestling was always the sport of the common man, coal miners, farm hands and the like. Now I can’t claim to be a champion for the working class man but I’m a damn lot closer to it then Sebastian Everett-Bryce will ever be. I don’t know who trained him but I’ve always imagined them to have a pencil thin moustache and train in breeches and riding boots.
Lenny: Right, and when November 1st comes around and you two finally meet with the Final Boss championship on the line, how do you see it going?
Duncan: Simple Lenny, the same way it always goes when Sebastian and I go one on one. I overpower him, out manoeuvre him, out wrestle him and whether it ends by pinfall or submission I walk away the winner.
Lenny: You sound very sure of that.
Duncan: I’d bet this title on it Lenny.
Lenny thinks for a second then gives Duncan an ‘I see what you did there’ point and look.
Lenny: Well that’s all we’ve got time for today but remember to pick up your tickets for Level Up TriForce Heroes and turn show up in just any old shirt, fly your colours as a Level Updog with one of these or any of the huge range of t-shirts, hoodies, hats and more available on the Level Up Wrestling Webstore.
1972 - Blackpool Tower Circus, UK
“I’m nervous Coach, my stomach’s knotting up something rotten,” said Ted Jones, a young up and coming wrestler about to compete on the biggest stage of his career to date in front of hundreds of people. He sat on a stool in the corner of the ring, waiting for the bell that would open the first round.
“I know you are lad, but you’ve got to keep it together once that bell rings,” replied Michael Hill, his coach and his second for this match. The older man was crouched down in front of his prize student.
Ted looked across the ring at his opponent. Ted wasn’t a tall man and even with both men still sitting down he could tell he was giving up several inches of height and reach. His opponent was older too, he had maybe ten years on young Ted and that didn’t just mean ten years of physical development but experience too. “He’s gonna kill me coach. He’s gonna absolutely kill me.”
Michael waved off this concern. “He’s not gonna kill ya lad. It might feel like he’s trying to but he’s not. Win or lose, everyone’s going home to a hot dinner and a cup of tea when this is all over, right.”
“But, but, what if-?” Ted stammered.
“Listen to me lad. This ain’t your first trip around the block is it. Just ‘cause you got a few more people looking than you’re used to don’t change anything. No more talk about him killin’ ya. Ya know my coach, old Arthur rest his soul, he wrestled German soldiers in waterlogged trenches in World War One. He knew what it meant to wrestle a man who was trying to kill you. He could have told you some stories that’d make your skin crawl. You don’t have to worry about that though do ya. So just go out there and take that bastard by the legs like we planned alright?”
“Right.”
‘Ten seconds,” said the referee. Ted Jones got to his feet. Michael Hill grabbed his stool and took it with him as he slipped out of the ring onto the floor. Then the bell rang.
October 27th 2022 - Atlantic City, NJ
TriForce Heroes. The name was still a sore spot for Duncan. He had come into Level Up hot, becoming the first ever Power Champion, defending that title against Don Tirri and Larry Tact, winning a champion vs champion match against Sidroy Covington. Duncan had all the momentum and the weight of expectation behind him. He was expected to become the first TriForce champion and be the first to challenge the Final Boss at Level Up’s biggest show, Final
Fantasy. That wasn’t how it had gone though and the smallest of mistakes had meant he had walked away from that match empty handed. In time he had rectified that mistake, eventually still becoming Final Boss champion and even going so far as to defend that title against the man who had bested him that night, if only for three seconds. Still, that loss had set him back five months and Duncan didn’t feel like he had that time to waste. He could already have been the greatest Final Boss champion in the company’s history by now and cut the number of names on that list in half if only he had succeeded on the night of November 2nd 2021.
He was looking at the poster from that event. He had copies of the posters from all the biggest events he had taken part in over the years. He kept them in the hopes of one day using them to decorate the walls of his own gym but for now they mostly sat in tubes in his closet. This one he had grabbed on his last trip back to Indianapolis and brought back with him to his room kindly provided by the Benson Estate.
Now, as he looked at the picture of himself, set beside Bert McAlroy and Sidroy Covington, Duncan realised just how similar of a situation he found himself in. Coming into TriForce Heroes as a champion and on a hot streak. He had all the momentum behind him, the weight of expectation from the Level Up fans and the greater wrestling world on his shoulders. Victory meant another step up on the road to a lofty goal that once seemed unfathomable but now seemed only a hair's breadth from his grasp. Defeat would be the ultimate setback, the snake on the penultimate space on the board that would see him returned all the way back to zero. Forced to start all over again with time he didn’t know if he still had.
No, that wasn’t how TriForce Heroes was going to go this year. No one was going to buck the script, rewrite the ending at the eleventh hour. This time the story would play out exactly as it was expected to, exactly as it was supposed to. No one, not the fans, not the Developer, not Vhodka Black or Sarah Wolf or Steven Stratford, none of them wanted to see Duncan lose. Those three Fight! NYC alumni, they weren’t just fighting for a shot at the Final Boss title. They were fighting to be the one to face him, to face the dominant champion and try to take his crown on the biggest stage of all, just as Duncan, Bert and Sid had been a year ago. Not to be the pedestrian first defence of a champion only a few weeks deep into a nothing reign.
A year ago Duncan Shepard had allowed the story to go awry. Duncan Ryder would not repeat that mistake.
2008 - London, UK
“That’s it. Really torque the wrist and keep it elevated. He can’t straighten up if you’ve got all that pressure pushing him down on his shoulder,” Ted ‘Jonesy’ Jones barked orders at his promising student from the apron on the ring in the centre of the Thames Valley Wrestling school. Duncan had only been training with him for a few months but already Jonesy could tell there was something different about him. He had scoffed the first time Duncan had walked into his gym and told him that he was going to be a world champion one day. Already now though that bold claim wasn’t feeling as outlandish as it first had done.
“I’ve got it, I’ve got it. I think I’ve got the arm wringer down now Jonesy. Maybe we can move on to something a bit more challenging?” Duncan called back to him without looking, still working the hold as his sparring partner struggled to free himself. Eventually he did so, ducking low and twisting under Duncan’s hold to come up in an arm wringer of his own.
“Got it have ya?” Jonesy taunted him with a chuckle, enjoying the pained look on Duncan’s face as he opponent twisted his shoulder. Without a word Duncan ducked his head and rolled forward. He kipped back to his feet, swept his partner’s legs out from under him then dropped into a scarf hold.
“Yeah, I’ve got it,” said Duncan, with that smug prick grin he always seemed to have slapped across his face.
Jonesy climbed into the ring. “Get up. Get off him,” he said grumpily, gesturing for Duncan to get back to his feet. “You, laps until I say stop. Scram,” he added to the man still on the floor with a sharp jerk of his thumb back towards the door. The man groaned but said nothing. Jonesy met Duncan in the middle of the ring as the young man got back to his feet. Jonesy had never been tall and had long since let his once athletic body turn to fat for the love of beer and battered fish. By comparison Duncan was six feet and three inches of conditioned muscle. To an outsider the concept of any kind of physical competition between the two of them would have seemed laughable in its expectedly one sided nature.
“Right then, grab my arm,” said Jonesy, offering his right arm up for Duncan to take hold of. Duncan did so without hesitation and applied a textbook arm wringer just as he had done moments before and hundreds of times previously over the past months. Jonesy countered just as Duncan’s previous partner had, making use of his smaller stature to get underneath Duncan’s arm and apply the same hold himself. Jonesy then cranked Duncan’s wrist and shoulder hard enough to drive the younger man down onto one knee with an involuntary yelp of pain. Duncan made to counter just as he had before, rolling forward and kipping up to his feet. Before Duncan could even finish straightening up though he was met with a stiff forearm shot that struck his jaw, snapping his head to the side and knocking him back onto the mat. A second later Duncan was in a straight armbar and tapping out.
Jonesy let the hold go and got back to his feet. Duncan laid there a few moments longer working out the pain in his elbow and rubbing the impact point on his jaw.
“You still think you’ve got what it takes to be a world champion?” Jonesy asked, looming over him.
“Yeah,” Duncan replied, though a little more sheepishly than usual.
“Then cut the fancy crap until I tell you you’re ready for the fancy crap. Fundamentals first, you hear me?”
Duncan nodded.
“You understand me?”
“Yeah, I understand.”
“Then what did I say?”
“Fundamentals first,” said Duncan.
“I can’t hear you.”
“Fundamentals first!”
2022 - Atlantic City, NJ
“No, no, no, no, no,” said Duncan Ryder was evident and rising exasperation standing up without resistance despite the apparent arm wringer currently being applied to him by WGWF villainess Sonya Benson, “how are you still not getting this? Torque the wrist. Grip the hand hear and hear, the fleshy parts beneath the thumb and pinky. Keep the hand tight into your body and keep it elevated. If you don’t keep my hand higher than my shoulder then there’s no pressure, nothing holding me down and I can just stand up like I just did and counter or hit you right in the face.
Sonya rolled her eyes at him, the same way she seemed to do every time Duncan explained a basic, functional and unspectacular move to her for a second or more time. Each time she did so it made Duncan seeth. Had this been a typical student teacher relationship Duncan would have had no qualms knocking the disrespect out of his student just like he had had the ego knocked out of him in the early days of his own training. Well, some of the ego at least. This wasn’t a normal student teacher relationship though, not only was Duncan directly employed by the Benson estate in this role he was in fact contractually forbidden from any form of direct physical ‘motivation’ that Sonya deemed ‘unnecessary’ to the execution of his responsibilities. The definitions of motivation and necessity had been left deliberately vague and in the weeks Duncan had been working with Sonya he’d deduced that it simply meant anything she didn’t feel like doing at any given moment.
“Well how am I supposed to keep the hand close to me and above your shoulder when you’re taller than me? I can’t do both.” Sonya mimed holding Duncan’s arm above her head with both hands, displaying the height in her mind she would have the hold it at to achieve the position Duncan was instructing her to get to.
“You don’t come up to me, you bring me down to you. I’ve told you this already. That’s why you put the pressure on the wrist. Torque the wrist and the body follows. Then you’re in control,” Duncan explained again, struggling to maintain the tenuous grip he still held on his patience.
Sonya huffed, “I don’t get why we’re even doing this. I can’t beat someone by twisting their arm a bit. I told you, I need to learn to finish people. Like that superkick I did.”
“Yeah, great, like everyone else in the wrestling world you can throw a side kick without the actual flexibility and balance to do it properly, so you bend yourself over backwards to get your leg up and pretend it was good.”
“It was good,” Sonya protested, “I knocked that woman out.”
“Yes, you knocked out a non competitor who wasn’t expecting to get attacked. Well done,” Duncan sighed and walked a few steps away, pinching at the bridge of his nose. “How has a lineage stretching back over a hundred years come to this?” he muttered to himself under his breath.
“What?”
“Nothing,” Duncan said, applying a false smile as he turned back, “let’s try this again.”
October 31st 2022 - Allentown, PA
Duncan Ryder, Level Up Wrestling Final Boss champion stands in the back of the PPL Center, set back against bare grey breezeblock walls. His shirt is plain crisp white and and jeans a common faded blue, making the shining gold of the championship belt draped across his shoulder stand out against the otherwise near monochrome scene. He takes a deep breath, gathers his thoughts then looks sternly down the camera.
Duncan: Who’d have thought it would come to this Sebastian? And I will be using your full given name, Seb, that’s what your friends call you but while the animosity we have held for one another in years past may have waned make no mistake Sebastian, we are not friends. How could we be, when you’re intent on taking away from me the object I hold most dearly in this world? When you seek to end my reign as Final Boss Champion before I have achieved all that I strive to achieve in the time that I possess this title? It’s true Sebastian that there was a long time where I would have caved in that smug face of yours for no greater reason than I wanted to and you deserved it. That time has passed, fortunately for you, but that doesn’t mean I’m about to go easy on you tomorrow night either.
Duncan breaks his look into the camera for a moment, shuffling on his feet and readjusting the championship over his shoulder. When he begins speaking again he does so still looking slightly out of shot.
Duncan: You know, when UGWC ditched me I thought I was done with you. I thought I always would be. I mean, what reason would we have to cross paths again? I had no reason to return to the Coalition whether they wanted me to or not. What reason did you have to go anywhere else, when you were being treated like the Coalition’s new golden boy? Being primed to be the new media friendly face of the promotion. Forever you were being thrust into main events and title shots you’d done little to earn besides being angry at the champion and lashing out at innocent bystanders about it. Meanwhile I, a man who upon my departure was undefeated against the past three World Heavyweight Champions had yet to be granted anything close to a shot at that title.
Duncan takes a deep breath that visibly inflates his chest then he lets it out in a short sharp sigh.
Duncan: It was clear that a ceiling had been placed above my head, a ceiling both low and artificial and there is no greater proof of its existence than where I stand right now. From mid card reject to inaugural Power Champion to Final Boss and one day away from matching the promotional record for successful defences of this title. Every day since we last shared a UGWC ring has been about proving that I am more, that I am better than the Coalition ever gave me the opportunity to be.
Duncan’s gaze focusses right back on the camera and he leans forward to look into it even closer, as if doing so will let him see the people watching him through it on the other side.
Duncan: Do you remember that match Sebastian? Do you remember the first time we went one on one? I’m sure you do. I’m sure you remember exactly how I outwitted you. How I took your hold and turned it against you and walked away the victor. If I remember correctly you weren’t too happy with that. A lot of excuses were made. You didn’t beat me, I beat myself. That’s what you said wasn’t it. It all sounded to me a lot like the desperate protestations of someone who couldn’t accept that they weren’t the best technical wrestler the company had to offer.
Duncan straightens up again and runs his free hand thoughtfully across the stubble of his jawline.
Duncan: And now I stand here wondering what’s really changed since that day? I’ll concede it’s clear you’ve matured these past couple of years but what has that gotten you? You’ve never returned to that position at the top of the card that you so stubbornly held on to for those closing months of 2020 have you. Instead apparently content to focus your energy on the UGWC Chaos title. In fact as I speak you’re in Chicago aren’t you, defending that title against the same man who once took it away from me. Against the same man you so spectacularly failed to keep off my back when the Cross-Hemisphere championship was mine for the taking. We’ll add it to the list of things you’ve so confidently said you’d do and yet failed to live up to your word. A list that includes winning The Last of Us Part 2, a list that by the time today is over may very well include your claim of defending your title against Montague Cervantes and a list onto which I’ll be sure to add any and all claims you make to your intention of holding this title-
Duncan slaps his free hand against the championship on his shoulder.
Duncan: -my title, high above your head before tomorrow night is over. It should be clear by now Sebastian that when it comes to wrestling I have your number. I beat you in 2021 and I beat you at The Last of Us and I have no reason to believe that tomorrow night I won’t beat you again. Where you’ve stagnated in the years since that first match I’ve only gotten better. Where you’ve settled into a place among the shuffle of my former employer I’ve risen to the very top of Level Up Wrestling and I didn’t do it by throwing tantrums, I didn’t do it by having someone jump my enemies from behind with a baseball bat, I did it by giving this sport, this company, this championship, my all. I did it by battling the very best opponents and my own demons in equal measure.
Duncan runs his hand down his face, looking contemplative.
Duncan: It’s true that when Combat Evolved came around my demons had taken over. Perhaps it was because they took the reins that I’m still here holding this championship and speaking to you. You might think that now I'm in control again, perhaps I’ve lost an edge. I would urge you not to let such a thought take root. The Duncan Ryder that is going to walk down to the ring in the PPL Center tomorrow night may not be as violent as the Duncan Shepard, or the Harbinger, who defended this title at Combat Evolved but he is smarter, wiser, his mind is sharper and clearer than it has been in a long time and he is more determined than ever to prove that he still belongs at the pinnacle of Level Up Wrestling. That he, that I, am Fundamental to this company and to this title.
Duncan takes the title off his shoulder and holds it in his hand, letting the strap dangle as he holds the main plate up to the camera.
Duncan: You want to take this away from me Sebastian? I’d advise you to tap into some of that hatred you used to hold for me because I’m going to make you goddamn kill me before I let you take this away. Because I want you to bring me everything you’ve got Sebastian I’m going to leave you with a little gift, something to help get you there.
Duncan trails off and looks away past the camera, then turns back.
Duncan: Sorry Sebastian, your gift is going to have to wait. Something’s come up. I’ve got to go.
Duncan fixes the camera with one last firm glare.
Duncan: Excuse me.
With a wry smile on his lips Duncan returns the Final Boss championship to his shoulder and walks away.
The sun was beginning to set bringing the rolling countryside down to a pale half light. It also marked the shift change for the town coal mine. Dozens of men filed out of the claustrophobic hole in the ground, all filthy, streaked with sweat and soot. One of them was Bill Ashworth. Like all the men who worked the mine his body had grown strong and lean from long days of swinging a pickaxe and hauling rocks. Like all the men around him he was exhausted from another long day of punishing manual labour. Unlike the rest of these men though Bill’s exertions for the day were far from over.
‘Big’ Benny Thompson was a farmhand that worked the fields on the Hargreaves farm. There was a reason big had become as much his first name as the one his mother gave him. He was a tall, broad shouldered bastard who made his living being able to sling hay bales better than whole teams of ordinary men. In the pub two nights prior some drunk had proclaimed that there wasn’t a man in town Ben Thompson couldn’t maul like a bear. Bill Ashworth had taken exception to this, because everyone with a lick of sense knew that Bill was the best wrestler in town. A few choice words later and the match had been made. Half an hour from the end of the shift, on the bottom field of the Hargreaves farm.
Bill headed straight there, he didn’t have any time to waste. It took the best part of ten minutes from the end of his shift to get back out into the daylight and fifteen minutes to walk from the mine to the farm. As the miners walked back into town a few peeled off, headed home or to the pub to settle in for the evening but most followed Bill gathering around him like an army escorting their champion.
From a street that stretched off to the right came rapid excitable footsteps and a child, no older than ten ran out and straight up Bill.
“Are you really going to wrestle Big Ben Dad?” the boy asked.
“Aye lad. You coming to watch me?”
The boy nodded enthusiastically and fell into step beside his father, struggling to keep up with the man’s purposeful stride.
A few minutes later the crowd of miners passed through the gate that led onto the field where another crowd was waiting for them. Benny Thompson stood a head taller than any of those around him. He was stripped down to his boots and a pair of trunks. Bill never broke stride, making straight for his opponent, stripping off his soot stained shirt as he did so. The two men came into arm’s reach of one another and locked eyes. Around them the two groups, miners and farmhands traded insults and loudly proclaimed the wagers they were willing to make in support of their man’s skills. Old Jack stood between them and beckoned the crowd back.
“Le’s ‘ave a good clean wres’lin match lads. Best two out of three falls wins. You both ready?”
“Aye,” the two men said in near unison.
“Then get wrestling.”
October 11th 2022 - Indianapolis, IN
It was absolutely bloody typical. Duncan had made the choice to move to Indianapolis and settle once he had signed with Level Up, knowing that the city was the promotion’s home base. They were practically residents of the Farmer’s Coliseum and Duncan always liked to be close to where he worked. He had lived in LA while working for GIW and had upped sticks and crossed the country when the merger that created UGWC took the company to Chicago. Why travel more than you had to right? Since signing the lease on his apartment though there had been no Level Up shows in Indianapolis however, none. That was until the week that Duncan had found he didn't want to be in Indianapolis anymore and had taken the opportunity to get out of town. That was when Level Up decided to make its big return to the Indiana Farmers Coliseum. Sometimes Duncan really wondered if he was the constant butt of some kind of universal joke.
That didn’t matter now though. All that mattered was that another show, another night of EXP action was in the books and with his victory over Bam Miller, Duncan’s record had stretched to thirteen and one.
As he sat down in the locker room taking a moment to drink some water and catch his breath Duncan took a moment to consider the turns his life had taken this past year. Despite the places it had taken him Duncan knew he would always have an affection for his time as Duncan Shepard. He had renewed his career when it could have just as easily come to a whimpering halt. Not only that but it had set him on the path for the very best run of his career, the run that had finally seen him make good on the words he had spoken the first day he had set foot in a wrestling gym, that he would be a world champion one day. There were parts of the last eighteen months Duncan wished had gone differently, that perhaps he could have handled differently, but he couldn’t change any of that now and he chose to look back on that time with positivity and no regrets.
Even so it had felt good to go out there in front of that crowd again, laid bare, in a way he had never done so in Level Up. Gone were all the falsehoods, gone was his armour and the music that portrayed him as the all conquering hero. In their place was the name with which he had been born and music that he felt spoke for him as a human being. With those things and those things alone he had proven that inside that ring Duncan Ryder was everything Duncan Shepard had been Perhaps in some ways he was even more.
Bam Miller, game as he was though, was not the true test. Since Doom on May 10th, Duncan Shepard had defended the Final Boss Championship three times against a total of seven challengers. Now Duncan Ryder was the Final Boss though and to date he hadn’t defended the Final Boss championship once. Like Shepard before him, Ryder’s first title defence would be one on one against someone younger, hungry to etch their name in the annals of these early years of Level Up history, someone who Duncan held respect for, begrudgingly in this more recent case. In a few short weeks Duncan Ryder would face the toughest test of his short Level Up career when he would step into the ring with Sebastian Everett-Bryce and would have no choice but to prove that Ryder could be everything Shepard had been before him.
1930 - Stockport, England
The pub was called the King’s Head. It was a traditional establishment that was popular with war veterans and the lads from the local Lancashire Wrestling gym. Arthur Ashworth was both of these things. On this night he was already four pints deep and his lips were growing looser with every passing moment. All around him men were laughing and joking and though he was seated right in the very middle of it all he was always in a way separated from it all. Everyone in town knew his name. They knew he had a history that demanded respect. From his position of detachment, despite the noise around him he was able to listen in just enough on every conversation going on around him.
To his left Jack was bragging to a group about the girl he’d taken home the night before.
To his right George was complaining to Henry and James about the argument he’d had with his wife this morning.
Down the table were a series of conversations about work, football or training. At the very end of the table, furthest from where Arthur sat were two of the young lads, not yet out of the last years of their teens.
“I don’t think I can keep training all winter. The gym is freezing. I feel like one of these days my fingers are gonna freeze stiff and break right off,” said one of them.
“Ah the cold ain’t so bad,” his friend replied, “I’m just so damn tired by the time I’m done with work.”
“Oi, you lads,” said Arthur. He barely raised his voice but his words cut through the din effortlessly. The two youngsters ceased their conversation and looked over to him with startled expressions.
“Us?” one of them asked.
“Yeah, you two. What’re your names?
All around them conversations were quieting or coming to a halt entirely and people paid attention to the emerging situation.
“I’m Michael,” said the first lad, who had complained about the cold.
“And I’m Charlie,” said his tired friend.
“Right, right, Michael and Charlie,” Arthur said, nodding and pointing to each of them in turn. “What do you boys do for work?”
“We both work for the town council,” said Michael.
Arthur nodded sagely, “oh, you work for the Council do you both hm? Hard work is it?”
The two lads looked at each other. It was like they knew they were being set up but didn’t have any idea of how to avoid the trap they were hurtling forward into. “Yeah, they keep us busy,” said Charlie tentatively.
“Busy?” Arthur asked rhetorically, “busy sitting on your arses I bet.” Neither of the boys knew how to respond to that. “You two want to be wrestlers do you?”
“Yes,” they said, not quite in unison.
“Then don’t let me ‘ear you saying nothing about being too tired to train after a day’s work sat in town ‘all. My dad right, used to work twelve hour days in a coal mine, then he’d walk out that mine, down the road and be wrestling less than an hour later. When I was a boy I once watched him walk outta work, didn’t even break stride then go wrestle and beat a man twice his size. There ain’t no such thing as too tired. You ‘ear me?”
The two boys shared a look then turned back to Arthur, nodding. “We hear you,” Michael said.
“What was your toughest fight?” Charlie asked, seeing the opportunity while they had the man’s attention to pry for a story.
“My toughest fight?” Arthur pondered for a moment and finished off the pint set down near his right hand, bringing his total up to five for the evening. “That’s a day I remember clear as if it was yesterday. It was against this German bloke.”
“At the Olympics right?” Jack, sitting next to Arthur, asked.
“No, in a trench on the border between Belgium and France.”
The pub got noticeably quieter after he said that. Everyone knew where this story was going.
“What happened?” asked Michael, vocalising what everyone in the vicinity was thinking but were all afraid to ask.
“It was 1917,” Arthur began, “we’d been dug in for months. Every couple of days we’d take a run at them or they’d take a run at us. Maybe once in a while we’d take a trench then they’d just take it back. No one was winning. We were all just dying to get nowhere.” As he spoke Arthur drifted off a little, as if he wasn’t just telling the story but was reliving it vividly. “This day it was their turn to have a pop at us and they did, a good one. Got right up to us. I was up on the lip of the trench as they came, shooting. Next thing I knew I was on my back in the mud, dizzy as anything.” He shook his head as if trying to clear the same cobwebs that had afflicted him thirteen years earlier. “When I come back to my senses I tried to get back up but before I can I see this man in a German uniform on the lip, right where I’d been standing. I go for my gun but I’ve dropped it and when I try to crawl over to it the bastard jumps down. He points his rifle at me, right at my face and I think that’s it, I’m dead. He doesn’t shoot though. He looks me in the eye and freezes, so I tackled him. It’d been pissing it down on and off for days at this point. The whole trench was just slick wet mud. I can’t get any grip but neither can he and we both fall over. He’s punching me and biting me, he sticks his thumbs in my eyes. He uses every dirty trick in the book and more besides. I remember what my dad taught me though. It’s hard to get a grip of anything ‘cause we’re both so slippery but I get on his back and get a choke on ‘im and I squeeze it until he stops fighting back, then I squeeze it a bit longer, just to be sure you understand.”
Everyone around Arthur had fallen silent, listening to him speak and they remained that way as if waiting for permission to go back to their conversations.
“You won’t ever fight a man who’ll fight harder than a man fighting for his life. I hope none of you young lads will ever have to.”
October 18th 2022 - Indianapolis, IN
We open up on a sit down interview set. Two comfortable looking chairs have been set either side of a banner displaying the Level Up logo. Around those seats are several chest only mannequins wearing official Level Up wrestling merchandise. Ones to the right are wearing generic Level Up branded shirts while the ones to the left are split between Duncan Shepard shirts and hoodies each marked with bright red labels saying ‘Reduced to Clear’ and another shirt saying ‘I am Fundamental’ with its own bright green label saying ‘Brand New’.
In the seat to the left is Level Up Final Boss Champion Duncan Ryder. Across from him is Level Up interviewer and merchandise salesman, Lenny Brasco.
Lenny: What is up Level Updogs? I’m Lenny Brasco here with a YouTube exclusive interview here on the Level Up channel. My guest today is none other than the reigning, defending Final Boss champion and a man whose latest addition to the Level Up store, the I Am Fundamental t-shirt available in both black or white is on track to be our biggest seller of October 2022, it is of course Duncan Ryder.
Duncan: You guys really didn’t waste any time with this one did you.
Duncan shifts in his seat, twisting to get a better look at the new first bearing his name displayed beside.
Lenny: Strike while the printer is hot, that’s what I always say. Now Duncan we’re two weeks out from Level Up Wrestling’s next Pay Per View, TriForce Heroes, taking place at the PPL Center in Allentown, Pennsylvania, tickets still available. Naturally your mind is set on your defence of the Final Boss title against Sebastian Everett-Bryce but that’s not what I want to talk about first, I’d like to get a little side-tracked, distracted, if you will. You’ve spent many years of your career on the road, competing in many places but upon signing with Level Up, despite our schedule allowing you to pursue further opportunities outside of the company, you have always chosen not to, am I right?
Duncan: Yeah, pretty much, aside from a couple of special occasions.
Lenny: Why is that?
Duncan: It’s simple really. Level Up has given me a great opportunity to establish myself as one of the top names in the wrestling industry today. I intend on making the most of that opportunity by focussing all of my energy into it and into the defence of the Final Boss title and not exhausting myself travelling day in and day out around the country hunting paychecks. So far I think you’d agree that it’s a strategy that’s paid off.
Lenny: I agree, it has. Which brings me to my next question, what made you decide to take on a heavily publicised coaching position with one of the most detested figures in professional wrestling, billionaire villainess Sonya Benson?
Duncan smiles and slowly nods his head.
Duncan: I get what you’re saying Lenny but really these are two entirely different things. The tolls taken on the body travelling and competing are at a whole different level to what it takes for me to go to Atlantic City and train one person.
Lenny: Even with the absolute media circus that has surrounded the announcement?
Duncan: That’s one of the many great perks of my association with Hitmaker-Yamazaki Enterprises. They take care of that side of things so I have more time to focus on the things that I’m good at. That’s winning wrestling matches.
Lenny: What was it that made you want to take on a coaching position while in the midst of what most would argue is the peak of your career?
Duncan: Anyone that argues that I’d absolutely agree with but still I need to be preparing for my future. Look, I'm pushing thirty-eight years old. Not over the hill yet but no young upstart. I definitely have more years of my career behind me than I do in front of it. If I’m lucky I might have eight, maybe ten years left, if I’m not, hell it could all be over two weeks from now. I have to be prepared for what life after competition will look like for me.
Lenny: I understand that but what is it that has drawn you to coaching rather than say, commentating, producing or trying to leverage your name into another field like acting?
Duncan chuckles.
Duncan: I’m no actor Lenny. What you see is that you get with me. More than that though it’s about paying respect to where I’ve come from. I was trained in traditional Lancashire Wrestling, or Catch-as-catch-can as it’s more commonly known. I can trace my lineage from students to teachers back over a hundred years. It’s a big part of what has inspired my decision to shed the Shepard name and go back to who I really am. I have a responsibility to continue on that lineage. I don’t want it to be the one who lets the line die. Are there other people out there I could be teaching? Almost certainly, but I’m excited to see what I can do with Sonya.
Lenny: Now you’ve mentioned catch-as-catch-can, that’s of course a very traditional style of wrestling in the UK and was really the sport that led to the rise in popularity of professional wrestling there too right?
Duncan: Absolutely. These days young wrestlers are being more and more influenced by American, Japanese, Mexican and many other styles but it’s good to know that our British style is still being taught and that’s something I want to keep being a part of.
Lenny: Your opponent for TriForce Heroes, Sebastian Everett-Bryce is another British wrestler, in fact you’re both born and raised in London. Do you have any mutual training roots there?
Duncan shakes his head furciferously.
Duncan: Not that I know of. Sebastian and I may share a homeland but the way we came up was entirely different. Catch wrestling was always the sport of the common man, coal miners, farm hands and the like. Now I can’t claim to be a champion for the working class man but I’m a damn lot closer to it then Sebastian Everett-Bryce will ever be. I don’t know who trained him but I’ve always imagined them to have a pencil thin moustache and train in breeches and riding boots.
Lenny: Right, and when November 1st comes around and you two finally meet with the Final Boss championship on the line, how do you see it going?
Duncan: Simple Lenny, the same way it always goes when Sebastian and I go one on one. I overpower him, out manoeuvre him, out wrestle him and whether it ends by pinfall or submission I walk away the winner.
Lenny: You sound very sure of that.
Duncan: I’d bet this title on it Lenny.
Lenny thinks for a second then gives Duncan an ‘I see what you did there’ point and look.
Lenny: Well that’s all we’ve got time for today but remember to pick up your tickets for Level Up TriForce Heroes and turn show up in just any old shirt, fly your colours as a Level Updog with one of these or any of the huge range of t-shirts, hoodies, hats and more available on the Level Up Wrestling Webstore.
1972 - Blackpool Tower Circus, UK
“I’m nervous Coach, my stomach’s knotting up something rotten,” said Ted Jones, a young up and coming wrestler about to compete on the biggest stage of his career to date in front of hundreds of people. He sat on a stool in the corner of the ring, waiting for the bell that would open the first round.
“I know you are lad, but you’ve got to keep it together once that bell rings,” replied Michael Hill, his coach and his second for this match. The older man was crouched down in front of his prize student.
Ted looked across the ring at his opponent. Ted wasn’t a tall man and even with both men still sitting down he could tell he was giving up several inches of height and reach. His opponent was older too, he had maybe ten years on young Ted and that didn’t just mean ten years of physical development but experience too. “He’s gonna kill me coach. He’s gonna absolutely kill me.”
Michael waved off this concern. “He’s not gonna kill ya lad. It might feel like he’s trying to but he’s not. Win or lose, everyone’s going home to a hot dinner and a cup of tea when this is all over, right.”
“But, but, what if-?” Ted stammered.
“Listen to me lad. This ain’t your first trip around the block is it. Just ‘cause you got a few more people looking than you’re used to don’t change anything. No more talk about him killin’ ya. Ya know my coach, old Arthur rest his soul, he wrestled German soldiers in waterlogged trenches in World War One. He knew what it meant to wrestle a man who was trying to kill you. He could have told you some stories that’d make your skin crawl. You don’t have to worry about that though do ya. So just go out there and take that bastard by the legs like we planned alright?”
“Right.”
‘Ten seconds,” said the referee. Ted Jones got to his feet. Michael Hill grabbed his stool and took it with him as he slipped out of the ring onto the floor. Then the bell rang.
October 27th 2022 - Atlantic City, NJ
TriForce Heroes. The name was still a sore spot for Duncan. He had come into Level Up hot, becoming the first ever Power Champion, defending that title against Don Tirri and Larry Tact, winning a champion vs champion match against Sidroy Covington. Duncan had all the momentum and the weight of expectation behind him. He was expected to become the first TriForce champion and be the first to challenge the Final Boss at Level Up’s biggest show, Final
Fantasy. That wasn’t how it had gone though and the smallest of mistakes had meant he had walked away from that match empty handed. In time he had rectified that mistake, eventually still becoming Final Boss champion and even going so far as to defend that title against the man who had bested him that night, if only for three seconds. Still, that loss had set him back five months and Duncan didn’t feel like he had that time to waste. He could already have been the greatest Final Boss champion in the company’s history by now and cut the number of names on that list in half if only he had succeeded on the night of November 2nd 2021.
He was looking at the poster from that event. He had copies of the posters from all the biggest events he had taken part in over the years. He kept them in the hopes of one day using them to decorate the walls of his own gym but for now they mostly sat in tubes in his closet. This one he had grabbed on his last trip back to Indianapolis and brought back with him to his room kindly provided by the Benson Estate.
Now, as he looked at the picture of himself, set beside Bert McAlroy and Sidroy Covington, Duncan realised just how similar of a situation he found himself in. Coming into TriForce Heroes as a champion and on a hot streak. He had all the momentum behind him, the weight of expectation from the Level Up fans and the greater wrestling world on his shoulders. Victory meant another step up on the road to a lofty goal that once seemed unfathomable but now seemed only a hair's breadth from his grasp. Defeat would be the ultimate setback, the snake on the penultimate space on the board that would see him returned all the way back to zero. Forced to start all over again with time he didn’t know if he still had.
No, that wasn’t how TriForce Heroes was going to go this year. No one was going to buck the script, rewrite the ending at the eleventh hour. This time the story would play out exactly as it was expected to, exactly as it was supposed to. No one, not the fans, not the Developer, not Vhodka Black or Sarah Wolf or Steven Stratford, none of them wanted to see Duncan lose. Those three Fight! NYC alumni, they weren’t just fighting for a shot at the Final Boss title. They were fighting to be the one to face him, to face the dominant champion and try to take his crown on the biggest stage of all, just as Duncan, Bert and Sid had been a year ago. Not to be the pedestrian first defence of a champion only a few weeks deep into a nothing reign.
A year ago Duncan Shepard had allowed the story to go awry. Duncan Ryder would not repeat that mistake.
2008 - London, UK
“That’s it. Really torque the wrist and keep it elevated. He can’t straighten up if you’ve got all that pressure pushing him down on his shoulder,” Ted ‘Jonesy’ Jones barked orders at his promising student from the apron on the ring in the centre of the Thames Valley Wrestling school. Duncan had only been training with him for a few months but already Jonesy could tell there was something different about him. He had scoffed the first time Duncan had walked into his gym and told him that he was going to be a world champion one day. Already now though that bold claim wasn’t feeling as outlandish as it first had done.
“I’ve got it, I’ve got it. I think I’ve got the arm wringer down now Jonesy. Maybe we can move on to something a bit more challenging?” Duncan called back to him without looking, still working the hold as his sparring partner struggled to free himself. Eventually he did so, ducking low and twisting under Duncan’s hold to come up in an arm wringer of his own.
“Got it have ya?” Jonesy taunted him with a chuckle, enjoying the pained look on Duncan’s face as he opponent twisted his shoulder. Without a word Duncan ducked his head and rolled forward. He kipped back to his feet, swept his partner’s legs out from under him then dropped into a scarf hold.
“Yeah, I’ve got it,” said Duncan, with that smug prick grin he always seemed to have slapped across his face.
Jonesy climbed into the ring. “Get up. Get off him,” he said grumpily, gesturing for Duncan to get back to his feet. “You, laps until I say stop. Scram,” he added to the man still on the floor with a sharp jerk of his thumb back towards the door. The man groaned but said nothing. Jonesy met Duncan in the middle of the ring as the young man got back to his feet. Jonesy had never been tall and had long since let his once athletic body turn to fat for the love of beer and battered fish. By comparison Duncan was six feet and three inches of conditioned muscle. To an outsider the concept of any kind of physical competition between the two of them would have seemed laughable in its expectedly one sided nature.
“Right then, grab my arm,” said Jonesy, offering his right arm up for Duncan to take hold of. Duncan did so without hesitation and applied a textbook arm wringer just as he had done moments before and hundreds of times previously over the past months. Jonesy countered just as Duncan’s previous partner had, making use of his smaller stature to get underneath Duncan’s arm and apply the same hold himself. Jonesy then cranked Duncan’s wrist and shoulder hard enough to drive the younger man down onto one knee with an involuntary yelp of pain. Duncan made to counter just as he had before, rolling forward and kipping up to his feet. Before Duncan could even finish straightening up though he was met with a stiff forearm shot that struck his jaw, snapping his head to the side and knocking him back onto the mat. A second later Duncan was in a straight armbar and tapping out.
Jonesy let the hold go and got back to his feet. Duncan laid there a few moments longer working out the pain in his elbow and rubbing the impact point on his jaw.
“You still think you’ve got what it takes to be a world champion?” Jonesy asked, looming over him.
“Yeah,” Duncan replied, though a little more sheepishly than usual.
“Then cut the fancy crap until I tell you you’re ready for the fancy crap. Fundamentals first, you hear me?”
Duncan nodded.
“You understand me?”
“Yeah, I understand.”
“Then what did I say?”
“Fundamentals first,” said Duncan.
“I can’t hear you.”
“Fundamentals first!”
2022 - Atlantic City, NJ
“No, no, no, no, no,” said Duncan Ryder was evident and rising exasperation standing up without resistance despite the apparent arm wringer currently being applied to him by WGWF villainess Sonya Benson, “how are you still not getting this? Torque the wrist. Grip the hand hear and hear, the fleshy parts beneath the thumb and pinky. Keep the hand tight into your body and keep it elevated. If you don’t keep my hand higher than my shoulder then there’s no pressure, nothing holding me down and I can just stand up like I just did and counter or hit you right in the face.
Sonya rolled her eyes at him, the same way she seemed to do every time Duncan explained a basic, functional and unspectacular move to her for a second or more time. Each time she did so it made Duncan seeth. Had this been a typical student teacher relationship Duncan would have had no qualms knocking the disrespect out of his student just like he had had the ego knocked out of him in the early days of his own training. Well, some of the ego at least. This wasn’t a normal student teacher relationship though, not only was Duncan directly employed by the Benson estate in this role he was in fact contractually forbidden from any form of direct physical ‘motivation’ that Sonya deemed ‘unnecessary’ to the execution of his responsibilities. The definitions of motivation and necessity had been left deliberately vague and in the weeks Duncan had been working with Sonya he’d deduced that it simply meant anything she didn’t feel like doing at any given moment.
“Well how am I supposed to keep the hand close to me and above your shoulder when you’re taller than me? I can’t do both.” Sonya mimed holding Duncan’s arm above her head with both hands, displaying the height in her mind she would have the hold it at to achieve the position Duncan was instructing her to get to.
“You don’t come up to me, you bring me down to you. I’ve told you this already. That’s why you put the pressure on the wrist. Torque the wrist and the body follows. Then you’re in control,” Duncan explained again, struggling to maintain the tenuous grip he still held on his patience.
Sonya huffed, “I don’t get why we’re even doing this. I can’t beat someone by twisting their arm a bit. I told you, I need to learn to finish people. Like that superkick I did.”
“Yeah, great, like everyone else in the wrestling world you can throw a side kick without the actual flexibility and balance to do it properly, so you bend yourself over backwards to get your leg up and pretend it was good.”
“It was good,” Sonya protested, “I knocked that woman out.”
“Yes, you knocked out a non competitor who wasn’t expecting to get attacked. Well done,” Duncan sighed and walked a few steps away, pinching at the bridge of his nose. “How has a lineage stretching back over a hundred years come to this?” he muttered to himself under his breath.
“What?”
“Nothing,” Duncan said, applying a false smile as he turned back, “let’s try this again.”
October 31st 2022 - Allentown, PA
Duncan Ryder, Level Up Wrestling Final Boss champion stands in the back of the PPL Center, set back against bare grey breezeblock walls. His shirt is plain crisp white and and jeans a common faded blue, making the shining gold of the championship belt draped across his shoulder stand out against the otherwise near monochrome scene. He takes a deep breath, gathers his thoughts then looks sternly down the camera.
Duncan: Who’d have thought it would come to this Sebastian? And I will be using your full given name, Seb, that’s what your friends call you but while the animosity we have held for one another in years past may have waned make no mistake Sebastian, we are not friends. How could we be, when you’re intent on taking away from me the object I hold most dearly in this world? When you seek to end my reign as Final Boss Champion before I have achieved all that I strive to achieve in the time that I possess this title? It’s true Sebastian that there was a long time where I would have caved in that smug face of yours for no greater reason than I wanted to and you deserved it. That time has passed, fortunately for you, but that doesn’t mean I’m about to go easy on you tomorrow night either.
Duncan breaks his look into the camera for a moment, shuffling on his feet and readjusting the championship over his shoulder. When he begins speaking again he does so still looking slightly out of shot.
Duncan: You know, when UGWC ditched me I thought I was done with you. I thought I always would be. I mean, what reason would we have to cross paths again? I had no reason to return to the Coalition whether they wanted me to or not. What reason did you have to go anywhere else, when you were being treated like the Coalition’s new golden boy? Being primed to be the new media friendly face of the promotion. Forever you were being thrust into main events and title shots you’d done little to earn besides being angry at the champion and lashing out at innocent bystanders about it. Meanwhile I, a man who upon my departure was undefeated against the past three World Heavyweight Champions had yet to be granted anything close to a shot at that title.
Duncan takes a deep breath that visibly inflates his chest then he lets it out in a short sharp sigh.
Duncan: It was clear that a ceiling had been placed above my head, a ceiling both low and artificial and there is no greater proof of its existence than where I stand right now. From mid card reject to inaugural Power Champion to Final Boss and one day away from matching the promotional record for successful defences of this title. Every day since we last shared a UGWC ring has been about proving that I am more, that I am better than the Coalition ever gave me the opportunity to be.
Duncan’s gaze focusses right back on the camera and he leans forward to look into it even closer, as if doing so will let him see the people watching him through it on the other side.
Duncan: Do you remember that match Sebastian? Do you remember the first time we went one on one? I’m sure you do. I’m sure you remember exactly how I outwitted you. How I took your hold and turned it against you and walked away the victor. If I remember correctly you weren’t too happy with that. A lot of excuses were made. You didn’t beat me, I beat myself. That’s what you said wasn’t it. It all sounded to me a lot like the desperate protestations of someone who couldn’t accept that they weren’t the best technical wrestler the company had to offer.
Duncan straightens up again and runs his free hand thoughtfully across the stubble of his jawline.
Duncan: And now I stand here wondering what’s really changed since that day? I’ll concede it’s clear you’ve matured these past couple of years but what has that gotten you? You’ve never returned to that position at the top of the card that you so stubbornly held on to for those closing months of 2020 have you. Instead apparently content to focus your energy on the UGWC Chaos title. In fact as I speak you’re in Chicago aren’t you, defending that title against the same man who once took it away from me. Against the same man you so spectacularly failed to keep off my back when the Cross-Hemisphere championship was mine for the taking. We’ll add it to the list of things you’ve so confidently said you’d do and yet failed to live up to your word. A list that includes winning The Last of Us Part 2, a list that by the time today is over may very well include your claim of defending your title against Montague Cervantes and a list onto which I’ll be sure to add any and all claims you make to your intention of holding this title-
Duncan slaps his free hand against the championship on his shoulder.
Duncan: -my title, high above your head before tomorrow night is over. It should be clear by now Sebastian that when it comes to wrestling I have your number. I beat you in 2021 and I beat you at The Last of Us and I have no reason to believe that tomorrow night I won’t beat you again. Where you’ve stagnated in the years since that first match I’ve only gotten better. Where you’ve settled into a place among the shuffle of my former employer I’ve risen to the very top of Level Up Wrestling and I didn’t do it by throwing tantrums, I didn’t do it by having someone jump my enemies from behind with a baseball bat, I did it by giving this sport, this company, this championship, my all. I did it by battling the very best opponents and my own demons in equal measure.
Duncan runs his hand down his face, looking contemplative.
Duncan: It’s true that when Combat Evolved came around my demons had taken over. Perhaps it was because they took the reins that I’m still here holding this championship and speaking to you. You might think that now I'm in control again, perhaps I’ve lost an edge. I would urge you not to let such a thought take root. The Duncan Ryder that is going to walk down to the ring in the PPL Center tomorrow night may not be as violent as the Duncan Shepard, or the Harbinger, who defended this title at Combat Evolved but he is smarter, wiser, his mind is sharper and clearer than it has been in a long time and he is more determined than ever to prove that he still belongs at the pinnacle of Level Up Wrestling. That he, that I, am Fundamental to this company and to this title.
Duncan takes the title off his shoulder and holds it in his hand, letting the strap dangle as he holds the main plate up to the camera.
Duncan: You want to take this away from me Sebastian? I’d advise you to tap into some of that hatred you used to hold for me because I’m going to make you goddamn kill me before I let you take this away. Because I want you to bring me everything you’ve got Sebastian I’m going to leave you with a little gift, something to help get you there.
Duncan trails off and looks away past the camera, then turns back.
Duncan: Sorry Sebastian, your gift is going to have to wait. Something’s come up. I’ve got to go.
Duncan fixes the camera with one last firm glare.
Duncan: Excuse me.
With a wry smile on his lips Duncan returns the Final Boss championship to his shoulder and walks away.
Feb. '22 - Jul. '22
2022
2021/2022
Jun '21 - Jul '22