[color=gold][b][u]Doomsday in the Ring[/u][/b][/color] ------------------- While my real name is Brian Matthewson, wrestling fans (and those that appreciate the G-52s) know me as the Dog of Doom. You might be asking, “Why use a villainous name if you’re actually a hero?” It was easier to continue using the wrestling name I had been using than adopt a completely new codename. The major thing to remember is that I’ve been a bloodhound my whole life (and Luchador Lion has been a lion his whole life as well). The other four major wrestling names in the G-52s, which consist of my fellow Australian Beatdown Bobcat (a.k.a. Captain Beatdown), the USA’s Ultimate Destroyer and Patriotic Pounder, and the UK’s Takedown Tiger, were all human beings until CNG took it away from them. You may be familiar with the story of how Bobby Winston became the new Captain Beatdown after CNG made him look like the original Captain Beatdown. My side of the story doesn’t really tell anything different, but it is true that I genuinely thought I was wrestling the original Captain Beatdown. When his voice gave away the truth that he wasn’t, I made sure to let the referee and the P.A. announcer (a lion in a glitzy green and gold tuxedo) what was going on, and only then was I informed that the original Captain Beatdown was in the hospital in order to recover from a back injury. The WWE had gone off-script. So what was the original storyline supposed to be? It would have been the case of me entering the ring and getting cross with everything because Captain Beatdown hadn’t showed up yet, but then a new and mysterious challenger would show up to challenge me. I now cannot remember if it would have resulted in a win or a loss for me, because the resulting match was between me and Bobby, who showed amazing instincts and survival skills just to protect himself from the harm I may have caused him. (I wasn’t trying to hurt him, though. There’s a reason we stage it the way we stage it so that injuries are minimized, but they do still happen.) The announcers must have thought I was breaking kayfabe (and remember, kayfabe is the word used to refer to how we portray staged events, such as professional wrestling, as if they are “real” or “true”), because I was applauding as Bobby accepted the offer to be the new Captain Beatdown when the original appeared in the ring to announce his retirement from wrestling because of that back injury. (Today, he works for the WWE as a commentator.) I then made the now-famous remark, “I have to admit, even I thought you were the real thing.” “I wanted to be a race car driver originally,” Bobby commented. “However, my ultimate destiny ended up being in the wrestling ring. Go figure.” After the ceremony, we stepped outside to make room for the two human wrestlers that were to wrestle that night. These two confirmed to us (and later to Super C) that they were the wrestlers that would have been targeted if the CNG smugglers had successfully pulled off their plot. Instead, it killed them on the spot (as it did with everybody else who tried to use it for their own gain). The smugglers had seen the storylines broadcast on TV, thought what they were seeing was real, and assumed it was their duty to kill off the wrestlers as punishment for paying the heel referees to rig the match. In the end, they got the date for the rematch all wrong. ------------- It wasn’t until after my first win against Bobby as the new Captain Beatdown that I discovered there were Australian citizens dying from CNG’s successors, IC2, as punishment for booing me. There were 4,400 casualties here, and 3,000 more from cases of people booing the umpires in Australian rules football whenever they got a call wrong. (They’re human; they make mistakes from time to time.) Seriously, it was that stupid; it didn’t know fantasy from reality, or in my case, kayfabe from the real world outside of it. (The umpires in question did get the calls wrong, and they admitted to it, but IC2 went ahead and killed one umpire as punishment for it, because of how it affected the outcome of a game between the Geelong Cats and the Richmond Tigers. If the umpire had been honest about it, the Cats would have beaten the Tigers on their home turf. The AFL did correct the error later on, though.) This didn’t just upset me; it also upset Bobby, and so he and I came up with a solution, which the announcer lion also thought was clever, so he gave the audience instructions on what to do the next time I would make a grand entrance: instead of booing, everybody would bark and clap in tempo to the music. They’d do it again if I was to win the match, and even more so whenever I’d win the championship belt. Upon seeing this, IC2 began leaving Australia alone altogether, and concentrated solely on killing humans from the United States, making the assumption that its people had become too selfish, spoiled, self-centered, and hateful, because they had become so darn stupid. You and I know this is not true. There are plenty of kind, caring, and selfless humans in the United States today, and thanks to Leo the Patriotic Lion’s influences, they see us Aussies as among their strongest allies. (They say this for all the Commonwealth nations.) ----------------- Kayfabe is here to stay, don’t get me wrong, but I was not happy with the direction it was going, because the intention was to make me the most hated bloodhound on the planet. Instead, Super C decides I am worthy of being an actual G-52 instead of just an ally, and so I chose to reinvent my wrestling self as more of a misunderstood anti-hero instead of a straight-up villain. As a result, if you’ve watched any television coverage of me lately, you’ll discover that I was unintentionally creating my own kayfabe in the form of kicking out the kayfabe that was already there. How am I doing this, you ask me? Well, if the referee is a referee that wants to rig the match, one way or another, I will flat-out refuse to wrestle that night. It subsequently led to me campaigning for my unscripted fights. In fact, the WWE did a match one night where they decided to expose me for breaking character with the scolding they gave me on camera, which disrupted the announcer lion’s introductions. Here, the audience was booing, but they were booing the officials and the producers for exposing me. “Well, at least tell me what I did wrong!” I snapped. “You lost to the Ultimate Destroyer!” the reporters in question replied. “Yeah…so? That was a fair and just match!” “But surely there was some bias! That belt was rightfully yours!” The reporter was a sore loser, especially if the opponent was American. (IC2 killed this person later on, by the way.) “There was no bias! If the referees are going to rig the matches, I refuse to wrestle! You know this. The nation knows this. I do not cheat! Why you people want me to cheat is beyond my comprehension. The Ultimate Destroyer did not cheat in that match; he beat me by count out, and the referee called it correctly.” (In wrestling, a count out is if you are outside the ring and you don’t get back inside by the time the referee counts to 20. If you don’t get back in there, you lose.) “Look at this guy here.” I motioned to Bobby. “Did he cheat when he got thrust into the ring against me on the fateful first fight, only for us to realize he wasn’t the Captain Beatdown we thought he was? No! He didn’t!” “Will you just cut it out and do as you are told?” the referee and producer snapped in unison. “Ask that again and I’ll give you a full nelson and a half!” I then grabbed the microphone out of the reporter’s hands and screamed, “UP WITH THE UNSCRIPTED FIGHTS!” Bobby and I then got everybody to bark and clap in tempo, and it scared the referee and reporters so much, they fled for their lives. I then handed the microphone to the announcer, and he stepped aside so that a different referee would enter the ring. Then the bell rang, and we improvised the fight, as you would when playing one of those old-school video arcade games, such as SEGA’s “Wrestle War,” or Konami’s “The Main Event.” (Bobby and I contributed to the GVGRS series—that’s “G-52 Video Game Review Show,” where various G-52s react to or play video games—where we would react to these kinds of games.) Although Bobby beat me in the end by pinfall, it was a totally improvised fight, and so it was a moral victory for me because my point was proven. After the bell rang to end the match, the cameras caught sight of me asking, “What did I get myself into?” Bobby must have heard my remark, because he replied, “I don’t know, but your morality crusade is thriving.” After a post-game interview, I then turned to the cameras and said, “And that, kids, is why cheating and rigging is unacceptable, even in wrestling.” Note that the WWE fined me AUS$100,000 for doing this according to the storylines that developed as a result, but then Bobby appealed to the highest authorities, and the organization changed their mind, fining themselves the money instead. (In other words, it had to go to charity, and I chose the charity. I chose “Beyond Blue,” which is an Australian mental health and wellbeing support organization. They provide support programs to address issues related to depression, suicide, anxiety disorders, and other related mental illnesses thereof. I picked this one because a few of my relatives had some of these disorders, although, thank the heavens, suicide was not one of them. I mainly took up wrestling, as a matter of fact, because I thought I could use the salaries from it to help benefit them and others that suffer. This secret wasn’t made public until I became a G-52.) --------------------- The first time I won a match against Bobby (by decision at the bell) came later in the season. At that point, though, Super C had upgraded my status from ally to an actual G-52, so I was in the process of reinventing myself. As far as my wrestling character is concerned, I’m basically the same bad dog I was, but I’m no longer entirely a heel by definition. (“Heel” refers to the villains in wrestling, while the hero is known as a “face,” short for “babyface.”) However, I am reinventing myself as a misunderstood anti-hero that seeks to better himself, and is hoping to win the world’s respect. In return, my fellow furry wrestlers are joining my anti-kayfabe crusades. (Well, we’re making it look like we’re destroying kayfabe as you knew it, anyways.) More recently, I made a full heel-face turn, even though I am still the Dog of Doom. (Mainly that was to help the audience identify me.) ---------------- In addition, Bobby and I have been endorsing and supporting Len the Outback Lion, Leo’s Australian counterpart, since he has chosen to run for the office of Prime Minister this year. It wasn’t because circumstances were forcing him into the position, though. He just felt it was his turn to try, based on the logic that what happens to one parallel happens to most if not all of them. (There were a few involved in politics before Leo was elected President of the United States; for example, Kyu the Hwarang Lion had been in charge of Korea. Now he is in charge of the country again, but the government was scrapped entirely, and he is now their absolute dictator.) I hope that’s helped you get to know me a bit better. I’ll be looking for you the next time we have a match, and remember, I share the same philosophy the others do: if you tell us only half the truth, we’re giving you a half-nelson! If you’re a supervillain, however, answer me this question: do you know what day it is? It’s doomsday…FOR YOU! ------------ [color=green][b]THE END[/b][/color]