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One Shot; Word Count: 2998 according to G-Docs
Topic Started: Jul 5 2016, 02:15 AM (99 Views)
Tobias Burden

The screen is black as we hear the beginning of Fear Factory’s “Expiration Date” kick off

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RprNzMtfDrM

Tobias Burden V/O: “I’ve been wrestling since I was twenty-two. Some days it feels like just yesterday, like everything that’s happened in my life was a blink instead of fourteen years”

The darkness disperses as the a garage door to a makeshift gym in what appears to be a storage until slowly raises, the morning sun just barely cresting the trees and suburban houses opposite the storage buildings baths the silhouette of one Tobias Burden as he stands, hands on his hips, taking stock of whatever it was he had planned for the day’s workout.

Tobias Burden V/O: “Other days I wake up and can hardly move. Aches and pains, old injures and just simple, honest exhaustion telling me I’ve been doing this for ten lifetimes. That my ass needs to stay the fuck in bed, and that not a single moment of this has been worth it.”

We cut to show Tobias sitting on a weight bench, tightening the laces of his sneakers. A quick cut shows him tightening the straps on a thick athletic knee-brace before he sets out from the storage unit at a surprisingly brisk jog.

Tobias Burden V/O:”Heh… I remember when I was actually BEING trained, the head trainer’s exact words about being successful in pro-wrestling were: ‘You gotta decide if you’re going to make a living doing this or not. If you are? You gotta be MARRIED to wrestling. Even if you knock some gal up and settle down, your success lies in your primary responsibilities being wrestling. Anniversaries and the birth of your children and your friends’ funerals are all second place. You want to be a true professional wrestler? You marry it. Take my word for it too, pro-wrestling is the jealous type’”

There’s a quick jump-cut as the camera follows Tobias along on his jog, our view of him shaking as the cameraman struggles to keep up and then a separate cut which is blatantly filmed from the comfort of a car.

Tobias Burden V/O: “Cue all of us rolling our eyes and later joking about his bullshit speech about having to hustle in this business. Fourteen years later and I’ll be goddamned if the ornery sonuvabitch wasn’t actually right. Pro-wrestling is a soul-sucking, merciless bitch, but for every time we’re treating each other like there’s a domestic dispute going on, when the dust finally settled and everyone I used to call a friend or brother… or family has long since disappeared into the ether of anonymity?”

The music dims for a moment so we can hear the camera’s mic pick up Tobias’ heavy breathing as we cut to him performing shuttle runs. The soles of his sneakers sliding in the loose dirt of a nearby soccer field as he taps down on the line, pivots and starts sprinting the other way.

Tobias Burden V/O: ”Pro wrestling is still here for me”

The music turns up again as we see Tobias slow to a walk, hands raising around the back of his head as he catches his breath. There’s a ring of perspiration around the collar of his t-shirt as he looks about himself a moment before the screen fades to black.

Tobias Burden V/O: “Who am I? Well, the name’s Tobias Burden”

A clip starts playing that shows a remarkably younger and slimmer Tobias Burden walking out to the ring back in Total Khaos Online Wrestling back in 2004. There are no traces of grey in his hair, nor are there the worry-lines carved into his visage these, he’s sullenly shoving through the crowd, a chair in hand as he stalks down his opponent, whom his old tag-team partner is holding steady.

Tobias Burden V/O: “I’ve already stated I’ve been around for a bit, but it wouldn’t surprise me if you don’t know me… guess you could say I’ve been something of a journeyman my whole career. I never planned it that way, it just seems like a lotta the feds I tried to set up shop in have this horrible habit of goin’ outta business. TKOW, IGA, Hardkore World - which I’m sure you’ll get to hear Kincaid drone on about to no end - CRW and oh! Sin City Wrestling skipped the going out of business part and just simply terminated my contract, so that was refreshing”

As he mentions the federations in question the clips jump in order. From him battling alongside Dave Havoc in TKOW to he and Gabriel Van Zan going nose to nose over the International Television Title in IGA, from Burden and Phoenix battling against the Shiro Brothers in Hardkore World to two separate clips from his time in Code Red Wrestling - one of him kicking Donovan Davenport in the crotch to retain his Apex Championship… the other of he and Andrew Kincaid laying in agony on a barbwire board, rivulets of blood pouring out of them and faces twisted in agony.

Tobias Burden V/O: “It’s hard work to be told I’m so well traveled and yet feel like I’ve accomplished nothing of note, but that’s largely my lot in life. Too short and bland looking to be anybody that any company wants to put their momentum behind, but too loud and abrasive to be ignored either. It’s had a habit of causing friction wherever I went. So far only one place ever had the balls to flat out tell me to get the fuck out and not come back, so I guess you can call that the precursor to my involvement here”

The last clip is in black and white, showing Tobias making his way up the ramp at SCW.

