“You are a bold, dynamic, talented, once-in-a-generation competitor. You marched into Mexico and because their Lucha salvation! You moved onto Australia and got the land down under back over in ways no one could have ever predicted and fewer could have ever accomplished! You went to Texas and asserted yourself as one of the all-time greats! You became a nationally-recognized CHAMPION in Canada! We because part of the Next Evolution of the industry! You because one of the Universe’s greatest talents, recognized from our little blue dot all the way to Rigel VII. You entered the land of Supreme and built yourself up again…”
The scene opens up. Gavin Taylor, Professional Wrestling’s One True All-Star, can be seen alone inside a washroom somewhere. He’s dressed in his usual public wear – an SCW-commissioned “All-Star” Gavin Taylor t-shirt available from SCWMerch.com worn under a striped sports coat and black pants – as he leans on the sink. Gavin looks at himself in the mirror, careful not to conjure up the spirits of some face-painted demigod, as he gives himself his own pep talk.
“And now you stand on the precipice of something bigger than you could have ever imagined. In just a few short hours, you will be standing inside the ring at Rise to Greatness… no no… Rise to GAVIN… with the opportunity to claim the temporarily-interim United States Championship of the World! This is your night… your golden opportunity. All you have to do is get past Glory Braddock… Christy Matthews… Xander Valentine…”
Gavin looks at himself in the mirror, grimacing a bit.
“And yeah, those three may each hold individual victories over you, but those don’t matter. Do you know why? Because you are a success! You are a superstar. You are an All-Star! You just have to get it together. No more throwing things at the wall, hoping for something to stick. No more distractions. No more games. You have to go out there and do you… do All-Star… do…”
Just then, there is a knock at the door. Gavin pauses, sighing. When there’s nothing coming from the other side of the door, Gavin grins, looking back at his reflection.
“All you have to do is…”
Another knock. Gavin, exasperated, drops his head.
“What do you want?” he hollers out the door.
“On set in five minutes…” a voice comes from outside the door. Gavin nods his head as he steps back, adjusting his t-shirt.
“I’ll be right out,” he says. Throwing his sports coat on over his shoulders, he examines himself. Looking over every seam on the coat, every potential crease as he attempts to perfect his look. Finally, he smiles and winks at himself.
“Remember, All-Star… you got this!”
Gavin moves to the door, pushing it open as he passes through. The scene cuts…
RISE TO GAVIN
Starring Gavin Taylor
When we last left “The All-Star” Gavin Taylor, he was in a foul mood, having just read a script for what was purportedly his life story, twisted around as a means to take his “All-Star” moniker and give it to another athlete. Gavin didn’t know what to make of the move… he knew it was slimy, after all Gavin was well-versed in slimy activity himself. He also knew that, evidently, Michel Corbeau, managing director, CEO, and braintrust behind the eponymous Network that Gavin had essentially become enslave to, was willing to go to great lengths in order to pry the good name “All-Star” from Gavin’s copyright portfolio. But why? Gavin hadn’t the foggiest of ideas, but was more than willing to throw out some theories.
As we join our protagonist, Gavin Taylor, he paces back and forth in the office of his agent, Ava St. Claire of St. Claire Management Associates Ltd. Jack and Karl Barker, Gavin’s All-Star Security, sit back on the leather sofa they have used so many times, it has their A.S.S.-prints embedded in it. Sofi di Fabiani, a recent addition to Gavin’s inner circle through the Network, is off to the side, trying not to intervene as she watches her new friend at wit’s end. And in her desk chair is Ava St. Claire.
“Gavin,” she tries to calm her disturbed client down. “Gavin, you can’t keep coming in here to pace every day. Eventually we’re going to have to do something about this.”
“What can we do?” Gavin asks, clearly at a loss after having tried nothing. “You weren’t there, Ava. They tried to feed me a script that was designed to see me relinquish the title of All-Star! Can you believe that? Of all the rotten, dirty, disgusting, cheap, underhanded tactics this “Network” has tried to pull, this… oh-ho… this is definitely one of them!”
“Hey,” Jack nudges Karl. “You ever figure out which Network we’re actually dealing with here?”
“No, man,” Karl shakes his head. “Whenever they start talking about “The Network”, I just put a random one in my head and go with that.”
“Thank God,” Jack breathes a heavy sigh of relief. “I thought I was the only one.”
The brothers share a fist bump. Meanwhile back in the foreground of our scene, Gavin continues pacing erratically.
“Do we even know anything about this other All-Star?” Ava asks. It seemed like a pretty reasonable question, but one that Gavin hasn’t considered in his outrage. He shakes his head and throws his arms up in the air.
“She’s just some whore that Corbeau hired to cheapen MY TRADEMARK,” Gavin exclaims. Sofi has a different take.
“Avery Anders was a child athlete like Gavin,” she says, addressing her remarks to Ava. “She became a personal trainer to many of the Network executives. Mr. Corbeau wants to present her as a bigger deal to utilize her skills beyond Network functions.”
“That doesn’t make any sense,” Ava says, shaking her head. Gavin stops, shouting his response.
“THAT DOESN’T MAKE ANY SENSE!” he says. “So now this bitch is accosting me on Twitter, trying to get me to call her…”
“She’s actually pretty friendly,” Sofi points out.
“Oh, of course she is!” Gavin exclaims mockingly. “That’s a play straight out of the Gavin Taylor Playbook, copyright 2009… You act friendly to lull someone into a false sense of security, then BAM! Throat punch!”
“I don’t think she wants to throat punch you, Gavin,” Ava says, hoping to satiate the agitation within the soul of the All-Star. Gavin shakes his head.
“Nope,” Gavin dismisses her thoughts. “It’s the way these things always go. They get on your good side, then punch you in the throat. It’s nature.”
“Stupid nature,” Jack scoffs.
“Look, you’ll just have to accept that this is the way it is,” Gavin points out. “The nature of being the All-Star, with the fact that I own the trademark, means people are going to want to wiggle close to me in order to take me down when my defenses are low, but I invented that game. The fact that anyone is still in this room only proves that you completed the rigorous review of your trustworthiness and value to me.”
Just then, there’s a knock at the door.
“Who the…” Gavin reacts at the interruption. Ava, however, has no doubts.
“Come in, Vi,” she calls out, inviting her administrative assistant Violet Appelby into the room. The young woman enters, clearly frazzled by something. Gavin steps back to introduce her to the middle of the room as it’s evident that she needs to be in the middle of everyone. Ava’s expression goes from mild annoyance at Gavin’s paranoia to definite concern. “Jesus Christ, Vi… you look terrible. What’s going on?”
“You need to turn on the TV now,” she says, reaching for the remote control on Ava’s desk. Ava gets it first and turns the TV hanging in the corner on. Gavin steps over again, getting the best view of the screen as Violet takes the remote, turning it over to the Eponymous “Network”. On the screen is a face that Gavin hadn’t seen before but a voice that he has heard before…
“This is Alec Johns of InfoNews Television, and I have a late-breaking scoop about one of the Supreme Championship Wrestling “Superstars”. Now this company, this “SCW”, is going to be spending two nights this weekend in Los Angeles, California, for their biggest show of the year, but there’s a dark cloud over one of the competitors here.”
Ava, Jack, Karl, and Sofi start to look over to Gavin, who steps closer to the TV.
“It turns out, and I have this from very reputable sources close to the source, that the man they call “All-Star” Gavin Taylor… is a fraud!”
Now the four heads all jerk over towards Gavin, who stops in his tracks.
“I have this from an incredibly trusted, confidential source so you know it’s true! Gavin Taylor lied about his lineage early in his career! When he began to wrestle back in the late twenty-aughts… which, who even calls it the twenty-aughts? The late 2000’s… when he started wrestling in Mexico, he lied to the people when he said he was born in Canada because he believed that he would be easier to cheer than if he was honest. He knew that a rabid Mexican fanbase would never accept a, as he puts it, Gringo from the States as a hero, so they renamed him and claimed he was Canadian to benefit his own career! But what I have is a copy of a Los Angeles Hospital Birth Certificate for a Gavin Taylor matching the same date – right down to the year – that Gavin Taylor claims to have been born. Do you think I was able to find the same thing in “Vancouver”? Or anywhere in British Columbia for that matter? No! So what we have here is a man who hid his citizenship… actually outright lied about where he was born and raised, out of shame for his American background! Then when it benefitted him again, he claimed that he “got citizenship”, even though citizenship is something he always had and…”
Gavin’s breathing grows heavier as he watches. The others in the room are no longer watching the TV – their eyes are fixed upon the All-Star. But as they watch him, