I'm a Paranormal Investigator for the U.S. Government. My agency is getting annoyed. Part two: Blood Trees
I'm a Paranormal Investigator for the U.S. Government. My agency is getting annoyed. Part two: Blood Trees Let me start this off by saying one thing: I fucking hate Blood Trees. Look, there are a hundred thousand ways to die in this world. Over half of those are from Cryptids. Half of that is pretty quick or relatively painless, and smaller still are the ones that make it hurt. Within this percentage are two ways of death that every one of you really needs to be aware of. One: Mental break. This method isn't exclusive to Eldritch beings, but they love the shit. The idea of yanking your mind and soul out of your body and driving you mad while inflicting pain is probably their favorite dish. You sit there for what feels like an eternity, getting your soul flayed while they show you images and scene that no human was built to see. Two: Physical break. These are what I like to call Digestors. An entity, human or not, who secures your body to something and just puts you through it. Peeling your skin off, bamboo under the fingernails, cutting off your eyelids, the works. These things typically have the ability to heal the damage they cause so they can inflict more pain without killing you. Blood trees? They can do both. I don't know what asshole conjured these things up, but I hope their creation did some turnabout on them. Blood Trees are hard to pin down. Not that there aren't a lot of them; they are everywhere, relatively speaking. Every forest in the U.S. and Canada has them. The young ones are more active, constantly needing food, and every once in a while you get some kind of cult that pops up around them, with assholes wearing robes chanting in a made up language while they yeet some poor schmuck into the bowels of the tree. They typically feast on a live body for a few weeks, and then longer as they get older and learn how to make the meal last longer. The older ones are the ones you REALLY have to worry about. One live body can sustain them for a few decades or so, which means you are typically being digested for the rest of your natural life. If they get more bodies, they store them for later. The ugly tree from the Johnny Depp version of Sleepy Hollow? Blood Tree. Some can serve as gateways to a pain dimension or something, but those are actually really rare. So, Blood Trees possess the ability to not only digest you over time and keep you alive while doing so, but many of them can mess with your mind while doing it. So, you can see why I hate them. The following investigation showcases three things: One: I fucking hate Blood Trees. Two: I hate other agencies (suck it, F.B.I.) Three: I try not to go on any investigation alone. Being alone means you're more vulnerable, and there is no help. So...onto the investigation. "Agent Echo, arrival on scene at 0645, XX DEC 20XX. [REDACTED], Colorado." You'll realize pretty quick that I hate a lot of things. Dense forests, cults, springform pans, the F.B.I. Three of these things came into play today. I found myself at the entrance to a state park, whose name I won't share for obvious reasons. For this one, I didn't have to blend in with the locals, so no shitty apartment or beat to crap vehicle to deal with. Nope, I made my way to Fort Carson and yanked one of their range control trucks, something with some ground clearance and self recovery options. I pulled the big vehicle into the gravel parking lot which was freshly layered with fresh snow. I can't tell you enough how fucking beautiful this state is. Flocked trees, quiet wilderness, elk running everywhere and in many cases, not a lot of people. Anyways. The small visitor center sat nestled in the foreground of a mountain range, an idyllic location for a lovely state park. It was a log cabin style, single story with large windows, dark stain and a green tin roof. A set of glass double doors served as the entrance, with a small set of stairs leading up to it and a handicap ramp to the side. There were a few park ranger trucks sitting off to the side; the rest of the lot was empty save for a couple of mid sized SUVs and a Subaru or two. After parking and shutting off the truck, I hopped out and checked for my gear. I was wearing a set of snow pants over my jeans, and a matching parka with fur lining. Mittens covered my thin under gloves, and I wore a black beanie. It was balls cold out, and I really don't like being cold, but dressed down enough so I wouldn't get overheated while walking. My backpack held enough food and supplies for a few days of travel, with a small axe hanging off the side. I slung a 12 gauge over my shoulder and slid a .454 revolver with a 6 inch barrel into the holster at my hip. Why such a big revolver? A few reasons. First off, this is bear country. I don't give a damn about hibernation season; you don't go into bear country at any time without packing some iron. Second off, revolvers don't jam like a semi auto will. Third, a 454 will put down a bear without much drama. Go into a fight with a bear using a 9mm, I dare you. Bear attacks happen pretty quick, so you aren't gonna be playing John Wick with a 500lb bear that can move faster than you. Secure that I had all of my crap, I walked up the snowy steps and into the visitor center. It was quiet. Not unsettling quiet, just that no one was really having loud conversations. A tall, brawny man with sandy colored hair made his way up to me. A park ranger by the uniform, he opened his mouth to speak when I shoved a piece of paper in his face. He took a few moments to read it, then folded it and handed it back to me. "Well, that takes care of the first round of questions. I'm [Fake name, obviously] Ranger Sandover, call me Mike." "Echo, nice to meet you." M: "Echo?" The beginning of amusement lit up on his face. "That a secret codename?" I wasn't about to explain the intricacies of agency policy or the need for official cover names to a park ranger. Yes Mike, it's a codename, now fuck off. Instead, I looked up at him. He was probably a hair taller than Shout was, but more muscular. "Yep. Can we get to business, Mike?" He chuckled. "Sure thing." He turned and waved me along as he walked through the facility. "You with the F.B.I. or something?" I bristled. You may not know this, but I fucking hate the F.B.I. "No. They do their own thing, I don't mess with them." I barely hid my disgust. The walk through the facility was...short. It took only a few seconds to reach the wooden door labeled 'Ranger Office', and for Mike to throw it open and reveal the contents inside. It wasn't anything special. A medium sized wooden desk, basic ass industry catalogue issue, sat in the middle. A computer screen from 20 years ago sat on the side, along with the nameplate of the supervisor to the area. James T. Celery. [It should be pretty clear by now that all of these names are fake.] Ranger Celery sat his portly ass in a swivel chair behind the desk. He was huge. Not huge like a UFC Heavyweight, huge as in he probably could wolf down an elk by himself huge. His fat face had sweat on it just from sitting, and his hair had cleared out of the top of his head, leaving a horseshoe of thin brown hair that traveled the circumference of his dome. To his side stood another Ranger, that made up the three on duty right now. Christ, she was fucking adorable. Black hair, bright blue eyes, a hair taller than me and probably in better shape than Mike. That was about all she had going for her. Nametag said Bristol. B: "Who is this, new guy? Why are you bringing an armed civilian in here?" M: "Not a civilian. You remember the other day, we got a call about an agent coming to take a look around? This is Agent Echo." Bristol looked at me like I had just beaten her dog and killed her mom. Probably the same way I look at F.B.I. agents. B: "And...why do we need an 'agent'? This is a state park, we don't need-" This bitch was already getting on my nerves, so I cut her off. "Are you the one in charge? If not, then shut the fuck up. This crap is above your paygrade." I could hear Shout now. 'Do you always start fights wherever you go?' Sometimes. I can't help it though. This long doing the work I do, I don't have the time or patience for uppity peons. Bristol turned fully towards me and started forward. Immediately I pulled the revolver free and thumbed the hammer back, pointing it at her body. E: "Don't fucking try it. I could put a new asshole in every inch of your body and still get away with it." The room was tense. Mike's face was white. Obviously the guy was an easy-going type, one who hadn't seen the more uncouth side of human nature. Celery, to his credit, remained calm, folding his hands together. C: "Alright. Calm down everyone. Bristol, take a walk outside. Agent, please lower your weapon. I understand your role here, but lets have a bit of tact." I nodded slowly, and stepped to the side when Bristol passed, still glaring daggers at me, and closed the door. I ran the hammer forward and slid the revolver back into the holster. C: "Please, sit down." I didn't. C: "The search and rescue team is arriving soon, you can head out with them when the snow lifts." He wiped the sweat from his brow with a handkerchief. I shook my head. "I'm not search and rescue. There is something else I am after, and honestly, this is a courtesy that we told you I'm coming." Sometimes they didn't understand that. For a few reasons, my objective isn't exactly the safety of human beings. SAR handles that. My objective is the destruction of the Cryptid Emergence I was assigned to. That, and feelings can get you killed...it sucks, but thats the way it is. "I just need someone who knows the area." C: "Well, Mike is still new..." Fuck. C: "...SAR won't be here until a few hours most likely..." Double fuck. C: "...meaning the only experienced one I can send with you is Bristol." Triple fuck! I sighed. SAR may not be willing to high tail it right now, not sure why SAR would be delaying at the moment, but I didn't have the luxury of waiting. "Fine." I said after exhaling a calming breath. As a group we walked out of the office. Celery pulled Bristol to the side while Mike and I hung back. M: "Be careful. I shouldn't be saying this, but Bristol has a temper..." He said in a whisper. E: "Then don't. Thanks for the concern, but I'll be fine." I replied evenly. Celery and Bristol talked for a few minutes...a few minutes that went by way too slow. Once they were done, Bristol disappeared in the back for a few moments, then returned dressed for the weather, a lever action rifle slung over her shoulder. I nodded, one that she returned, and we walked out of the station and around the back towards the looming line of flocked trees ahead that marked the true boundary to the park. We followed the snow filled footsteps into the trees and started along a path that would have been easier to see were it not for the 8 inches of snow covering the ground. B: "Echo...did you make that up? Must be some kind of organization for you to just use codenames. Are you the C.I.A.?" At least she didn't say FBI. "No. CIA handles issues outside of the continental US mostly. Espionage and things like that." I replied evenly, our earlier tension suppressed under a layer of professionalism. We walked for a while, the miles passed and the time went with it. It was midday by the time either of us attempted conversation again. "Huh. So, what are we looking for? You said you aren't search and rescue, so what's the deal?" She spoke after a few minutes. We were walking side by side in the pathway, and I pulled up a GPS with a preloaded set of coordinates on it. "Honestly, I won't be sure until I see it..." Thump thump. "...and hopefully its nothing." Thump. Thump thump. I paused while Bristol walked forward, alarm bells going off in my head. Something was coming. I sped up my walk until I closed in on the Ranger, mouth opening to speak. "You act like it's gonna just jump out at you-" Jesus, she had to say that. From the thick underbrush a bear barrelled out. Large, fast and angry, it shouldered me to the side, having locked in Bristol as its target. My shotgun fell to the side and I went backwards onto my back. Bristol screamed out as the bear slammed her to the ground, massive paws raising and slamming downward to try and rip her limb from limb. If she hadn't gotten her rifle longways between herself and the bear, she really would have been done for. As I came to my feet, the bear caught her left shoulder in its mouth, grabbing and dragging her side to side, shaking her violently. I ran up with the .454 in hand. I got up close so I wouldn't risk hitting her, and fired. Once...twice...the bear went down in a heap, it's head half gone. I took Bristol's rifle and looped the sling around the bear's neck and pulled back hard, giving the ranger a bit of room to shimmy out from under it. Blood was pooled underneath her shoulder, and she was breathing hard, eyes wet as the realization of what just happened set in. I dropped to her side and pulled her coat open, expecting to find a tattered mass of flesh where her torso had been. Instead, I found claws. Not marks, but actual claws. The claws from the bear's paws had broken off the second they split the skin! "Fuck...uh, alright, you look surprisingly good..." Bewildered was a good word for it. Her nervous chuckle split the air. A few drops of blood pooled from under her uniform shirt, but her shoulder was a little worse off. The teeth had remained intact for a bit longer, and had cut a few nice gouges into the flesh. I pulled a medkit out of her bag and set to work. "How...how am I not..what the fuck..." She spoke between breaths. She looked up at my face and shot me a peculiar stare. "You know what happened? Fucking tell me! That thing should have ripped by guts out, what is going on!?" I finished the bandage on her shoulder and sighed. Reaching out, I pulled the claws from her chest and lifted one up, squeezing it between my fingers. It snapped quickly and fell to pieces afterwards. "It was already dead." "Come again?" She spoke incredulously. "Already dead. I think I know why, but I really wish I didn't." I leaned down and removed Bristol's knife from the sheath on her belt. Before she could protest, I lifted up the arm of the bear to expose its underbelly better, and pushed the knife in. Pulling to the side, the skin split open with a sick pop and disgorged its inside all over the snow. Well, the entrails at least. Huge clots of blood remained attached to the different organs, and I reached a gloved hand down into its body, searching around for a moment. "Okay, that is disgusting, what in God's name are you doing?" I didn't speak for a moment, then pulled my hand free, holding up a horrid looking obkect. It looked like a seed with many small roots coming off of it, covered in flesh. Like a tumor growing. The roots wriggled randomly, trying to find purchase in something. "Oh...oh my God..." Bristol went pale. Most people did when they first saw one of these things. Human minds can't fully process some things very well. "Blood Tree, goddammit." I stuck the tip of the knife into the seed and pulled it free. A copious amount of fresh blood spewed from the opening, more than the palm sized thing should have been able to hold. I tossed it back on the bear. "Its been using the bear to travel. Animals have an instinct that is hard to override, especially with a predatory animal. A few more days and the seed could have controlled it." B: "Okay. I'm gonna need you to explain this in a bit more detail. Why isn't the bear hibernating, why did it not kill me, how is it dead and what the FUCK did you just pull out of it!?" E: I sighed softly. "Look at the bears head, where I shot it...look where I cut it. See any blood that didn't come from the seed? No, because it's already coagulated. The bear was mostly dead. It attacked you because the seed trying to control it made it lose its mind. The seed I pulled out is from a Blood Tree. They survive off of fresh bodies...there is a whole book I could tell you, but just realize that they are bad fucking news, and it seems you have one in your little park. Probably with a cult around it too." B: "A cult? Like, guys in black robes chanting shit?" E: "Yep, exactly. Blood Trees don't usually infect animals. Their instinct makes it hard to separate an animal from its natural area to spread, which means it was probably put there by someone. Ergo, you have a Blood Tree Cult. Here, help me with this." Finding it next to a bottle of tequila and a rag, I pulled a big bottle of lighter fluid from my bag and tossed Bristol the long torch. She fumbled with it, but caught it. I began dousing the bear carcass with the lighter fluid. "Not sure how many seeds are in this thing, so best bet is to burn it." Once finished, I swapped the lighter fluid for the torch and set the bear alight, Bristol squeezing a bit more of fluid on there for good measure. B: "So, what now?" She asked softly, nibbling her lip. E: "Find the tree, burn it, kill the cultists." She didn't respond. We took a few minutes to rest and eat, regain some energy. I checked her bandages, but the wounds were surprisingly superficial. Bristol floated the idea of making camp, but I shook my head. "Not the place we want to camp. If we are going to find it and live, then we have to find it soon. It knows it's seeds just died." After securing all of our gear and finding her rifle and my shotgun, we continued our walk in the direction the bear had come from, with me reloading the .454 on the way. A half hour went by before she spoke again. B: "Um...Echo?" Far contrasting her earlier bravado at our first meeting, her voice was meek, girlish...scared. E: "Yeah?" B: "What is going to happen to me?" Damn, she had good instincts too. E: "Depends. If the seeds had enough control to sprout their own, then you'll probably be infected. Your shoulder will ache more, get red hot, and you'll see small roots in the wound. They'll slowly move through your body until they invade your brain, and kill you while retaining control of your body. If not, then a few weeks of recovery and you'll be fine." I don't sugarcoat things. It never pays to, really. Bad things happen, and they happen whether we like it or not. She let out a small sob. It was too early to tell if she had been infected though. B: "What happens then? You burn me too?" E: "After I put a bullet in your head, yeah. Mostly so you won't feel it. Remember, its too early to tell, though. You might be alright." That wasn't a lie at least. We walked farther and deeper into the woods. The sun had set, leaving us in the darkness, but the moon provided enough light that it reflected off of the snow and made walking easier. I didn't want to use a light; we already made enough noise walking to risk fully giving ourselves away visually. We stalked silently up the ridge where light played random shadow games over the top and on the other side. I slid down to my knees in the snow and Bristol followed suit, where we crawled the rest of the way up. Looking out, there was a small clearing, a fire looming in front of a large, gnarled tree that bled profusely from many different openings. Four figures in hooded cloaks stood there, evenly spaced but far from the tree to stay out of range of its flailing limbs and roots. The scene was grotesque, and I heard Bristol dry heave into her jacket to muffle the sound. I've been around a few of them, and I still have to fight nausea from overwhelming me. The things were bad news on every level, a sickening entity that could have an effect on someone just based on proximity. I watched for a few minutes just to get the nausea under control, and hopefully Bristol could do the same. I looked over to her laying just a few feet from me. E: "You alright?" B: "Y-yeah, I think..." E: "Make sure you are. This is gonna happen fast." I peeked over the rise we lay upon, noticing we were about 2 meters above the clearing. Not much of an elevated position, but enough to give us an edge. I searched in my bag for the bottle of tequila. Shame to use it on a blood tree, but we would have to get another bottle later. I unscrewed the cap and stuffed a rag into it, then put the cap back on. "Hop down the hill, kill the cultists, burn the tree." B: "Wait, we can't just kill them. The law doesn't work like that, Echo." E: "Are you serious? Do you know what these people will do to you if they-" My words were stopped short by the sound of heavy footsteps. I looked back in time to see an athletic man barreling towards us, murder in his eyes with a touch of fanaticism. I saw the faint traces of a Ranger uniform before a long leg pushed forward in a vicious kick to my side. The amount of power in the kick was absolutely ridiculous. My body lifted off of the snow covered ground and with a scream of pain I went over the side and down the 2 meter drop onto the floor below. Trying to catch my breath, I pushed shakily to my knees, my shotgun laying to the side a few feet away. A quick lift of my head showed me that the three robed figures were coming at an alarming pace. Pulling the revolver free I lifted it in a quick motion and fired. One cultist dropped when a .454 blew his spine out of his back. My reaction was a little slow due to the fall, though. I managed to squeeze one more shot off that annihilated the left thigh of a second, causing the woman's screams to echo out into the wilderness. The third had reached me. Dropping his full weight on top of me, he slapped the .454 out of my grasp and closed around my neck with two beefy hands, squeezing tight and cutting off my air supply instantly. I thrashed, moving and squirming, trying to get away. Another shot rang out in the Forest, followed by a thud off in the distance. I couldn't hear much, my ears were clogged, vision was fading. He was too strong at this point, and had too much leverage...guess this was my time? A thunderclap startled both of us. The man stiffened, and fell to the side like he had gotten hit by a sledgehammer...which, he might as well have. Bristol pulled herself forward, ragged breaths shooting steam into the cold night air. Her rifle fell down as kneeled next to me, and pulled me up to a sitting position. Leaning on each other, we climbed to our feet and I grabbed the .454. She held the bottle of tequila up for me to see, and didn't even need to say anything. I pulled out the torch and lit the rag, and Bristol reared back like she was throwing a grenade. Her aim was perfect. The Molotov sailed through the air and blew against the side of the tree. Fire spread all along the trunk, screeches from the tree, a cacophany of all its still living victims, providing a macabre chorus as its death cry. The tree would burn for quite a while most likely. E: "Come on. Lets get out of here." She didn't respond. Tucked under my shoulder, her breathing was ragged, rough, her body hot against mine. We tried to walk, but she held fast. B: "Re...remember what you said...earlier? About the seeds...?" She spoke softly, almost calm. Like she had accepted this. I laid her against the ridge and kneeled in front of her, reaching out to push her parka aside and lift her bandages. Small roots sprouted from the wound, which was festering, and an angry red. E: "...fuck." B: "Hah...yeah, this sucks..." I stood there, cursing internally. She had the instinct to be apart of our Agency...that, and she was a fighter, a survivor...a decent fucking person, actually. I pulled the revolver and aimed it at her. E: "I really wish I didn't have to do this." B: "I know." She stared up at me, scared, but knowing this was going to have to happen. "You aren't gonna look away?" E: "I never do." B: "Just...don't tell me when you're gonna-" I pulled the trigger. My face didn't change, but I just stood there...breathing. Tears made their way down my cheeks, and I pulled a cigarette free and lit it. After the tree had fully burned, I had to do the same to Bristol, as it was the only way to ensure the destruction of the seeds. I climbed the rise again to see Mike Sandover's body lifeless, with a giant hole in his head. I burned his body too, and that of the cultists as well, then began the long trip back to the Ranger station. I called Brain on the way back, and by the time I was done with the report, I had made it back. The parking lot was empty...Celery was gone. I put out a mark on him (more on that later), and jumped in the truck. Time to find a bar to get wasted at. End Of Transcription. There is another one. I'll let you guys know what happened to Celery next time, but until then? Stay out of the fucking woods.
I'm a Paranormal Investigator for the U.S. Government. My agency is getting annoyed. Part two: Blood Trees
I'm a Paranormal Investigator for the U.S. Government. My agency is getting annoyed. Part two: Blood Trees Let me start this off by saying one thing: I fucking hate Blood Trees. Look, there are a hundred thousand ways to die in this world. Over half of those are from Cryptids. Half of that is pretty quick or relatively painless, and smaller still are the ones that make it hurt. Within this percentage are two ways of death that every one of you really needs to be aware of. One: Mental break. This method isn't exclusive to Eldritch beings, but they love the shit. The idea of yanking your mind and soul out of your body and driving you mad while inflicting pain is probably their favorite dish. You sit there for what feels like an eternity, getting your soul flayed while they show you images and scene that no human was built to see. Two: Physical break. These are what I like to call Digestors. An entity, human or not, who secures your body to something and just puts you through it. Peeling your skin off, bamboo under the fingernails, cutting off your eyelids, the works. These things typically have the ability to heal the damage they cause so they can inflict more pain without killing you. Blood trees? They can do both. I don't know what asshole conjured these things up, but I hope their creation did some turnabout on them. Blood Trees are hard to pin down. Not that there aren't a lot of them; they are everywhere, relatively speaking. Every forest in the U.S. and Canada has them. The young ones are more active, constantly needing food, and every once in a while you get some kind of cult that pops up around them, with assholes wearing robes chanting in a made up language while they yeet some poor schmuck into the bowels of the tree. They typically feast on a live body for a few weeks, and then longer as they get older and learn how to make the meal last longer. The older ones are the ones you REALLY have to worry about. One live body can sustain them for a few decades or so, which means you are typically being digested for the rest of your natural life. If they get more bodies, they store them for later. The ugly tree from the Johnny Depp version of Sleepy Hollow? Blood Tree. Some can serve as gateways to a pain dimension or something, but those are actually really rare. So, Blood Trees possess the ability to not only digest you over time and keep you alive while doing so, but many of them can mess with your mind while doing it. So, you can see why I hate them. The following investigation showcases three things: One: I fucking hate Blood Trees. Two: I hate other agencies (suck it, F.B.I.) Three: I try not to go on any investigation alone. Being alone means you're more vulnerable, and there is no help. So...onto the investigation. "Agent Echo, arrival on scene at 0645, XX DEC 20XX. [REDACTED], Colorado." You'll realize pretty quick that I hate a lot of things. Dense forests, cults, springform pans, the F.B.I. Three of these things came into play today. I found myself at the entrance to a state park, whose name I won't share for obvious reasons. For this one, I didn't have to blend in with the locals, so no shitty apartment or beat to crap vehicle to deal with. Nope, I made my way to Fort Carson and yanked one of their range control trucks, something with some ground clearance and self recovery options. I pulled the big vehicle into the gravel parking lot which was freshly layered with fresh snow. I can't tell you enough how fucking beautiful this state is. Flocked trees, quiet wilderness, elk running everywhere and in many cases, not a lot of people. Anyways. The small visitor center sat nestled in the foreground of a mountain range, an idyllic location for a lovely state park. It was a log cabin style, single story with large windows, dark stain and a green tin roof. A set of glass double doors served as the entrance, with a small set of stairs leading up to it and a handicap ramp to the side. There were a few park ranger trucks sitting off to the side; the rest of the lot was empty save for a couple of mid sized SUVs and a Subaru or two. After parking and shutting off the truck, I hopped out and checked for my gear. I was wearing a set of snow pants over my jeans, and a matching parka with fur lining. Mittens covered my thin under gloves, and I wore a black beanie. It was balls cold out, and I really don't like being cold, but dressed down enough so I wouldn't get overheated while walking. My backpack held enough food and supplies for a few days of travel, with a small axe hanging off the side. I slung a 12 gauge over my shoulder and slid a .454 revolver with a 6 inch barrel into the holster at my hip. Why such a big revolver? A few reasons. First off, this is bear country. I don't give a damn about hibernation season; you don't go into bear country at any time without packing some iron. Second off, revolvers don't jam like a semi auto will. Third, a 454 will put down a bear without much drama. Go into a fight with a bear using a 9mm, I dare you. Bear attacks happen pretty quick, so you aren't gonna be playing John Wick with a 500lb bear that can move faster than you. Secure that I had all of my crap, I walked up the snowy steps and into the visitor center. It was quiet. Not unsettling quiet, just that no one was really having loud conversations. A tall, brawny man with sandy colored hair made his way up to me. A park ranger by the uniform, he opened his mouth to speak when I shoved a piece of paper in his face. He took a few moments to read it, then folded it and handed it back to me. "Well, that takes care of the first round of questions. I'm [Fake name, obviously] Ranger Sandover, call me Mike." "Echo, nice to meet you." M: "Echo?" The beginning of amusement lit up on his face. "That a secret codename?" I wasn't about to explain the intricacies of agency policy or the need for official cover names to a park ranger. Yes Mike, it's a codename, now fuck off. Instead, I looked up at him. He was probably a hair taller than Shout was, but more muscular. "Yep. Can we get to business, Mike?" He chuckled. "Sure thing." He turned and waved me along as he walked through the facility. "You with the F.B.I. or something?" I bristled. You may not know this, but I fucking hate the F.B.I. "No. They do their own thing, I don't mess with them." I barely hid my disgust. The walk through the facility was...short. It took only a few seconds to reach the wooden door labeled 'Ranger Office', and for Mike to throw it open and reveal the contents inside. It wasn't anything special. A medium sized wooden desk, basic ass industry catalogue issue, sat in the middle. A computer screen from 20 years ago sat on the side, along with the nameplate of the supervisor to the area. James T. Celery. [It should be pretty clear by now that all of these names are fake.] Ranger Celery sat his portly ass in a swivel chair behind the desk. He was huge. Not huge like a UFC Heavyweight, huge as in he probably could wolf down an elk by himself huge. His fat face had sweat on it just from sitting, and his hair had cleared out of the top of his head, leaving a horseshoe of thin brown hair that traveled the circumference of his dome. To his side stood another Ranger, that made up the three on duty right now. Christ, she was fucking adorable. Black hair, bright blue eyes, a hair taller than me and probably in better shape than Mike. That was about all she had going for her. Nametag said Bristol. B: "Who is this, new guy? Why are you bringing an armed civilian in here?" M: "Not a civilian. You remember the other day, we got a call about an agent coming to take a look around? This is Agent Echo." Bristol looked at me like I had just beaten her dog and killed her mom. Probably the same way I look at F.B.I. agents. B: "And...why do we need an 'agent'? This is a state park, we don't need-" This bitch was already getting on my nerves, so I cut her off. "Are you the one in charge? If not, then shut the fuck up. This crap is above your paygrade." I could hear Shout now. 'Do you always start fights wherever you go?' Sometimes. I can't help it though. This long doing the work I do, I don't have the time or patience for uppity peons. Bristol turned fully towards me and started forward. Immediately I pulled the revolver free and thumbed the hammer back, pointing it at her body. E: "Don't fucking try it. I could put a new asshole in every inch of your body and still get away with it." The room was tense. Mike's face was white. Obviously the guy was an easy-going type, one who hadn't seen the more uncouth side of human nature. Celery, to his credit, remained calm, folding his hands together. C: "Alright. Calm down everyone. Bristol, take a walk outside. Agent, please lower your weapon. I understand your role here, but lets have a bit of tact." I nodded slowly, and stepped to the side when Bristol passed, still glaring daggers at me, and closed the door. I ran the hammer forward and slid the revolver back into the holster. C: "Please, sit down." I didn't. C: "The search and rescue team is arriving soon, you can head out with them when the snow lifts." He wiped the sweat from his brow with a handkerchief. I shook my head. "I'm not search and rescue. There is something else I am after, and honestly, this is a courtesy that we told you I'm coming." Sometimes they didn't understand that. For a few reasons, my objective isn't exactly the safety of human beings. SAR handles that. My objective is the destruction of the Cryptid Emergence I was assigned to. That, and feelings can get you killed...it sucks, but thats the way it is. "I just need someone who knows the area." C: "Well, Mike is still new..." Fuck. C: "...SAR won't be here until a few hours most likely..." Double fuck. C: "...meaning the only experienced one I can send with you is Bristol." Triple fuck! I sighed. SAR may not be willing to high tail it right now, not sure why SAR would be delaying at the moment, but I didn't have the luxury of waiting. "Fine." I said after exhaling a calming breath. As a group we walked out of the office. Celery pulled Bristol to the side while Mike and I hung back. M: "Be careful. I shouldn't be saying this, but Bristol has a temper..." He said in a whisper. E: "Then don't. Thanks for the concern, but I'll be fine." I replied evenly. Celery and Bristol talked for a few minutes...a few minutes that went by way too slow. Once they were done, Bristol disappeared in the back for a few moments, then returned dressed for the weather, a lever action rifle slung over her shoulder. I nodded, one that she returned, and we walked out of the station and around the back towards the looming line of flocked trees ahead that marked the true boundary to the park. We followed the snow filled footsteps into the trees and started along a path that would have been easier to see were it not for the 8 inches of snow covering the ground. B: "Echo...did you make that up? Must be some kind of organization for you to just use codenames. Are you the C.I.A.?" At least she didn't say FBI. "No. CIA handles issues outside of the continental US mostly. Espionage and things like that." I replied evenly, our earlier tension suppressed under a layer of professionalism. We walked for a while, the miles passed and the time went with it. It was midday by the time either of us attempted conversation again. "Huh. So, what are we looking for? You said you aren't search and rescue, so what's the deal?" She spoke after a few minutes. We were walking side by side in the pathway, and I pulled up a GPS with a preloaded set of coordinates on it. "Honestly, I won't be sure until I see it..." Thump thump. "...and hopefully its nothing." Thump. Thump thump. I paused while Bristol walked forward, alarm bells going off in my head. Something was coming. I sped up my walk until I closed in on the Ranger, mouth opening to speak. "You act like it's gonna just jump out at you-" Jesus, she had to say that. From the thick underbrush a bear barrelled out. Large, fast and angry, it shouldered me to the side, having locked in Bristol as its target. My shotgun fell to the side and I went backwards onto my back. Bristol screamed out as the bear slammed her to the ground, massive paws raising and slamming downward to try and rip her limb from limb. If she hadn't gotten her rifle longways between herself and the bear, she really would have been done for. As I came to my feet, the bear caught her left shoulder in its mouth, grabbing and dragging her side to side, shaking her violently. I ran up with the .454 in hand. I got up close so I wouldn't risk hitting her, and fired. Once...twice...the bear went down in a heap, it's head half gone. I took Bristol's rifle and looped the sling around the bear's neck and pulled back hard, giving the ranger a bit of room to shimmy out from under it. Blood was pooled underneath her shoulder, and she was breathing hard, eyes wet as the realization of what just happened set in. I dropped to her side and pulled her coat open, expecting to find a tattered mass of flesh where her torso had been. Instead, I found claws. Not marks, but actual claws. The claws from the bear's paws had broken off the second they split the skin! "Fuck...uh, alright, you look surprisingly good..." Bewildered was a good word for it. Her nervous chuckle split the air. A few drops of blood pooled from under her uniform shirt, but her shoulder was a little worse off. The teeth had remained intact for a bit longer, and had cut a few nice gouges into the flesh. I pulled a medkit out of her bag and set to work. "How...how am I not..what the fuck..." She spoke between breaths. She looked up at my face and shot me a peculiar stare. "You know what happened? Fucking tell me! That thing should have ripped by guts out, what is going on!?" I finished the bandage on her shoulder and sighed. Reaching out, I pulled the claws from her chest and lifted one up, squeezing it between my fingers. It snapped quickly and fell to pieces afterwards. "It was already dead." "Come again?" She spoke incredulously. "Already dead. I think I know why, but I really wish I didn't." I leaned down and removed Bristol's knife from the sheath on her belt. Before she could protest, I lifted up the arm of the bear to expose its underbelly better, and pushed the knife in. Pulling to the side, the skin split open with a sick pop and disgorged its inside all over the snow. Well, the entrails at least. Huge clots of blood remained attached to the different organs, and I reached a gloved hand down into its body, searching around for a moment. "Okay, that is disgusting, what in God's name are you doing?" I didn't speak for a moment, then pulled my hand free, holding up a horrid looking obkect. It looked like a seed with many small roots coming off of it, covered in flesh. Like a tumor growing. The roots wriggled randomly, trying to find purchase in something. "Oh...oh my God..." Bristol went pale. Most people did when they first saw one of these things. Human minds can't fully process some things very well. "Blood Tree, goddammit." I stuck the tip of the knife into the seed and pulled it free. A copious amount of fresh blood spewed from the opening, more than the palm sized thing should have been able to hold. I tossed it back on the bear. "Its been using the bear to travel. Animals have an instinct that is hard to override, especially with a predatory animal. A few more days and the seed could have controlled it." B: "Okay. I'm gonna need you to explain this in a bit more detail. Why isn't the bear hibernating, why did it not kill me, how is it dead and what the FUCK did you just pull out of it!?" E: I sighed softly. "Look at the bears head, where I shot it...look where I cut it. See any blood that didn't come from the seed? No, because it's already coagulated. The bear was mostly dead. It attacked you because the seed trying to control it made it lose its mind. The seed I pulled out is from a Blood Tree. They survive off of fresh bodies...there is a whole book I could tell you, but just realize that they are bad fucking news, and it seems you have one in your little park. Probably with a cult around it too." B: "A cult? Like, guys in black robes chanting shit?" E: "Yep, exactly. Blood Trees don't usually infect animals. Their instinct makes it hard to separate an animal from its natural area to spread, which means it was probably put there by someone. Ergo, you have a Blood Tree Cult. Here, help me with this." Finding it next to a bottle of tequila and a rag, I pulled a big bottle of lighter fluid from my bag and tossed Bristol the long torch. She fumbled with it, but caught it. I began dousing the bear carcass with the lighter fluid. "Not sure how many seeds are in this thing, so best bet is to burn it." Once finished, I swapped the lighter fluid for the torch and set the bear alight, Bristol squeezing a bit more of fluid on there for good measure. B: "So, what now?" She asked softly, nibbling her lip. E: "Find the tree, burn it, kill the cultists." She didn't respond. We took a few minutes to rest and eat, regain some energy. I checked her bandages, but the wounds were surprisingly superficial. Bristol floated the idea of making camp, but I shook my head. "Not the place we want to camp. If we are going to find it and live, then we have to find it soon. It knows it's seeds just died." After securing all of our gear and finding her rifle and my shotgun, we continued our walk in the direction the bear had come from, with me reloading the .454 on the way. A half hour went by before she spoke again. B: "Um...Echo?" Far contrasting her earlier bravado at our first meeting, her voice was meek, girlish...scared. E: "Yeah?" B: "What is going to happen to me?" Damn, she had good instincts too. E: "Depends. If the seeds had enough control to sprout their own, then you'll probably be infected. Your shoulder will ache more, get red hot, and you'll see small roots in the wound. They'll slowly move through your body until they invade your brain, and kill you while retaining control of your body. If not, then a few weeks of recovery and you'll be fine." I don't sugarcoat things. It never pays to, really. Bad things happen, and they happen whether we like it or not. She let out a small sob. It was too early to tell if she had been infected though. B: "What happens then? You burn me too?" E: "After I put a bullet in your head, yeah. Mostly so you won't feel it. Remember, its too early to tell, though. You might be alright." That wasn't a lie at least. We walked farther and deeper into the woods. The sun had set, leaving us in the darkness, but the moon provided enough light that it reflected off of the snow and made walking easier. I didn't want to use a light; we already made enough noise walking to risk fully giving ourselves away visually. We stalked silently up the ridge where light played random shadow games over the top and on the other side. I slid down to my knees in the snow and Bristol followed suit, where we crawled the rest of the way up. Looking out, there was a small clearing, a fire looming in front of a large, gnarled tree that bled profusely from many different openings. Four figures in hooded cloaks stood there, evenly spaced but far from the tree to stay out of range of its flailing limbs and roots. The scene was grotesque, and I heard Bristol dry heave into her jacket to muffle the sound. I've been around a few of them, and I still have to fight nausea from overwhelming me. The things were bad news on every level, a sickening entity that could have an effect on someone just based on proximity. I watched for a few minutes just to get the nausea under control, and hopefully Bristol could do the same. I looked over to her laying just a few feet from me. E: "You alright?" B: "Y-yeah, I think..." E: "Make sure you are. This is gonna happen fast." I peeked over the rise we lay upon, noticing we were about 2 meters above the clearing. Not much of an elevated position, but enough to give us an edge. I searched in my bag for the bottle of tequila. Shame to use it on a blood tree, but we would have to get another bottle later. I unscrewed the cap and stuffed a rag into it, then put the cap back on. "Hop down the hill, kill the cultists, burn the tree." B: "Wait, we can't just kill them. The law doesn't work like that, Echo." E: "Are you serious? Do you know what these people will do to you if they-" My words were stopped short by the sound of heavy footsteps. I looked back in time to see an athletic man barreling towards us, murder in his eyes with a touch of fanaticism. I saw the faint traces of a Ranger uniform before a long leg pushed forward in a vicious kick to my side. The amount of power in the kick was absolutely ridiculous. My body lifted off of the snow covered ground and with a scream of pain I went over the side and down the 2 meter drop onto the floor below. Trying to catch my breath, I pushed shakily to my knees, my shotgun laying to the side a few feet away. A quick lift of my head showed me that the three robed figures were coming at an alarming pace. Pulling the revolver free I lifted it in a quick motion and fired. One cultist dropped when a .454 blew his spine out of his back. My reaction was a little slow due to the fall, though. I managed to squeeze one more shot off that annihilated the left thigh of a second, causing the woman's screams to echo out into the wilderness. The third had reached me. Dropping his full weight on top of me, he slapped the .454 out of my grasp and closed around my neck with two beefy hands, squeezing tight and cutting off my air supply instantly. I thrashed, moving and squirming, trying to get away. Another shot rang out in the Forest, followed by a thud off in the distance. I couldn't hear much, my ears were clogged, vision was fading. He was too strong at this point, and had too much leverage...guess this was my time? A thunderclap startled both of us. The man stiffened, and fell to the side like he had gotten hit by a sledgehammer...which, he might as well have. Bristol pulled herself forward, ragged breaths shooting steam into the cold night air. Her rifle fell down as kneeled next to me, and pulled me up to a sitting position. Leaning on each other, we climbed to our feet and I grabbed the .454. She held the bottle of tequila up for me to see, and didn't even need to say anything. I pulled out the torch and lit the rag, and Bristol reared back like she was throwing a grenade. Her aim was perfect. The Molotov sailed through the air and blew against the side of the tree. Fire spread all along the trunk, screeches from the tree, a cacophany of all its still living victims, providing a macabre chorus as its death cry. The tree would burn for quite a while most likely. E: "Come on. Lets get out of here." She didn't respond. Tucked under my shoulder, her breathing was ragged, rough, her body hot against mine. We tried to walk, but she held fast. B: "Re...remember what you said...earlier? About the seeds...?" She spoke softly, almost calm. Like she had accepted this. I laid her against the ridge and kneeled in front of her, reaching out to push her parka aside and lift her bandages. Small roots sprouted from the wound, which was festering, and an angry red. E: "...fuck." B: "Hah...yeah, this sucks..." I stood there, cursing internally. She had the instinct to be apart of our Agency...that, and she was a fighter, a survivor...a decent fucking person, actually. I pulled the revolver and aimed it at her. E: "I really wish I didn't have to do this." B: "I know." She stared up at me, scared, but knowing this was going to have to happen. "You aren't gonna look away?" E: "I never do." B: "Just...don't tell me when you're gonna-" I pulled the trigger. My face didn't change, but I just stood there...breathing. Tears made their way down my cheeks, and I pulled a cigarette free and lit it. After the tree had fully burned, I had to do the same to Bristol, as it was the only way to ensure the destruction of the seeds. I climbed the rise again to see Mike Sandover's body lifeless, with a giant hole in his head. I burned his body too, and that of the cultists as well, then began the long trip back to the Ranger station. I called Brain on the way back, and by the time I was done with the report, I had made it back. The parking lot was empty...Celery was gone. I put out a mark on him (more on that later), and jumped in the truck. Time to find a bar to get wasted at. End Of Transcription. There is another one. I'll let you guys know what happened to Celery next time, but until then? Stay out of the fucking woods.
I'm a Paranormal Investigator for the U.S. Government. My agency is getting annoyed. Part two: Blood Trees
I'm a Paranormal Investigator for the U.S. Government. My agency is getting annoyed. Part two: Blood Trees Let me start this off by saying one thing: I fucking hate Blood Trees. Look, there are a hundred thousand ways to die in this world. Over half of those are from Cryptids. Half of that is pretty quick or relatively painless, and smaller still are the ones that make it hurt. Within this percentage are two ways of death that every one of you really needs to be aware of. One: Mental break. This method isn't exclusive to Eldritch beings, but they love the shit. The idea of yanking your mind and soul out of your body and driving you mad while inflicting pain is probably their favorite dish. You sit there for what feels like an eternity, getting your soul flayed while they show you images and scene that no human was built to see. Two: Physical break. These are what I like to call Digestors. An entity, human or not, who secures your body to something and just puts you through it. Peeling your skin off, bamboo under the fingernails, cutting off your eyelids, the works. These things typically have the ability to heal the damage they cause so they can inflict more pain without killing you. Blood trees? They can do both. I don't know what asshole conjured these things up, but I hope their creation did some turnabout on them. Blood Trees are hard to pin down. Not that there aren't a lot of them; they are everywhere, relatively speaking. Every forest in the U.S. and Canada has them. The young ones are more active, constantly needing food, and every once in a while you get some kind of cult that pops up around them, with assholes wearing robes chanting in a made up language while they yeet some poor schmuck into the bowels of the tree. They typically feast on a live body for a few weeks, and then longer as they get older and learn how to make the meal last longer. The older ones are the ones you REALLY have to worry about. One live body can sustain them for a few decades or so, which means you are typically being digested for the rest of your natural life. If they get more bodies, they store them for later. The ugly tree from the Johnny Depp version of Sleepy Hollow? Blood Tree. Some can serve as gateways to a pain dimension or something, but those are actually really rare. So, Blood Trees possess the ability to not only digest you over time and keep you alive while doing so, but many of them can mess with your mind while doing it. So, you can see why I hate them. The following investigation showcases three things: One: I fucking hate Blood Trees. Two: I hate other agencies (suck it, F.B.I.) Three: I try not to go on any investigation alone. Being alone means you're more vulnerable, and there is no help. So...onto the investigation. "Agent Echo, arrival on scene at 0645, XX DEC 20XX. [REDACTED], Colorado." You'll realize pretty quick that I hate a lot of things. Dense forests, cults, springform pans, the F.B.I. Three of these things came into play today. I found myself at the entrance to a state park, whose name I won't share for obvious reasons. For this one, I didn't have to blend in with the locals, so no shitty apartment or beat to crap vehicle to deal with. Nope, I made my way to Fort Carson and yanked one of their range control trucks, something with some ground clearance and self recovery options. I pulled the big vehicle into the gravel parking lot which was freshly layered with fresh snow. I can't tell you enough how fucking beautiful this state is. Flocked trees, quiet wilderness, elk running everywhere and in many cases, not a lot of people. Anyways. The small visitor center sat nestled in the foreground of a mountain range, an idyllic location for a lovely state park. It was a log cabin style, single story with large windows, dark stain and a green tin roof. A set of glass double doors served as the entrance, with a small set of stairs leading up to it and a handicap ramp to the side. There were a few park ranger trucks sitting off to the side; the rest of the lot was empty save for a couple of mid sized SUVs and a Subaru or two. After parking and shutting off the truck, I hopped out and checked for my gear. I was wearing a set of snow pants over my jeans, and a matching parka with fur lining. Mittens covered my thin under gloves, and I wore a black beanie. It was balls cold out, and I really don't like being cold, but dressed down enough so I wouldn't get overheated while walking. My backpack held enough food and supplies for a few days of travel, with a small axe hanging off the side. I slung a 12 gauge over my shoulder and slid a .454 revolver with a 6 inch barrel into the holster at my hip. Why such a big revolver? A few reasons. First off, this is bear country. I don't give a damn about hibernation season; you don't go into bear country at any time without packing some iron. Second off, revolvers don't jam like a semi auto will. Third, a 454 will put down a bear without much drama. Go into a fight with a bear using a 9mm, I dare you. Bear attacks happen pretty quick, so you aren't gonna be playing John Wick with a 500lb bear that can move faster than you. Secure that I had all of my crap, I walked up the snowy steps and into the visitor center. It was quiet. Not unsettling quiet, just that no one was really having loud conversations. A tall, brawny man with sandy colored hair made his way up to me. A park ranger by the uniform, he opened his mouth to speak when I shoved a piece of paper in his face. He took a few moments to read it, then folded it and handed it back to me. "Well, that takes care of the first round of questions. I'm [Fake name, obviously] Ranger Sandover, call me Mike." "Echo, nice to meet you." M: "Echo?" The beginning of amusement lit up on his face. "That a secret codename?" I wasn't about to explain the intricacies of agency policy or the need for official cover names to a park ranger. Yes Mike, it's a codename, now fuck off. Instead, I looked up at him. He was probably a hair taller than Shout was, but more muscular. "Yep. Can we get to business, Mike?" He chuckled. "Sure thing." He turned and waved me along as he walked through the facility. "You with the F.B.I. or something?" I bristled. You may not know this, but I fucking hate the F.B.I. "No. They do their own thing, I don't mess with them." I barely hid my disgust. The walk through the facility was...short. It took only a few seconds to reach the wooden door labeled 'Ranger Office', and for Mike to throw it open and reveal the contents inside. It wasn't anything special. A medium sized wooden desk, basic ass industry catalogue issue, sat in the middle. A computer screen from 20 years ago sat on the side, along with the nameplate of the supervisor to the area. James T. Celery. [It should be pretty clear by now that all of these names are fake.] Ranger Celery sat his portly ass in a swivel chair behind the desk. He was huge. Not huge like a UFC Heavyweight, huge as in he probably could wolf down an elk by himself huge. His fat face had sweat on it just from sitting, and his hair had cleared out of the top of his head, leaving a horseshoe of thin brown hair that traveled the circumference of his dome. To his side stood another Ranger, that made up the three on duty right now. Christ, she was fucking adorable. Black hair, bright blue eyes, a hair taller than me and probably in better shape than Mike. That was about all she had going for her. Nametag said Bristol. B: "Who is this, new guy? Why are you bringing an armed civilian in here?" M: "Not a civilian. You remember the other day, we got a call about an agent coming to take a look around? This is Agent Echo." Bristol looked at me like I had just beaten her dog and killed her mom. Probably the same way I look at F.B.I. agents. B: "And...why do we need an 'agent'? This is a state park, we don't need-" This bitch was already getting on my nerves, so I cut her off. "Are you the one in charge? If not, then shut the fuck up. This crap is above your paygrade." I could hear Shout now. 'Do you always start fights wherever you go?' Sometimes. I can't help it though. This long doing the work I do, I don't have the time or patience for uppity peons. Bristol turned fully towards me and started forward. Immediately I pulled the revolver free and thumbed the hammer back, pointing it at her body. E: "Don't fucking try it. I could put a new asshole in every inch of your body and still get away with it." The room was tense. Mike's face was white. Obviously the guy was an easy-going type, one who hadn't seen the more uncouth side of human nature. Celery, to his credit, remained calm, folding his hands together. C: "Alright. Calm down everyone. Bristol, take a walk outside. Agent, please lower your weapon. I understand your role here, but lets have a bit of tact." I nodded slowly, and stepped to the side when Bristol passed, still glaring daggers at me, and closed the door. I ran the hammer forward and slid the revolver back into the holster. C: "Please, sit down." I didn't. C: "The search and rescue team is arriving soon, you can head out with them when the snow lifts." He wiped the sweat from his brow with a handkerchief. I shook my head. "I'm not search and rescue. There is something else I am after, and honestly, this is a courtesy that we told you I'm coming." Sometimes they didn't understand that. For a few reasons, my objective isn't exactly the safety of human beings. SAR handles that. My objective is the destruction of the Cryptid Emergence I was assigned to. That, and feelings can get you killed...it sucks, but thats the way it is. "I just need someone who knows the area." C: "Well, Mike is still new..." Fuck. C: "...SAR won't be here until a few hours most likely..." Double fuck. C: "...meaning the only experienced one I can send with you is Bristol." Triple fuck! I sighed. SAR may not be willing to high tail it right now, not sure why SAR would be delaying at the moment, but I didn't have the luxury of waiting. "Fine." I said after exhaling a calming breath. As a group we walked out of the office. Celery pulled Bristol to the side while Mike and I hung back. M: "Be careful. I shouldn't be saying this, but Bristol has a temper..." He said in a whisper. E: "Then don't. Thanks for the concern, but I'll be fine." I replied evenly. Celery and Bristol talked for a few minutes...a few minutes that went by way too slow. Once they were done, Bristol disappeared in the back for a few moments, then returned dressed for the weather, a lever action rifle slung over her shoulder. I nodded, one that she returned, and we walked out of the station and around the back towards the looming line of flocked trees ahead that marked the true boundary to the park. We followed the snow filled footsteps into the trees and started along a path that would have been easier to see were it not for the 8 inches of snow covering the ground. B: "Echo...did you make that up? Must be some kind of organization for you to just use codenames. Are you the C.I.A.?" At least she didn't say FBI. "No. CIA handles issues outside of the continental US mostly. Espionage and things like that." I replied evenly, our earlier tension suppressed under a layer of professionalism. We walked for a while, the miles passed and the time went with it. It was midday by the time either of us attempted conversation again. "Huh. So, what are we looking for? You said you aren't search and rescue, so what's the deal?" She spoke after a few minutes. We were walking side by side in the pathway, and I pulled up a GPS with a preloaded set of coordinates on it. "Honestly, I won't be sure until I see it..." Thump thump. "...and hopefully its nothing." Thump. Thump thump. I paused while Bristol walked forward, alarm bells going off in my head. Something was coming. I sped up my walk until I closed in on the Ranger, mouth opening to speak. "You act like it's gonna just jump out at you-" Jesus, she had to say that. From the thick underbrush a bear barrelled out. Large, fast and angry, it shouldered me to the side, having locked in Bristol as its target. My shotgun fell to the side and I went backwards onto my back. Bristol screamed out as the bear slammed her to the ground, massive paws raising and slamming downward to try and rip her limb from limb. If she hadn't gotten her rifle longways between herself and the bear, she really would have been done for. As I came to my feet, the bear caught her left shoulder in its mouth, grabbing and dragging her side to side, shaking her violently. I ran up with the .454 in hand. I got up close so I wouldn't risk hitting her, and fired. Once...twice...the bear went down in a heap, it's head half gone. I took Bristol's rifle and looped the sling around the bear's neck and pulled back hard, giving the ranger a bit of room to shimmy out from under it. Blood was pooled underneath her shoulder, and she was breathing hard, eyes wet as the realization of what just happened set in. I dropped to her side and pulled her coat open, expecting to find a tattered mass of flesh where her torso had been. Instead, I found claws. Not marks, but actual claws. The claws from the bear's paws had broken off the second they split the skin! "Fuck...uh, alright, you look surprisingly good..." Bewildered was a good word for it. Her nervous chuckle split the air. A few drops of blood pooled from under her uniform shirt, but her shoulder was a little worse off. The teeth had remained intact for a bit longer, and had cut a few nice gouges into the flesh. I pulled a medkit out of her bag and set to work. "How...how am I not..what the fuck..." She spoke between breaths. She looked up at my face and shot me a peculiar stare. "You know what happened? Fucking tell me! That thing should have ripped by guts out, what is going on!?" I finished the bandage on her shoulder and sighed. Reaching out, I pulled the claws from her chest and lifted one up, squeezing it between my fingers. It snapped quickly and fell to pieces afterwards. "It was already dead." "Come again?" She spoke incredulously. "Already dead. I think I know why, but I really wish I didn't." I leaned down and removed Bristol's knife from the sheath on her belt. Before she could protest, I lifted up the arm of the bear to expose its underbelly better, and pushed the knife in. Pulling to the side, the skin split open with a sick pop and disgorged its inside all over the snow. Well, the entrails at least. Huge clots of blood remained attached to the different organs, and I reached a gloved hand down into its body, searching around for a moment. "Okay, that is disgusting, what in God's name are you doing?" I didn't speak for a moment, then pulled my hand free, holding up a horrid looking obkect. It looked like a seed with many small roots coming off of it, covered in flesh. Like a tumor growing. The roots wriggled randomly, trying to find purchase in something. "Oh...oh my God..." Bristol went pale. Most people did when they first saw one of these things. Human minds can't fully process some things very well. "Blood Tree, goddammit." I stuck the tip of the knife into the seed and pulled it free. A copious amount of fresh blood spewed from the opening, more than the palm sized thing should have been able to hold. I tossed it back on the bear. "Its been using the bear to travel. Animals have an instinct that is hard to override, especially with a predatory animal. A few more days and the seed could have controlled it." B: "Okay. I'm gonna need you to explain this in a bit more detail. Why isn't the bear hibernating, why did it not kill me, how is it dead and what the FUCK did you just pull out of it!?" E: I sighed softly. "Look at the bears head, where I shot it...look where I cut it. See any blood that didn't come from the seed? No, because it's already coagulated. The bear was mostly dead. It attacked you because the seed trying to control it made it lose its mind. The seed I pulled out is from a Blood Tree. They survive off of fresh bodies...there is a whole book I could tell you, but just realize that they are bad fucking news, and it seems you have one in your little park. Probably with a cult around it too." B: "A cult? Like, guys in black robes chanting shit?" E: "Yep, exactly. Blood Trees don't usually infect animals. Their instinct makes it hard to separate an animal from its natural area to spread, which means it was probably put there by someone. Ergo, you have a Blood Tree Cult. Here, help me with this." Finding it next to a bottle of tequila and a rag, I pulled a big bottle of lighter fluid from my bag and tossed Bristol the long torch. She fumbled with it, but caught it. I began dousing the bear carcass with the lighter fluid. "Not sure how many seeds are in this thing, so best bet is to burn it." Once finished, I swapped the lighter fluid for the torch and set the bear alight, Bristol squeezing a bit more of fluid on there for good measure. B: "So, what now?" She asked softly, nibbling her lip. E: "Find the tree, burn it, kill the cultists." She didn't respond. We took a few minutes to rest and eat, regain some energy. I checked her bandages, but the wounds were surprisingly superficial. Bristol floated the idea of making camp, but I shook my head. "Not the place we want to camp. If we are going to find it and live, then we have to find it soon. It knows it's seeds just died." After securing all of our gear and finding her rifle and my shotgun, we continued our walk in the direction the bear had come from, with me reloading the .454 on the way. A half hour went by before she spoke again. B: "Um...Echo?" Far contrasting her earlier bravado at our first meeting, her voice was meek, girlish...scared. E: "Yeah?" B: "What is going to happen to me?" Damn, she had good instincts too. E: "Depends. If the seeds had enough control to sprout their own, then you'll probably be infected. Your shoulder will ache more, get red hot, and you'll see small roots in the wound. They'll slowly move through your body until they invade your brain, and kill you while retaining control of your body. If not, then a few weeks of recovery and you'll be fine." I don't sugarcoat things. It never pays to, really. Bad things happen, and they happen whether we like it or not. She let out a small sob. It was too early to tell if she had been infected though. B: "What happens then? You burn me too?" E: "After I put a bullet in your head, yeah. Mostly so you won't feel it. Remember, its too early to tell, though. You might be alright." That wasn't a lie at least. We walked farther and deeper into the woods. The sun had set, leaving us in the darkness, but the moon provided enough light that it reflected off of the snow and made walking easier. I didn't want to use a light; we already made enough noise walking to risk fully giving ourselves away visually. We stalked silently up the ridge where light played random shadow games over the top and on the other side. I slid down to my knees in the snow and Bristol followed suit, where we crawled the rest of the way up. Looking out, there was a small clearing, a fire looming in front of a large, gnarled tree that bled profusely from many different openings. Four figures in hooded cloaks stood there, evenly spaced but far from the tree to stay out of range of its flailing limbs and roots. The scene was grotesque, and I heard Bristol dry heave into her jacket to muffle the sound. I've been around a few of them, and I still have to fight nausea from overwhelming me. The things were bad news on every level, a sickening entity that could have an effect on someone just based on proximity. I watched for a few minutes just to get the nausea under control, and hopefully Bristol could do the same. I looked over to her laying just a few feet from me. E: "You alright?" B: "Y-yeah, I think..." E: "Make sure you are. This is gonna happen fast." I peeked over the rise we lay upon, noticing we were about 2 meters above the clearing. Not much of an elevated position, but enough to give us an edge. I searched in my bag for the bottle of tequila. Shame to use it on a blood tree, but we would have to get another bottle later. I unscrewed the cap and stuffed a rag into it, then put the cap back on. "Hop down the hill, kill the cultists, burn the tree." B: "Wait, we can't just kill them. The law doesn't work like that, Echo." E: "Are you serious? Do you know what these people will do to you if they-" My words were stopped short by the sound of heavy footsteps. I looked back in time to see an athletic man barreling towards us, murder in his eyes with a touch of fanaticism. I saw the faint traces of a Ranger uniform before a long leg pushed forward in a vicious kick to my side. The amount of power in the kick was absolutely ridiculous. My body lifted off of the snow covered ground and with a scream of pain I went over the side and down the 2 meter drop onto the floor below. Trying to catch my breath, I pushed shakily to my knees, my shotgun laying to the side a few feet away. A quick lift of my head showed me that the three robed figures were coming at an alarming pace. Pulling the revolver free I lifted it in a quick motion and fired. One cultist dropped when a .454 blew his spine out of his back. My reaction was a little slow due to the fall, though. I managed to squeeze one more shot off that annihilated the left thigh of a second, causing the woman's screams to echo out into the wilderness. The third had reached me. Dropping his full weight on top of me, he slapped the .454 out of my grasp and closed around my neck with two beefy hands, squeezing tight and cutting off my air supply instantly. I thrashed, moving and squirming, trying to get away. Another shot rang out in the Forest, followed by a thud off in the distance. I couldn't hear much, my ears were clogged, vision was fading. He was too strong at this point, and had too much leverage...guess this was my time? A thunderclap startled both of us. The man stiffened, and fell to the side like he had gotten hit by a sledgehammer...which, he might as well have. Bristol pulled herself forward, ragged breaths shooting steam into the cold night air. Her rifle fell down as kneeled next to me, and pulled me up to a sitting position. Leaning on each other, we climbed to our feet and I grabbed the .454. She held the bottle of tequila up for me to see, and didn't even need to say anything. I pulled out the torch and lit the rag, and Bristol reared back like she was throwing a grenade. Her aim was perfect. The Molotov sailed through the air and blew against the side of the tree. Fire spread all along the trunk, screeches from the tree, a cacophany of all its still living victims, providing a macabre chorus as its death cry. The tree would burn for quite a while most likely. E: "Come on. Lets get out of here." She didn't respond. Tucked under my shoulder, her breathing was ragged, rough, her body hot against mine. We tried to walk, but she held fast. B: "Re...remember what you said...earlier? About the seeds...?" She spoke softly, almost calm. Like she had accepted this. I laid her against the ridge and kneeled in front of her, reaching out to push her parka aside and lift her bandages. Small roots sprouted from the wound, which was festering, and an angry red. E: "...fuck." B: "Hah...yeah, this sucks..." I stood there, cursing internally. She had the instinct to be apart of our Agency...that, and she was a fighter, a survivor...a decent fucking person, actually. I pulled the revolver and aimed it at her. E: "I really wish I didn't have to do this." B: "I know." She stared up at me, scared, but knowing this was going to have to happen. "You aren't gonna look away?" E: "I never do." B: "Just...don't tell me when you're gonna-" I pulled the trigger. My face didn't change, but I just stood there...breathing. Tears made their way down my cheeks, and I pulled a cigarette free and lit it. After the tree had fully burned, I had to do the same to Bristol, as it was the only way to ensure the destruction of the seeds. I climbed the rise again to see Mike Sandover's body lifeless, with a giant hole in his head. I burned his body too, and that of the cultists as well, then began the long trip back to the Ranger station. I called Brain on the way back, and by the time I was done with the report, I had made it back. The parking lot was empty...Celery was gone. I put out a mark on him (more on that later), and jumped in the truck. Time to find a bar to get wasted at. End Of Transcription. There is another one. I'll let you guys know what happened to Celery next time, but until then? Stay out of the fucking woods.
Going through old issues of the Wrestling Observer Newsletter and posting highlights in my own words. For anyone interested, I highly recommend signing up for the actual site at f4wonline and checking out the full archives. PREVIOUSLY:
PROGRAMMING NOTE:Some of you may have missed last week's post because I didn't do it on Wednesday. Ended up posting it Thursday instead, so it's there in the archives below if you missed it. I know this 2002 series of Rewinds doesn't really have the momentum or appeal that it had back when I was posting them 3 times a week for years on end. Sorry about that, like I said before, I just decided to post these on a whim when the virus started and didn't really prepare for it so it's all kinda haphazard. But just didn't want anyone to miss the one from last week if it flew under the radar.
Steve Austin walked out of WWE this week and threw everything into upheaval. As a result, Raw featured Vince McMahon challenging Ric Flair to a match for ownership of the entire company. It was the ultimate final blow-off to a huge long-term angle, and they did it with only 2 hours of build-up. With Vince now in charge of both shows, questions are swirling about whether this spells the end of the brand split, only a few months in. The reason this all happened is because, only 6 hours before Raw went on the air, Steve Austin showed up to the arena and found out he was scheduled to wrestle (and Dave thinks put over, though he hasn't confirmed that yet) Brock Lesner. Dave immediately points out the obvious, that an Austin vs. Lesnar match is something you should build up ahead of time, not throw it on free TV with no build up at all. Plus, he's still so new, he's incredibly green, and he's spent the last few months selling way too much for people like the Hardyz and Bubba Ray Dudley. Hell, before he debuted in WWE, he wasn't even the most over guy in OVW. He's nowhere near the level you'd expect for him to be winning matches with Steve Austin un-hyped on free TV. In fact, Lesnar should probably go through just about everyone else on the roster before putting him against Austin. That's a potential Wrestlemania-level match and Dave seems befuddled that they would just book it for Raw like this.
Apparently Austin felt the same way because he and his wife Debra left the building and flew home before Vince McMahon even arrived to the arena, the second time since Wrestlemania that he has walked out on the company. A source who was there when McMahon learned of the news said that, for the first time anyone could remember, Vince seemed to drop his "game face" and there seemed to be genuine panic about what to do. Rock has one foot out the door to Hollywood. Undertaker and Triple H are banged up and won't be around forever (bet). Business is already collapsing. And now the biggest star the company's ever had just walked out the door. Last time Austin walked out after Wrestlemania, he was only away for 2 weeks. This time, there's a feeling it could be much longer. Those close to Austin say he's been unhappy for months and this decision wasn't anything specifically to do with the Lesnar match. That just happened to be the final straw. Austin made news last week when he went on the WWE's Byte This show and voiced his frustrations with the company's creative direction. Plans had been put into motion over the last couple weeks for Austin to feud with Eddie Guerrero and then Chris Benoit, which he was happy about (he was enjoying his recent house show matches with Eddie and Benoit is one of Austin's favorite opponents) but that's out the window now. Austin and Vince McMahon reportedly haven't been on good terms for several months now and word is the night before Raw, the two of them had a very heated conversation over the phone that left Austin pissed off and frustrated even before this went down.
And that's the deal on Austin. He has more money than he'll ever be able to spend and doesn't have any financial need to wrestle. He only does so because he enjoys it. And if he doesn't enjoy it anymore, then by all means, it's his right to leave and he doesn't owe the business anything if he wants to hang up the boots. But Dave does feel like Austin owes WWE at least a few weeks to write him out of storylines since he's such an important piece of the company. Walking out from a live TV taping is unprofessional and it leaves guys like Guerrero and Benoit left hanging, thus screwing up their future plans and money-making potential too (yeah, that's something that doesn't get talked about much. Austin walking out fucked Guerrero over pretty hard here. It would take him another 2 years to get back into that main event scene that he would have been involved in here). That being said, pretty much everyone in the locker room sympathizes with Austin and agrees with his complaints about the creative direction of the company, but not many of them were defending the way he walked out. And given that this is the second time he's done it, the feeling is he shouldn't be allowed back without facing some actual punishment this time.
So anyway, the day of Raw, they went into panic mode and had to re-write the entire show. And with the feeling Austin won't be coming back anytime soon, Vince felt they needed to do something big. So they went with blowing off the dual-owners angle in a match that was designed to turn Flair babyface again and establish Vince as the heel owner of everything. There was also discussion of turning Undertaker babyface again, since he's been getting more cheers than RVD when they work together at house shows lately but they decided against that for now (they end up doing it in a couple weeks). So now Flair has been abruptly turned back, after only turning heel a few weeks prior. The brand split may or may not be dead. And there we stand.
In what would have been a major story during any other week, DDP has officially retired from wrestling at age 46. Unfortunately, Austin's walk-out overshadowed everything. The decision on DDP's retirement was actually made by Vince McMahon and Jim Ross, who pretty much made the choice for him after they got his medical reports. DDP has been advised by multiple doctors that his spine is shot and he needs to retire. For the company's own liability, WWE decided to listen to the doctors and DDP agreed. There has been talk of finding ways for DDP to work the remainder of his contract for the company in a non-wrestling capacity. (He obviously ends up wrestling a handful of matches in the years since, but for the most part, this really was the end of DDP's in-ring career as a full-time wrestler).
There were a couple of moments on Raw this week where Shawn Michaels was cutting a promo and made a comment about Austin "losing his top spot" and another comment later about Rock "stealing Triple H's spot." A lot of people in the company backstage were upset, feeling like this was the same ol' Shawn, going into business for himself and trashing on Austin and Rock and yada yada. Not the case. Those comments were actually scripted for Shawn to say because they want to get over the idea that Shawn on the mic is a loose cannon and you never know when he might start "shooting" and say something he's not supposed to. It's all very dumb, you see. Almost like Vince Russo is coming back any day now or something.
Dave gives a big preview and rundown of the Jarrett family's new NWA-TNA promotion, which has its debut show next week on PPV. Not all cable systems are carrying it, however. Cablevision and Dish Network both declined to carry it, but DirecTV is. This cuts down on the number of available homes for the show and probably cuts 20-30% off their potential revenue. The main PPV provider in Canada, Viewer's Choice, has also declined to carry it. Steep mountain to climb here. Dave expects them to do decent numbers for their first show but predicts an XFL-like collapse after that. By week 3, Dave is scared for their chances. From here, Dave gives the whole history of other promotions who've tried to make it on PPV in the U.S., with varying degrees of success and failure. UWFI, UFC, ECW, WCW, PRIDE, etc, WWF has even toyed with similar ideas. In 1991, they did the one-off Tuesday In Texas PPV as a test to see if they could run PPVs back-to-back (Survivor Series was only the week prior) and it was a flop. The original concept for Shotgun Saturday Night was for it to be a weekly Saturday night PPV with a similar >$10 price point, but that idea got scrapped before it got off the ground and it became just another TV show. Dave doesn't think TNA is going to make it without a TV deal. This PPV exclusive plan just has too much working against it. The Jarretts have talked about the millions of disenfranchised fans that stopped watching after WCW died, and it's true. Those people are out there. But those millions of fans all checked out between 1999-2001, and TNA isn't going to win them back by using the same people and the same concepts that ran those viewers away from WCW. All your wacky booking ideas, your Vince Russos, your Jeff Jarretts as champion, bringing in guys that even WWE won't touch (Scott Hall), etc. Those are all the same things that ran away those WCW viewers. Dave just doesn't see how this experiment can work in its current form.
Vince McMahon himself was the latest guest on WWE's Byte This show and needless to say, it was interesting. Vince denied the idea that the wrestling business is "cyclical" and said it's more like a series of peaks and valleys that have slowly been trending upwards over the years. Vince also admitted WWE doesn't always make the best decisions but says their batting average is good overall. Vince also said he's proud to have the word "wrestling" in their company name, which is a pretty big about-face from all the years he's tried to publicly claim they were "sports entertainment, not wrestling." He admitted things are rough right now but said there are huge changes coming soon that will change the entire industry but wouldn't elaborate on what he had planned (I think time has proven that the answer to this was nothing whatsoever. They had no idea what they were doing during this time and were just making shit up as they went along). Vince acknowledged that Austin has been frustrated lately and said Austin is the most demanding of all the wrestlers in WWE. Vince also said he pays no attention to the internet because everyone thinks they're a booker. He also complained that it's hard to live up to people's expectations because fans all think they know everything now. Acknowledged ratings being down and played it off like, yes, WWE is sick. But it's only a cold, not pneumonia or anything, so don't panic.
More notes from Vince on Byte This because huge unbroken paragraphs suck: he hinted at producing movies starring WWE talent. Dave thinks that's a bad idea. "No Holds Barred," anyone? Criticized backyard wrestling, which Dave actually agrees with him 100% on. Was asked about bringing Vince Russo back and said he hasn't given it any thought but he has an open door policy (see you next week, Russo! Jeez, it almost makes you wonder if Vince got the idea from this interview or something). When asked about the recent Jim Cornette/Ed Ferrara incident, Vince basically seemed disinterested but said he admires Cornette's passion for wrestling but felt spitting in Ferrara's face was unprofessional. When asked about NWA-TNA, Vince said he didn't understand how they could do it without television. Trying to get people to pay $9.95 a week for a 2 hour show (a minor league product at that, because anything other than WWE is basically minor leagues at this point), when they already get Raw and Smackdown on free television. Otherwise, he said he has no opinions on it because he hasn't seen it, but Vince seems to share Dave's opinion. He doesn't see this PPV model as sustainable and doesn't seem particularly threatened by it.
NJPW's latest Best of the Super Juniors tournament is in the books and was a disappointment, just like everything else in NJPW lately. Koji Kanemoto won a pretty boring tournament. There was only one new name involved, which was Michinoku Pro wrestler Curry Man (Christopher Daniels under a mask). He's talented and charismatic but he's not even that big a star in Michinoku Pro, much less to the NJPW audience. Otherwise, it was more of the same, with no real notable matches.
Zero-1 in Japan is hoping to put together a working relationship with NWA-TNA. Specifically, they're hoping they can do a Shinya Hashimoto vs. Ken Shamrock feud, perhaps over the NWA title.
While training for his comeback, Kenta Kobashi messed up his shoulder doing bench presses, because of course he did. Doctors have told him not to return too soon but he still plans to be back in the ring by next month. Because of course he does.
NJPW's latest show at Budokan Hall was a disaster. From photos Dave saw, he figures there couldn't have been more than 3,500 fans in the building. Even at its weakest after the NOAH exodus, AJPW never fell below 7,000 at Budokan and this show looked to be half that. It's likely the smallest crowd NJPW has ever drawn to that arena. The whole show was said to be terrible because of the depressing atmosphere of a building that was 2/3 empty.
This week's World Cup game between Japan and Russia did a 66.1 TV rating, making it the #2 highest rated sports broadcast in the history of Japan. This is notable because by doing so, it surpassed the Rikidozan vs. Destroyer match from 1963, which did a 64.0 rating, knocking it down to #3 (for what it's worth, it's believed that a Rikidozan vs. Lou Thesz match in 1957 was actually watched by even more people, but official ratings weren't kept as detailed back then, so it can't be counted for sure).
Dave has read some excerpts from the new Shaun Assael book on Vince McMahon called "Sex, Lies, and Headlocks." From what he's read, Dave says it's a very good and accurate portrayal of how the WWE has grown to what it is today. Vince's former close friend and VP of Titan Sports during the expansion era Jim Troy and Jim Barnett were both interviewed for it, among others. If you're a hardcore fan who's been following the Observer for years, there's nothing new here that you probably don't already know from a major story standpoint, but there's some interesting details at least that were new to Dave. But to the average fan, this should be pretty eye-opening. Dave expects to have a full review soon.
CZW held its second annual Best of the Best tournament at the old ECW Arena and the show got rave reviews. Particularly British wrestlers Jodie Fleisch and Jonny Storm, who tore the house down in their match. Trent Acid defeated Fleisch to win the tournament.
The Coen brothers, producers of the movie "Fargo", have had talks with Bobby Heenan about doing a movie based on his life (this pretty obviously went nowhere).
New Jack is no longer working with XPW and has jumped ship to work with a rival local promoter in Southern California. Perhaps not coincidentally, the last check New Jack received from XPW promoter Rob Black for $800 ended up bouncing. Dave says New Jack probably isn't the guy you want to write bad checks to.
NWA-TNA has changed its taping plans and no longer plans to tour, and they will now be live every week. The first two shows will be taped this week in Huntsville and after that, all future shows will be live from Nashville at the 9,000-seat Municipal Auditorium. Apparently the rent for that building is really cheap because a newer, more modern arena was just built nearby, so TNA can afford it. That being said, with as much trouble as they're having selling tickets for the debut show in Huntsville, Dave thinks it's pretty optimistic to start trying to run live tapings in the same 9,000-seat building every week. He thinks they would be much better off running a small 800-seat building every week, with a smaller, more intimate atmosphere that would come across a lot better on TV than a big cavernous arena that, inevitably, is going to be mostly empty (to this day, 18 years later, TNA/Impact has never once drawn a crowd of 9,000 fans. Never even really close actually).
Various other TNA notes: Dave runs down the list of confirmed names for TNA's first taping. Rick Steiner, K-Krush (formerly K-Kwik in WWF), Konnan, Steve Corino, The Harris Brothers, Psicosis, and a bunch of others. Don Frye has talked to Jeff Jarrett about coming in to work a match with Ken Shamrock. Jackie Fargo is going to be there doing something. They made an offer to Shane Douglas but he only agreed to come in if they didn't hire Francine (some kind of falling out between them). TNA decided they'd rather have Francine. They're expected to be doing some kind of old school vs. new school angle so....yay. More latter-years WCW shit. Mike & Todd Shane are coming in as a tag team called Dick & Rod Johnson and will have costumes that apparently look like penises, just in case you were still on the fence about whether Vince Russo is involved. The top stars are basically making around $3,500 per week which is a pretty decent salary for one day's work every week. The guys without name value, on the other hand, are getting $300 per show and are covering their own transportation. Just in case you were still on the fence about whether Jerry Jarrett is involved.
Ken Shamrock did an interview and acknowledged that he hasn't done pro-wrestling in a few years and knows he's going to be rusty. He also said he's worried because with only 1 show per week, he won't really be able to get enough matches under his belt to get good again. He also said he's signed a 3 fight deal with UFC and will be fighting Tito Ortiz in September, which turns out to be a pretty huge damn deal.
Dave saw the K-1 match with former WCW developmental wrestler Bob Sapp vs. some dude. Doesn't matter. What matters is Bob Sapp is enormous ("makes Brock Lesnar look like Jerry Lynn"). And he mauled this poor guy. In fact, it looked like Sapp was trying to get DQ'd, as he started kicking and kneeing the guy while he was down and just treating it like a street fight, violating lots of rules in the process. He was DQ'd but then K-1 booked Sapp and this other dude for a rematch in July. That leads Dave to think this was planned as an effort to get Sapp over as a lunatic, but if it was a work, somebody should have told the other guy because Sapp fucked him right on up. "This was like everyone feared Mike Tyson would behave, but 1,000 times worse and from a man far more scary." Furthermore, Sapp came out in a full Ric Flair robe and to Ric Flair' ring music, and the arena went insane. Sapp has massive superstar appeal in Japan right now and promoting him as a violent psychopath who has no regards for the rules in a shoot fight appears to be getting over huge.
Edge will not need surgery for his torn labrum injury, so he'll only miss a few weeks of action instead of a few months. Edge is in the midst of the biggest push of his career and this is his chance to finally break through to the next level so needless to say, good news.
Notes from Raw: show opened with Vince walking out, which was unexpected since this is Flair's show. He said Austin wasn't there and made a point of saying Austin was too much of a coward to be there. Pretty well buried Austin and buried Raw as a bad show (blaming Flair in kayfabe for all the show's real life problems. Sorta like last year when they actually turned the bad ratings into a storyline by trying to blame it on Corbin. Some things never change). They're doing a storyline with Trish making fun of Molly Holly for allegedly having a fat ass because, again, some things never change. Former Tough Enough contestant Chris Nowinski debuted doing the Harvard grad gimmick like the heel jock in every teen movie. "The heel jock." Never change Dave. Shawn Michaels made his big return, cut his promo joining the NWO and turning heel on the fans before superkicking Booker T out of the group. So theoretically, this should mean Booker T should have to work his way through the entire NWO one by one before getting to Shawn at the end, in what should be Shawn's first match back. "I'm not holding my breath," Dave says. And of course, Vince beat Flair to take control of both shows. Horrible match but considering it was a last minute panic move, understandable under the circumstances. Lesnar ran in and helped Vince win the match.
Notes from Smackdown: during a big pull-apart brawl, several agents ran in to break it up. Among them were Dean Malenko and Fit Finlay, appearing on TV for the first time in their new backstage roles, and John Lauranitis who was also shown on TV last week. More gay jokes with Billy and Chuck and Rico, which Dave calls Russo-esque. Not quite yet. Jamie Noble was introduced with Nidia from Tough Enough season 1 as his valet, in a feud with Hurricane. There was a big effort to make Bob Holly a star this week, starting a feud with he and Kurt Angle and they really pushed Holly hard as a star and Angle busted his ass to try and get him over. And they did a show-long angle with Maven in the hospital (he's legit injured) and Torrie Wilson shows up, it's implied that she gives him a blowjob, and then Dr. Tajiri shows up, mists Torrie and beats up Maven. Dave is at least happy that they're trying to make an angle out of Maven's injury so he has a storyline to come back to, which is more effort than they put into most stuff these days.
Various WWE notes: referee Tim White suffered a torn rotator cuff in the Backlash Hell in a Cell match and will need surgery that will keep him out of the ring for months. Rey Mysterio is scheduled to debut on WWE house shows this week and, as of now, is expected to be wearing his mask again. Terry Taylor has been reaching out to get hired, but the company won't return his calls (they eventually re-hire him in September).
There's been a lot of praise for the new Spiderman comic "Tangled Web" which was written by Raven (I had to research this, but yeah. "Tangled Web" was a Spiderman anthology series that lasted about 2 years and had 22 issues. Each issue was written by different authors. Issue 14 was called "The Last Shoot" and sure enough, it was co-written by Raven alongside Brian Azzarello, who is the mind behind one of my favorite comic series of all time, 100 Bullets. And I had no idea. Wild).
The long-discussed plan of having Arn Anderson as Chris Benoit's manager seems to be off the table now. The thought is Anderson has been devalued so much in recent months (they pretty much wheel him out every time they need someone to take a beating for heat in a Flair feud) that he wouldn't be effective as a manager for a strong, serious heel.
Tough Enough II winner Linda Miles made her in-ring debut on Velocity, against Ivory. She was accompanied by fellow winner Jackie Gayda, who turned heel on her and cost Linda the match. Dave thinks it's waaaaaay too early to put these 2 women in a feud against each other considering how green they both still are.
The Rock, Vince McMahon, Undertaker, Jerry Lawler, Jm Ross, Triple H, Stephanie McMahon, and Shane McMahon were all in Memphis at the Mike Tyson/Lennox Lewis fight last week. Rock could be seen on camera a few rows deep throughout the fight, while Vince was shown on camera as a celebrity in attendance before the fight. The others were never shown on-camera, but they were all there. The PPV is estimated to have done 1.8 million buys and grossed a record $103 million, which are numbers that WWE can only dream of. Prior to the PPV, Rock co-hosted a pre-show party with guests such as Halle Berry and Britney Spears.
NEXT WEDNESDAY:Steve Austin accused of abusing Debra, much more on that situation and Austin's walkout, Jesse Ventura not running for re-election, Rock wrestles in Hawaii, and more...
UFC Fight Night Covington v Woodley Fight Predictions
Hello! I hope everyone is doing well, and is healthy :) I am not super sure how many fights will drop out, but the rule of thumb in my opinion is "If a fighter drops out, and there's a replacement, bet on the staying fighter" so basically if it's x versus y, and y get's the Rona and drops out, and z substitutes, go for x. that's some MMA Algebruh. Also, one of the best fight nights of this year confirmed? (c) - Champ (D) - Debut FLS - Fight Lose Streak FWS - Fight Win Streak NS - No Streak (#x) - Rank in Division Lets go! Prelims Welterweight Miguel Baeza (9-0-0, 9 FWS) v Jeremiah Wells (D) (#1 Pennsylvania) (8-2-0, 2 FWS) - Wells is coming in as a late replacement. Baeza took on Matt Brown earlier this year, and if you know Matt Brown, then you know that he’s no easy fight, but from the start to the finish Baeza picked apart Brown easily, with effective leg kicks and very fast blitzes. IT was power versus speed and precision and Baeza is incredibly fast with his punches. Baeza is no doubt a very interesting prospect and he’s probably going to make short work against Wells, who is coming in without a full camp. Wells is making his debut coming off a fairly decent streak in CFFC, he’s clearly well rounded and has a decent ground game, so he might have to take a safe route and look for takedowns to eliminate any offensive that Baeza will certainly give on the feet. I don’t know all that much about Wells so i’ll be treating him as a regular debutant up until his fight where I get to see how well he does. But for now, I got Baeza on this one. Baeza via KO R2 Flyweight Tyson Nam (19-11-1, NS) v Jerome Rivera (D) (10-2-0, 3 FWS) - Nam is coming off a career saving win over Adashev just over two months ago via a very early round KO and boy was it beautiful. Countered off a leg kick, straight down the line, hitting the target perfectly. Nam is experienced, having just over 30 professional fights, whilst he has had a rough time in the UFC so far, he still hasn’t been finished. Nam has excellent kickboxing and he has fairly fancy footwork, he’s very flowy and has pretty decent power in his hands. I’m not too sure how good his ground game is because throughout his three fights in the UFC, his opponents have not taken him down and judging from the fact that he has 1 submission win in his career, it makes me wonder if Rivera will instigate a chess match on the ground and eventually get the upper hand since Rivera has 7 submissions under his belt. Rivera is coming off a fairly decent win on DWCS, and as i said just words ago, he seems to be a submission specialist with the proclivity to take his opponents down and work for a submission finish there. I don’t know how good Nam is on the ground so I can’t be confident that Nam will be fine. If Rivera can avoid the hands of Nam (and this is Flyweight so, you gotta be fast to avoid anything) then he might get the advantage, but I don’t fully know. This is a tough call and I think Nam is more than experienced enough to get ready for Rivera and up his takedown defence. So, yeah i’ll go with Nam but it’s not a super safe prediction. Nam via KO R1 Featherweight Darrick Minner (24-11-0, NS) v TJ Laramie (D) (#1 Canada) (12-3-0, 4 FWS) - Minner is coming back after a rough debut against Grant Dawson back in March, and whilst it wasn’t an action packed fight, Minner still has an exceptional ground game, with 21 submission wins in regional promotions, he was just simply outclassed by a better grappler. Minner has had an exclusive background in MMA and considering he’s still fairly young, he’s got a lot of mileage ahead and he seems to be a better grappler if we’re looking at submissions alone, but Laramie showed fairly decent offensive ground game during his DWCS, where he absolutely dominated the first and only round in his fight against Swain with excellent pressure and strong ground and pound, but he did get caught in two submission attempts which makes me think he might have trouble if Minner catches him in a submission. Surprisingly, according to Tapology, 84% think Laramie is going to win, but I wouldn’t pull that trigger that quickly. I’m taking a ballsy pick here and i’m gonna back my man Minner for this one. I could be wrong though so bet at your own discretion. Minner via Sub R2 Bantamweight Andre Ewell (16-6-0, NS) v Irwin Rivera (10-5-0, NS) - This is a fun one. Ewell is a very well rounded fighter who is on a win loss cycle at the moment but he is still an incredibly dangerous, scrappy fighter who has pretty decent boxing. Ewell is coming in with a fairly large reach advantage of 7 inches so he’s most likely going to be working some jabs and great lateral movement. Ewell hasn’t had a finish in the UFC but i'm sure it’ll come soon enough. Rivera is a mad animal, he was incredibly entertaining when fighting Chikadze, and he was in a very competitive bout against AlQaisi, it seems like he;s still finding his footing though, and he’s still a developing fighter. Rivera has power and speed behind him and if he can get inside the range of Ewell and land some solid shots to the midsection, he can shut down the movement of Ewell very quickly. I don’t know about you, but I got Rivera on this one. Rivera via KO R3 Bantamweight Randy Costa (5-1-0, NS) v Journey Newson (9-2-0, NS) - Costa is coming off a significant knockout late last year over Boston Salmon, and it was a violent fight up until that point, Costa is a very powerful striker, but he isn’t a very clean one, he’ll throw everything but land with little efficiency. It’s not a pretty style but it’s a style that hurts. He’s only two fights deep in his UFC career though so I suspect his striking diversity will only improve because he’s a solid fighter. Newson is the devil himself, how dare he smoke the nasty green stuff and win a fight, that’s straight up blasphemous. Newson is a dangerous striker, with a sharp right hand that slept Pilarte with one clean punch, it was beautiful and just showcased how accurate Newson can be. He’s in a similar position as Costa, having only two fights in the UFC and both are developing fighters, so this is certainly an interesting match up for two young fighters who are fairly new to MMA and especially the high level competitions that the UFC hosts. I feel like if Costa can manage the distance and keep Newson at bay, he’ll be able to get a win, I’m just not sure if it will be via KO or UD, let’s stick to the safer side and go UD. Costa via UD Women’s Bantamweight Sarah Alpar (D) (#1 Oklahoma) (9-4-0, 3 FWS) v Jessica-Rose Clark (9-6-0, 2 FLS) - This is a relatively okay fight, but I don’t have a whole lot to say about it. Alpar has won her contract via DWCS last year I believe, and it was a great performance, but I still don’t know a lot about her, so i’m gonna pay extra attention to her during this bout. She seems fairly well rounded but I suppose we will see where the kinks in her armour is during this fight. Clark is on a rough losing streak and even prior to her losing streak she really didn’t stand out too much, she’s not going to be a champion any time soon but that isn’t to say she shouldn’t be fighting, because boy can she scrap. She’s got a decent kickboxing game and is alright in the clinch, but she doesn’t excel anywhere but I suspect she might get the punches in sooner due to her reach advantage, but we’ll see. I got Clark on this one, not a popular choice I know but I want to see how Alpar can handle this fight. Clark via UD Flyweight Jordan Espinosa (15-7-0, NS) v David Dvorak (18-3-0, 14 FWS) - I tell ya what, that streak is nasty! Espinosa had an outstanding and dominant performance over Mark De La Rosa. His pace and his accuracy with those strikes were on point, those takedowns added onto the brutal pace and aggression that De La Rosa simply could not handle. This was an outstanding turnaround considering he was on a short losing streak. Espinosa is an exceptionally well rounded fighter who has very fast hands with excellent in and out movement, and when you combine excellent foot movement with the striking speed that Espinosa has, you get a dangerous, dangerous fighter in that cage. Dvorak is on a very significant streak right now, 13 of those 14 came via finish so he’s a highlight reel that’s only going to make more highlights in this fight because it’s a perfect match up. Dvorak is only one fight deep in the UFC but considering how young he is, he’s got an exceptionally bright future ahead of him, and if he breaks through the barrier that is Espinosa, he’s in the spotlight. Dvorak needs to use his grappling because it’s too risky to strike against a brilliant striker like Espinosa. If Dvorak can wrestle and maintain control, or even get into a position easily enough to get a submission, he’s got it. This is a great fight and you can’t miss it, as for who is going to win, it depends on the game plan of each fighter, but from what I can see, Dvorak has much more tools at his disposal. Dvorak via Sub R2 Women’s Flyweight Mayra Bueno Silva (6-1-0, NS) v Mara Romero Borella (12-8-0, 3 FLS) - I don’t have a lot to say about this one either. Silva is a submission specialist coming off a battle of a fight when she fought Maryna Moroz, and it showcased that she is willing to trade with the significantly better striker, but where Silva is absolutely dominant is on the ground, she’s an excellent submission artist, with a recent armbar submission in the very first round against Gillian Robertson. She’s dangerous on the ground and if Borella lets her, she’s gonna snatch a limb and just take it with her to the 9th circle of hell. Speaking of Borella, she has lost 4 of her last 5, with a split decision win stopping her from being kicked off the roster. She’s not a very exciting fighter in my opinion, she doesn’t push any pace or react to any action, she seems like fodder, and I hope that’s not the case because i don’t want to talk bad about her any more than I currently am, but you guys know I can be brutally honest sometimes. I have Silva in this fight, but I do hope that Borella has upped her game a bit. Silva via Sub R1 Main Card Middleweight Kevin Holland (18-5-0, 2 FWS) v Darren Stewart (12-5-0, NS) - This… This is a beautiful, beautiful fight. Holland is on my list for being one of the most entertaining fighters in the UFC at the moment. He’s a trash talker, he’s a dangerous, dangerous fighter, and his wide variety of techniques and unorthodox, nearly unseen moves are simply something you cannot miss, Holland is a phenom in this Division, regardless of who is currently the champ, Holland is up there in my opinion. The way he knocked out Buckley? Picturesque. He’s coming in at a 7 inch reach advantage and he certainly knows how to use it. Stewart proved me wrong when he fought against Pitolo, he absolutely dominated the fight and sinked in a great guillotine that effectively ended the fight. Stewart doesn’t give a fuck when he fights, he’s violent and has great forward pressure when he throws down, he’s throwing to kill and if it lands on Holland then he’s in trouble. Luckily for Holland, Holland has a great fight IQ and probably can avoid everything. This is a violent fight, and I love this match up a whole lot. The Dentist versus Trailblazer? Fuck yeah. Holland via KO R3 Women’s Strawweight Mackenzie Damn (8-1-0, NS) v Randa Markos (#15) (10-8-1, NS) - Alright I just need to say this, and it’s probably odd of me to say, but does Markos’s record make anyone think “huh that’s not a normal record at all”, like, the losses are whatever but that one draw makes the record look a bit off… Maybe i’m just tired, anyway. Dern is a well known master of BJJ, she has won so many BJJ events and she has no doubt become such a role model for many young BJJ practitioners out there. Dern is insanely good on the ground, but that really doesn’t need to be said, does it? What does need to be said, is she’s going to finish Markos quicker than my kettle can boil, I mean, no disrespect to Markos because she’s had some significant wins but I don’t see her getting the upper hand when this fight goes to the ground. The difference here might be in the striking department, but because neither of these fighters are excellent strikers, it’s hard to say who has the advantage on the feet. I don’t know what else I can say, I have Dern on this one. Dern via Sub R2 Light Heavyweight Johnny Walker (#10) (17-5-0, 2 FLS) v Ryan Spann (#13) (18-5-0, 8 FWS) - Feels odd to see Walker on a 2 fight losing streak when only just last year he was crowned to be the one to destroy Jones. Walker has had it rough recently, losing to an excellent grappler in Krylov and prior to that being knocked out by Anderson. There is no doubt in my mind that Walker is coming into this fight with a new mindset, sure he’ll be entertaining still, but he’s going to be putting a much larger focus on the fighting aspect of well, fighting, and not the highlight reel aspect. Walker has power, that statement has been repeated so many times, but it’s true, he’s a dangerous striker when he lands. In 3 of his wins, he has only landed a shot 21 times. Whilst that’s impressive, that isn’t enough, it only showcases his power, not his longevity, and if you’re fighting an endurance athlete like Spann, you need to jog that marathon. Walker is going to have to take his time with this one and use his aggression and forward momentum to shut down Spann’s excellent boxing, back Spann up into the cage walls and shut off any lateral movement Spann will use to get out of danger. Spann has an excellent stand up game, his boxing and his timing are impeccable and he has the clean style that will allow him to slowly pick apart Walker. Now, what I do see happening is Walker gets hit with a clean right, stumbles, does some acrobatic stuff, then goes back into range to keep the pace going. This is going to be an explosive fight and we’re going to hear a lot of leather being landed. No cows were harmed in the process. This is a fun fight, and I feel like Walker is coming in as a different fighter. He has to, there’s no other way to adapt, look at Blachowicz and Reyes, top of the game and their striking isn’t particularly stylish. I got Walker on this one. Walker via KO R2 Middleweight Khamzat Chimaev (8-0-0, 8 FWS) v Gerald Meerschaert (31-13-0, NS) - There’s something I would like to quote from Iron Man 2. “If you can make God bleed, people would cease to believe in Him.” There is something that kinda irks me about Chimaev, and let it be known early that I am not pushing him aside as another “hype train about to be derailed”, but the fact that Dana White made two fights ahead of time for Chimaev is proof that people are only seeing his wins, and not his potential losses. If I get this prediction wrong, and you all know for a fact I might, then Chimaev is the real deal, but so far with his last two performances, i’m honestly not as impressed as many of you might be. Chimaev is an evolution in MMA, early on in his career, he has implemented everything you can in MMA into his game, and the fact that he fought twice in a month is nothing short of beautiful, he’s a hard worker and an even harder fighter to fight. His wrestling is at an elite level and his ground and pound absolutely smothers his opponents, but everyone has their kryptonite, and let me tell you about GM3. Meerschaert may have a rocky record in the UFC, but the fact that he has 23 submission victories, that is almost 3 times the amount of wins that Chimaev currently has, is proof that many people are overlooking Meerschaert, and that breaks my heart just a little bit because Meerschaert is being tossed aside like a used condom by so many pundits out there. Do not sleep on Meerschaert, in fact, don’t sleep on anyone, it’s rude and if you’re super fat you could actually kill that person. I can see Meerschaert struggling with the top pressure of Chimaev but a great grappler survives and finds an opening, and I feel like Meerschaert will do exactly that, survive then shut the fuck up every motherfucker that overlooked him. Alright that’s enough passion for now, this isn’t a romance novel. I got Meerschaert on this but bet at your own discretion. Meerschaert via Sub R2 Co-Main Event Welterweight Donald Cerrone (36-15-0, 4 FLS) v Niko Price (14-4-0, NS) - You know, I get very anxious when I watch Cerrone fight, I have watched Cerrone for a very long time, and right now, as much as it’s hard for me to say this, but he’s looking a lot like BJ Penn right now. Such a hard record to look at right now. Cerrone’s coach has said he is sparring now, and that’s an interesting thing to hear, and it just makes me curious about how he’s going to perform, he could be Cerrone 3.0, the Cerroniest Cerrone we’ll ever see. Cerrone has always been an incredibly good kickboxer, he doesn’t have a specific style, but that’s what makes him special, he makes what he has, work. A survivalist in a sport in which you only have about 5 good years before it turns to shit, Cerrone has adapted and changed the game many times now, and i’m intrigued to see how he’s going to manage Niko Price's pressure and striking, we could see some excellent BJJ work from him, but it’s Cerrone so really, who knows. Price is a man of insane power and athleticism, he has a very high finishing rate, in fact he has never taken a decision win or loss, it’s always been a finish, he’s a highlight reel and you most likely remember him from his comical knockout against James Vick, that upkick was beautiful and just shows the offensive that Price has, he throws his give-a-fucks out the window and is always ready to put on an excellent performance. This fight is interesting and I’m not sure who is going to win, I’m currently leaning on Price, because how big of an improvement can Cerrone make by adding sparring to one camp? So, yeah, as much as it breaks my heart, I got Price on this one. Price via KO R2 Main Event Welterweight Colby Covington (#2) (15-2-0, NS) v Tyron Woodley (#6) (19-5-1, 2 FLS) - If you told me that this fight was free for Fight Pass users, I wouldn’t believe you, especially if this was back in early 2019 where Woodley was still champ. Covington is the definition of chaos, he certainly lives up to his nickname because he brings chaos wherever he goes. He managed to survive and even give some trouble against Usman in their outstanding 5 round fight. I swear just watching those two cardio machine fighters made me lose maybe two kilo’s. Covington has a swarming style, he’s going to throw volume but not necessarily power, his main goal is to just break his opponents spirit, he’s done that to Robbie Lawler, I mean shit, he’s done it to everyone he fought. Hate him or love him, Covington is a championship level fighter. Woodley is having a rough time at the moment, losing back to back twice in very similar fashion, up against the fence, getting beat up. That was his biggest issue with both fights, he was defeated before being defeated. Accepting his position and doing nothing about it. Woodley is more than capable of getting his belt back, but he needs to do something this time to make a statement, he currently has what feels like one foot out of the door, he needs to shove that sucker back in because he’s got one good run left in him. Woodley has a vicious, vicious nuke of a right hand and he needs to use it this time. He’s got a desert eagle but doesn’t have the ammo. He needs to make his back somehow allergic to the fence, because once Colby has you against the fence, it’s game over for that round. I’m gonna get laughed at for this, but I got Woodley this time. Woodley via KO R3 Woo that was a big one. I hope you all have a beautiful week, lets start a conversation down below, share your thoughts on this card, give feedback, etc. If you would like to follow me on twitter, you can find me @Slayer_Tip or if you want, add me on discord and we can have a super friendly chat about all things MMA: Slayertip#7013 Also, i'm gonna ask for something probably asshole-ish and I want your opinion on it, I have been thinking about leaving a paypal link if anyone wishes to donate to me, i'm currently in the process of building a home gym (that is, punching bag, exercise bike and other misc stuff) I'm not gonna shove these "pls give me money" down your throat, if you don't want to see it, please let me know and i'll wipe that idea off the table faster than a couple that wants to fuck on said table. I fully understand it's tough times right now for every single one of you, especially those affected by the fires on the west coast... My heart goes out to you and I have donated a total of 95 dollars to various charities and food banks, Aussies know fires all too well, and we send all of our love to those affected. Anyway, I hope you guys enjoy this prediction post, take care out there. much love!
Going through old issues of the Wrestling Observer Newsletter and posting highlights in my own words. For anyone interested, I highly recommend signing up for the actual site at f4wonline and checking out the full archives. PREVIOUSLY:
We start with more on the death of Davey Boy Smith, including a full-length super long obituary, because apparently 2002 is nothing but people dying. I feel like I've done nothing but recap obituaries since starting back with 2002. Anyway. in the wake of Smith's death, the reaction has sadly not been one of surprise. Anyone who saw Smith in the last 4-5 years pretty much saw it coming. The cause of death, pending toxicology results, was ruled a heart attack caused from prolonged steroid use. But until the toxicology results are back, the belief among his friends and family is that there was probably more to it. Dave talks about the staggering number of wrestlers who have died under age 40 in recent years, with upwards of 20 of them being due to drug issues.
Smith died while on vacation with his girlfriend Andrea Hart, estranged wife of Bruce Hart. Despite that, Smith was actually on good terms with most of the Hart family, although Andrea is not. The Hart family believes Andrea knows more than she's letting on about the circumstances of his death, but she's not talking to anybody. Andrea's children (that she had with Bruce) were also there and they each apparently have different accounts of how he died (he was sleeping! he was in the pool! he was eating!) but they all pretty much agree he collapsed doing whatever he was doing. Andrea told the press that she believed Smith had overdosed, but Smith's dad did his own interviews and denied it, saying his son had stopped using drugs and was clean when he died. Needless to say, most people aren't buying that given his track record. Smith's father decided against having the body cremated and instead ordered it sent back to England for examination to make sure he wasn't murdered. "I cannot believe his death was natural," he said. "If they find drugs in his body, then he didn't put them there. Davey was clean." (Eeeeeeehhhhh....) Shit got even messier when Andrea and Smith's ex-wife Diana Hart each tried to claim the body. Despite her book (in which she accused Smith of drugging, abusing, and raping her), Diana played grieving widow in the media even though they're divorced. It may not have been an act though. Some in the family believe Smith and Diana were trying to reconcile, and they were on good terms at the time of his death. Andrea claimed to be his common-law wife, even though she's still legally married to Bruce. She later claimed Smith had proposed to her 2 weeks before his death and said they were engaged, which was the first anyone had heard about that. Smith's father claims in their last conversation, Davey Boy had told him he was planning to break up with Andrea after their vacation. So who knows. Anyway, both Diana and Andrea planned their own separate memorial services, while Smith's dad is planning his own 3rd service. Smith's body wasn't at either of the Hart family memorial services because, as mentioned, it was sent back to England where authorities are launching an investigation at the behest of Smith's father.
Andrea's service was said to be small and simple, just a few dozen people, and she seemed sincere in her sorrow. Diana's service was larger and more public, with hundreds of attendees and press, along with several WWE names. Vince McMahon, Hulk Hogan, Bret Hart (who attended both services), Chris Benoit, Chris Jericho, Jim Ross, and others all attended and several of them spoke. Diana's eulogy featured a professionally produced video featuring Davey Boy footage from WWE that had never aired on television before. She thanked Vince for trying to help Davey with his addiction issues. She never acknowledged everything she wrote about him in her book last year. Smith's children as well as Stampede wrestler TJ Wilson gave speeches as well. 16-year-old Harry Smith was composed and gave a great speech about teaming with his father in his last matches. And then Ellie Hart got up there and....it went about how you'd expect. She started ranting about Andrea and blaming her for not giving the family the answers they wanted and it started to turn into some drama, but the minister gently interrupted her and got things back on track. And finally, Bret Hart gave a speech, directly addressing Smith's children and saying that Davey Boy and Owen would want the children of all these Hart family members to get along with each other better than the adults have. From here, Dave gets into the actual meat of the obituary, recapping Smith's life and career. As always, an excellent read but very long to recap.
WWE Confidential, the new show the company is producing, aired its debut episode this week, focusing on the Montreal Screwjob. Dave once again talks about how Vince McMahon tried to downplay the incident recently, giving an interview just a couple of months ago calling the Screwjob a minor incident that almost no one cares about. Vince went so far as to say he could count on one hand the number of people who even still care about that old news. Turns out one of those must be Vince because this week, they dedicated the premiere of this new show to the story and highlighted it as the most controversial night in the history of wrestling. The hook of the show was Shawn Michaels revealing publicly, for the first time, that yes, he was in on the screwjob and knew about it in advance. Dave says this isn't really a secret. Shawn denied having any knowledge of it that night but as soon as the day after Survivor Series 97, he was bragging to friends about it. Vince McMahon also later confided in Undertaker that Shawn knew ahead of time. So it was kind of an open "secret" that Shawn knew but this is the first time he's admitted it publicly. Triple H still denies knowing about it ahead of time, but Dave is pretty skeptical there too (and indeed, it's later revealed that yes indeed, Triple H also knew). Dave thinks lots of people had to know. Even the guy who cued the music had to know, because Shawn's music was queued up and ready to play the second Vince ordered the bell to be rung. Pat Patterson always claimed not to know and Bret has said he wants to believe it, because he likes Pat, but the way Pat interrupted the match-planning conversation and specifically suggested the sharpshooter spot to them makes Bret question it (I think Patterson still denies it to this day, but I have my doubts there too). Anyway, the show recapped the history of the Screwjob and if you know Dave, you know he's about to poke a whole bunch of holes in WWE's revisionist bullshit. Here we go...
The story of the episode was WWF was close to going out of business due to the WCW war and couldn't afford Bret anymore, so Vince nobly allowed Hart out of his contract so he could negotiate a better deal with WCW. Actually, Dave says, Vince first talked to Bret about deferring some of his contract to later on but that was a couple months earlier. At the time, WWF really was having some financial struggles, but it's an exaggeration to say they were almost driven out of business. They were never even close. But regardless, that's irrelevant because in Sept. 97, they raised the price of PPVs by $10. That added revenue, which was nearly $1 million per month in pure profit, was easily enough to get them out of financial trouble. By the time Survivor Series 97 rolled around, WWF was doing just fine, money-wise, and were only a couple months away from catching fire and getting nuclear hot. So no, they did not need to get rid of Bret's contract. And in fact, in October, a couple weeks before Survivor Series, Vince changed his mind and asked Bret to stay, saying that the financial situation had turned around. But by this point, Hart's negotiations with WCW were full speed ahead and Vince allowed Hart to continue negotiating. But after talking to both sides, it was clear Vince had no real plan for Bret and he didn't really seem like he wanted to keep him, so Bret took the WCW deal and the rest is history. But of course, none of that is mentioned in this show. The episode also claimed Hart refused to drop the title to anyone (again, not true. Only Shawn. Bret even offered to lose it to Brooklyn Brawler if they wanted. In fact, Dave breaks down all the different scenarios that were presented here, and Bret was willing to lose the title to anyone other than Shawn, anywhere other than that show in Montreal, at any date before or after the PPV. They had actually presented Bret with dozens of different scenarios, all of which he agreed to, only for Vince to keep coming back around to Shawn at Survivor Series, which was the one and only thing Bret wouldn't budge on). They also tried to paint the picture that Bret could have taken the title to WCW the night after Survivor Series. In fact, Bret's WWF contract didn't end until Dec. 1st, and he was booked on more than a dozen house shows after Survivor Series and had even agreed to work the early December PPV because Bischoff had given his blessing. There was zero chance Bret was going to show up with the belt on Nitro. There was concern that Bischoff would go on Nitro the next day and announce he had signed Bret, and Dave says it's true that Bischoff certainly was planning to do that. But Bret had also asked Bischoff to hold off on the announcement and Bischoff had agreed. Vince knew about that too, but in recorded conversations with Bret (from the Wrestling With Shadows documentary), Vince didn't seem concerned since the word was already out and everyone knew Bret was leaving already. This just goes on and on. We all know the story already. Anyway, TL;DR - interesting show, but WWE's version of the story is bullshit. But we all knew that.
At the latest NJPW show, Antonio Inoki came out and cut a promo. He talked about being in attendance recently at the World Cup and said wrestling needs something like that. Inoki claimed he had put together a deal with WWE for a joint NJPW/WWE show to take place later in the year. Dave doesn't know if there's any truth to that story, but this is the first he's heard of it and he doesn't think it makes any sense for WWE so he's skeptical.
Usually in Japan, TV-Asahi airs the finals of NJPW's G1 Climax tournament live. But this year that may not happen, as they're looking at airing one of Inoki's MMA shows instead. This is a direct result of the terrible rating the recent Tokyo Dome show drew when it aired live. This company is struggling mightily lately.
Random news and notes: Inoki recently recruited a 23-year old Brazillian MMA fighter named Lyoto Machida to come to NJPW (he never really does anything in NJPW other than train at the dojo, but he had a long career in UFC and still fights for Bellator to this day). Dusty Rhodes is the new co-host of Turner South's Atlanta Braves pre-game show called "Hey The Braves Are Next!" Scott Hall will be working Insane Clown Posse's upcoming Gathering of the Juggalos event. Former WCW wrestler Evan Karagis recently filmed a role on the soap opera "Passions."
In the main event of FOX's Celebrity Boxing show, Chyna lost by decision to Joey Buttafuoco. Chyna's mystique of being a woman who only wants to compete with men got pretty much obliterated here, as the larger Buttafuoco manhandled her with ease for much of the match, which probably makes all those big tough wrestlers who sold for her feel kinda silly. But Buttafuoco came in as a hated heel to the audience and despite how she got pummeled, many people felt Buttafuoco was fighting dirty and cheating, so Chyna wasn't too hurt by it. She talked about wanting a rematch and Dave says if PRIDE really wants to break into the U.S. market, they could throw it onto one of their cards. Hey, this show did a really strong TV rating, maybe a rematch would be just the kind of freak-show attraction needed for PRIDE to get attention in the U.S. Nothing else they've tried has worked. Dave also suggests NWA-TNA could book it, but a worked wrestling match between the two probably wouldn't get as much media attention.
Big Dick Dudley's ex-wife, former ECW valet Elektra, did an interview talking about his death. She said he'd had stomach pains all week and couldn't urinate. But didn't go to the doctor because he didn't think it was a big deal. Then at one point he got up to go to the bathroom but collapsed on the floor and died there on the spot. Jeez. At the time of his death, he had lost over 100 pounds from his peak weight of 320 in ECW several years ago.
Vince Russo is going to be writing a book about his time in WWF. Due to legal reasons and the ongoing lawsuit, it won't include much about his WCW tenure (I think he's written a book or two, but I've never read them, so if anyone has any insight, feel free to share).
Shaun Assael's book "Sex, Lies, & Headlocks: The Real Story of Vince McMahon and the World Wrestling Federation" will be published next month and is getting strong early reviews. Dave has talked to several of the people who spoke with Assael for the book and some of them expect it to be good while others feel that Assael fell victim to the cons and charms of wrestlers who were working him. We shall see, says Dave.
The debut NWA-TNA PPV will feature some sort of tournament to crown a new NWA champion. Dan Severn is no longer the champion after not agreeing to work the show (he already had a prior MMA booking for that date in New Mexico). As a result, the NWA (which is now working with TNA) just stripped him of the belt, which is convenient because they didn't really want to use Severn anyway, so now they can do whatever they originally planned to do with the belt without having to book an excuse to get it off him. The Jarretts and this new promotion now have full control over both the NWA world and tag team titles.
Mike Tenay has been named the lead announcer for the new NWA-TNA promotion. They're also trying to get Lex Luger to appear for the debut show, but Dave thinks its unlikely since Luger is financially set for life and has shown no interest in doing any wrestling since WCW folded.
Jeff Jarrett had talks with Bret Hart about coming in to do a Team Canada gimmick. Latest Dave heard is that Hart isn't interested, but they may bring in some of the new generation of Harts for it. There's been talk of bringing in TJ Wilson, Harry Smith, and Teddy Hart as a new version of the group. Smith is still only 16 and it's way too early to put him on the national stage yet and in a lot of states, he wouldn't even legally be allowed to perform. Wilson is also a teenager, from a bad home who pretty much grew up as an honorary Hart member in the Hart household. And Teddy Hart is a natural in-ring performer who would already be in WWE if not for the fact that during his two training camp tryouts, he had behavioral incidents both times. But they're all talented and will likely be big stars in the future. Last time WWE was in Calgary, Vince McMahon personally requested to meet with all 3 of them for a private tryout, but it didn't amount to anything.
Little bit of a change in the WWF writing teams. Brian Gewertz is now the official head writer for Raw, while Paul Heyman is the lead writer for Smackdown. Stephanie McMahon will continue to oversee creative for both shows and, of course, Vince still has final say on everything. Dave expects this to result in Raw being a more comedic show while Smackdown will be the more serious in-ring product (pretty much, yeah. And thus, we have the official beginning of Heyman-era Smackdown and soon we'll see the birth of the Smackdown Six).
Notes from Raw: show opened with Chris Benoit making his unannounced return to a huge pop. Dave still expects Benoit to eventually be managed by Arn Anderson, which has been the plan for months (and never happens). That was actually the original plan before the NWO was brought in. If Benoit was healthy in time (which, turned out he wasn't so it didn't matter anyway), the original idea was Benoit vs. Austin at Wrestlemania 18 with Anderson managing Benoit. But that obviously all changed. Anyway, what else? Dave once again mentions that Jeff Hardy looks physically awful. He seems to know about Hardy's drug issues and seems to be hinting about it without saying it. Tommy Dreamer continued his gross gimmick by drinking Undertaker's tobacco spit. Lesnar beat Bubba Ray Dudley but had to sell a ton in the match and Dave doesn't get it. For a guy that they so clearly want to turn into a Goldberg-like star, selling for midcarders every week isn't how Goldberg got over. Jim Ross went on and on about how Lesnar has never been pinned, which Dave says is an insult to all the fans who have seen Lesnar do jobs at house shows. RVD beat Eddie Guerrero in a 20+ minute ladder match and Dave says it's the longest match on Raw in at least a year. Dave gives it 4 stars and considering how messy and sloppy it was, that shows you how good it was. Lots of dangerous spots, some botched moves, and most notably a moment when a fan ran into the ring and knocked over the ladder while Eddie was climbing up. Eddie and Earl Hebner started stomping the fan until security dragged him out. Still an awesome match though. And finally, Benoit returned at the end of the show and turned heel on Austin. Dave says Benoit actually isn't ready yet and isn't supposed to be back in the ring until July, but the company is so desperate for anything to give them a shot in the arm that they may have pulled the trigger on this angle early.
Notes from Smackdown: the only thing Dave talks about is the Hulk Hogan retirement angle they did and he's got mixed feelings on it. First the positive: he gives Hogan credit for being an absolutely incredible performer when the heat is on. And Hogan gave a tremendous performance in this and Dave doesn't let it go unrecognized. But then the negative: in the promo, Hogan talked at length about when his dad was dying, he was basically expressionless except for Monday and Thursday nights when he'd watch WWF and his face would light up. So Hogan said his dad's last words were he wanted to see his son return to the WWF. So that's all sweet and nice, right? Weeeeeell....Hogan has told a different version of this story in the past. In previous interviews, Hogan said his dad was disgusted by what wrestling had become and he wanted Hogan to "clean it up." The idea that he was laying in the hospital and only coming to life when his beloved WWF was on doesn't exactly jibe with what Hogan has said before. And no matter what the truth is, Dave is uncomfortable Hogan using his dead dad as a way to get this storyline over, but hey, he ain't the first and won't be the last.
WWE's first show in Hawaii in probably 15 years is scheduled for later this month. Rock is scheduled to work the show and tickets sold out 2 hours after they went on sale. While we're at it, the Australia show in August also sold out the 47,000-seat Colonial Stadium in Melbourne in only 4 days. Once they scale the stadium for production, they plan to open up more seats.
It's "basically a sure thing" that Hogan vs. Vince McMahon will be one of the top matches at Summerslam. How they get there seems to change weekly. There's been talks of having Hogan take time off after King of the Ring and return for the Vince match at Summerslam. There's also been talk of him sticking around through the entire summer. So who knows? (Ended up being a mixture of both: Hogan stuck around the entire summer, but then he did an angle to get written off TV right before Summerslam. And he didn't come back until early 2003. And, of course, we got the Hogan/Vince match at Wrestlemania)
More info on the incident from a couple weeks ago where Kevin Nash and X-Pac reportedly threw a fit and got the script changed. They were told by writer Ed Koskey what the plans were for them on the show. Nash and X-Pac didn't like it, especially X-Pac since it involved him doing 2 jobs during the same show. X-Pac said he was quitting and told Nash he'd meet him in the car. Nash told Shane McMahon he'd go calm X-Pac down and straighten everything out. Nash and X-Pac came back, had meetings with Shane and Jim Ross, and then later with Koskey and Brian Gewertz (who wrote the show). They managed to convince the writers to change it more to their liking. Nash was also upset about how Ric Flair went on TV and said he'd fired Scott Hall. Nash didn't like the idea of Flair on TV being able to hire and fire people from their NWO, because that kinda takes away from the idea of the NWO as an autonomous, outsider group that doesn't play by WWE's rules. So that's why Nash was able to go out on TV on this night and cut the promo about how Flair doesn't control the NWO. Of course, Hall is still gone, so I guess he still does. Anyway, both Nash and X-Pac were pissed over all this and caused a scene, especially X-Pac, to the point others in the locker room wondered why they weren't disciplined instead of being given their way. But if you wonder that, you clearly ain't been paying attention to Nash over the years. Anyway, X-Pac still did the job in the Hardyz match, but not in the second match.
Random news: house shows in Alexandria and Baton Rouge, LA were both canceled this weekend due to low ticket sales. Shit's selling out in record time in Australia and Hawaii, but they can't give tickets away in Louisiana apparently. Undertakers hips were both banged up after the Hogan match at the PPV but he continued working, although he was limited (and years later, he'd have to get major surgery on both those hips). At Raw in Edmonton, Ric Flair was getting huge pops and "woo!" chants for him before the show started, so they filmed a backstage segment where he told Arn Anderson how much he hates Edmonton so they would boo him when he came out live. Lance Cade won the HWA title from Johnny the Bull down in developmental. WWF was pushing the city of Edmonton to present Benoit with the key to the city on Raw, but Edmonton wasn't so keen on the idea. And finally, during a bikini contest at the house show in Winnipeg, Ivory's top got pulled down, exposing her boob, much to the delight of many in the crowd.
Remember how MTV's The Osbournes was the only show routinely beating Raw in the cable ratings? That's changing. The Osbournes is over for the season, but this week, Raw fell to #4 behind the Lakers/Spurs NBA playoff game and 2 different episodes of SpongeBob. Patrick's a draw, brother.
Raven has been doing commentary on Sunday Night Heat, but he recently asked to be removed from it because he feels like it hurts his wrestling character. Dave thinks this is pretty risky. Raven as a wrestler is probably nearing the end of his shelf-life and lord knows WWE hasn't shown any desire to push him. And he was actually pretty fantastic at commentary. So giving up a safe job that he was excelling at for one that WWE doesn't really seem to see any value in him for seems like a good way to find yourself on the chopping block next time they decide to get rid of some people (yup, he'll be gone from the company in another 7 months or so). For what it's worth though, this isn't the first time Raven has been in this situation. Back in the 90s, he was a manager and commentator in WWF then too, under the name Johnny Polo. But when they weren't interested in using him as a wrestler, he quit the company and reinvented himself in ECW as Raven. Sometimes you gotta bet on yourself.
Jim Ross has a weekly WWE.com article where he usually just shares all the latest injuries everyone has. This leads Dave on a bit of a tangent when Ross wrote about how Triple H has a fractured patella. The injury was diagnosed by Dr. James Andrews in Birmingham and Andrews told Triple H to be careful with it, but he could continue wrestling as long as he can take the pain. Basically one of the world's top sports doctors saying, "Yeah you've got a broken knee, but throw some dirt on it, you'll be fine." It's no wonder so many of these guys end up on pain pills rather than getting the medical treatment they need.
Also in his article, Jim Ross admitted that the WWE is not doing a good job lately of providing a product the fans want to see. Dave thinks that's just about as strong a statement he's heard on the current state of WWE from someone so high up within the company. Ross admitted they need to create new rivalries, elevate new young talent, and effectively introduce new stars. However, Ross also blamed the economy and the abnormally high number of injuries everyone is dealing with right now for part of the problems too. Dave says the economy may play a small role in the declining live event and PPV numbers, but usually when the economy is in the toilet, TV ratings go up because people are staying home more. Not the case here. Injuries, yes that's a problem for sure. But the core of all WWE's problems right now comes down to the simple fact that the show pretty much sucks. And at least someone high up in the office seems to finally be publicly admitting it.
Tough Enough 2 is down to the final four. Dave talks about how Jackie Gayda is now the sentimental favorite because she tore her ACL during the show but has still refused to quit, which opened a lot of eyes on her. Speaking of Tough Enough, in a WCW-like comedy of errors, they aired a promo for next week's episode before the current episode was finished, thus spoiling who the final 4 were going to be, before it was revealed on the show people were watching.
The WWF Forceable Entry album has sold around 364,000 copies total since its release. But it's actually considered a pretty huge failure because WWF had to pay so much money in fees and up front advances to the various artists on the album, and they're nowhere close to recouping that cost. (The album eventually sells over 500,000 and goes gold but still a flop).
NEXT WEDNESDAY:A look at the dismal state of WWE in 2002, Tough Enough II finale, Riki Choshu's departure from NJPW, Dave reviews several new wrestling books, and more...
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