Tobias Burden V/O: “I’ve had people tell me that I’m too good to be as unknown as I am, that I’ve faced some of the best of their times and some of the best of ALL time and held my own, but I’m never quite convinced of how sincere they’re being. Hell nowadays they don’t even say that. It used to be something along the lines of ‘He’s one of the best that’s never won the big one’...”

Various clips stream by of Tobias battling for various company’s grand prize, and failing. Tournament losses, singles losses and times where he was eliminated in battle royales all flow by quickly.

Tobias Burden V/O: “... nowadays the answers I’m betting you’ll get range from ‘Who the fuck is Tobias Burden?’ to ‘He’s a piece of shit’. You know what? I’m fine with that, people having high expectations of me makes me uncomfortable, I don’t want to feel like I’m doing anything for anybody else these days. When I step into the ring now, I’m doing it for me and me alone”

We cut back to his makeshift gym, this time he’s laid back on the bench press, four plates a side as thick, muscular arms push the bar skyward, face flush red as he keeps his breathing technique as rhythmic as possible.

Tobias Burden V/O: ”What does the KOKORO Grand Prix mean to me? Well, that’s a bit of a nebulous question. I mean I haven’t wrestled since March of this year when SCW punted my ass out the door and slammed it shut behind me, but even before that things weren’t really going all that well for me”

As he lifts weight, a quick clipped image of a news website pops up in the lower right corner, the headline reading: ’Professional wrestler arrested for domestic violence’. After hanging there a moment it fades away.

Tobias Burden V/O: “So yeah, far away from even the modicum of notoriety I once had in the ring. Now I get to be that got getting jeers from the nosebleeds for a situation that has a gag order on it and I guess I just haveta take it, I just have to listen to the accusatory slurs of people that have never walked in my shoes and watch as those accusation close doors that once would have accepted me gladly walking through them… so someone want to ask what KOKORO Grand Prix means to me?”

We cut to an empty warehouse, a lone ring - no steps or apron on it - stands proudly in the middle of it. Rays of light shooting in from the storm windows catch the dust whirling about the interior of the building, giving it a warm glow. In the center of the ring stands Tobias, clad in full ring gear as he checks his elbow pad and taped up hands.

Tobias Burden V/O: “It represents an opportunity to me. Maybe my last opportunity”

We clip to him grappling with a smaller opponent that some may vaguely recognize as the former PWP World Champion Tala Multo. She’s using lithe limbs to try and fight for submissions off her back while Tobias presses down, trying to pressure her into a mistake.

Tobias Burden V/O: “I’m thirty-six years old. My ‘prime’ has long since passed me by, but I look at what I’ve lost in pursuit of my career, two marriages gone, three attempts at fatherhood rendered meaningless, a bunch of accolades that are lost to the ether of time and basically rendered null by the short-memoried nature of the industry, and not one example of me reaching the top or reigning supreme amongst even the few scattered remnants of my career embedded into the fans’ collective consciousness. What I have left, and what this Grand Prix allows me to do, is continue following through on something I told an opponent once several years ago…”

A quick cut and the two grapplers are standing again, only this time Tobias is running through punching drills while Tala holds the padded gloves up. His taped hands smacking solidly against the leather as he runs through memorized combinations.

Tobias Burden V/O: “... and that is, when you boil down and strip away the pageantry and all the meaningless bullshit we’ve surrounded our wins and losses in the ring? When you get right to the marrow of what EVERYONE in that ring does, there is one constant, it’s the lifeblood of professional wrestling… we are ALL here for the fight, and when you realize that, you know what you do this for.”

We quick cut to Tobias grabbing a quick short clinch before sweeping Tala’s legs, sending her sprawling as he dives atop her to take top mount, he feigns a hammer fist but stops just short of hitting her as we cut to black.

Tobias Burden V/O: “’Live for the fight, everything else is just bulshit’. This Grand Prix is my newest - and at the moment, ONLY - way to keep living the way I know how to”

We fade in from darkness to show still images of the seven other competitors in the Grand Prix.

Tobias Burden V/O: “What do I think of my opponents? I’m not sure how much that really matters in the scheme of anybody giving a shit about my opinion, but okay.”

We zoom in on Gaia Galanos.

Tobias Burden V/O: “I guess Gaia’s as good a place to start as any. I’ve never had any direct interactions with her and I haven’t really cared to, not for any real reason it’s just well… okay I suppose disinterest. I wasn’t a fan of the GPW product and the few members of that roster I did no I didn’t have much respect for, so she was static to me. I knew she was there, I just never had to take stock of her before now. That being SAID, she’s got better muscle development and tensile strength than most people I’ve met in the industry, I know that’s given her a lot of successes when she’s competing in women’s only federations by virtue of very few women having the urge to get that size or strength behind them, so it’s not something I should overlook because she’s committed to it. However, I’m not looking to test her strength, I’m looking to test her jaw, this isn’t going to be about her being in impressive shape for a woman this is about who wants it more. I’ve wrestled women who can and have beaten the Hell out of me before, THOSE are the standards she has to rise to, if she doesn’t I’m going to turn her head into a fucking bloody smear before this is all over… next?”

The camera pans right to Else Thorne.

Tobias Burden V/O: “Ah now this one I sorta know vaguely. I spent my entire life living in or around California so the wrestling scene there growing up involved seeing a lot of lucha influence. Oddly enough I’ve never had to wrestle many. I’ve been enjoying what little of HELL’s product I’ve seen and if Chris Strike and that company manage to get their balls out of their purses I’ll hopefully get a paycheck from there before I retire Strike. Onto her though, well… to be honest, her ‘thing’ in that ring is right in my wheelhouse. She wants to be vicious, she wants to be a badass. She wants to be the toughest thing in that ring and I - for one - can respect that. The problem is against me she’s facing the mirror with a wealth of experience she can’t even comprehend, and the weight and power behind that mentality that ensures when MY blows connect it’ll basically be an extinction level event for her spinal fluid. Who else we got here…”

Another pan, this time landing on Amy Jo Smyth.

Tobias Burden V/O: “Ah, another one in this tournament that’s been noted for accomplishments in a female-only fed. Unlike Gaia’s run in GPW though, I know for a fact Amy’s competed against some big, more globally renowned boys. Hell she entered Sin City Wrestling shortly after my exit. More than that, besides a different participant in the Grand Prix she prolly ties with me in the wrestling experience category, so she’s someone I need to keep an eye on, keep my arms out of the grasp of, and remember that - when I’m hitting her - she’s a former police officer, no like - y’know - real people. So I’m gonna be laying it in thick to make sure she stays down.”

The camera pans to the tattooed figure of Melinda Rhodes.

Tobias Burden V/O: “’The Rebel’... *sigh* ah that takes me back. Not to anything she’s done because honestly, beyond skimming the cliff’s notes on her Wikipedia page I really know next to sweet fuck all about Melinda, but that goddamn moniker well. I used to hold one similar, I called myself the Riot and I did that whole holier-than-thou, battling ‘THE MAN’ to make our industry better schtick. I picked fights with some real bad motherfuckers and though I put some in there place it was just as often I’d end up bloody and broken by the end of the goddamn night when I did so. Melinda if you want to hail yourself as a hero or a Rebel, you’re gonna bite off more than you can chew, especially here, because in this ocean you swim with sharks. Understand?”

Next is Saito

Tobias Burden V/O: “Oh this pain in the ass. Okay so Saito, I get that you’ve been doing this since you were thirteen and you’ve held championships in companies that not a single person I’ve met has ever watched outside of your immediate family, but I could really give a fuck less. Wrestling at thirteen years-old is a lot like tattooing a person with markers, cute when you're a kid, but it doesn’t count towards jack shit when you have to face adults. Me? Kincaid? Davenport? Smyth? We’re BIG BOYS rules, and we’ve made a habit of sobering kids like you for decades, I RELISH the idea of getting my hands on you and showing you just how much you have yet to learn. Painfully”

With that both Donovan Davenport AND Andrew Kincaid come into view.

Tobias Burden V/O: “Now these two I know. These two I’ve fought. These two have bled me and I’ve bled them in turn. DoDa? I’m pretty sure is going to try and fucking kill me, because he carries the grudge of my ex-wife, and you know what? Let him, this has been a long time coming so I’ll gladly beat him to fucking death if it means getting him off my back. As for Drew? He’ll try and fucking kill me because that’s just simply what he does. He is the veteran pick in this tourney and all he knows in that ring are lariats, suplexes and brain contusions. Stick me in the ring with him and what you’re going to get is what I stated earlier, violence in it’s purest most honest form… and isn’t that what all this bullshit is about?”

With that the images fade out before fading back in on Tobias Burden, seated in front of the camera, mic pinned to his collar. He’s dressed casually and looks exhausted.

Tobias Burden V/O: “I have seven potential opponents, a trip to Japan and maybe one last shot at showing the world I still belong here no matter how much the world doesn’t want me to. I don’t give a fuck what my opponents want out of this, be it money or notoriety or bragging rights because it doesn’t change what I’m planning on doing, and that’s gonna be me smashing them in the face, dropping them on their skulls and bending them in half until they cede that the KOKORO Grand Prix is mine…”

We cut to black.
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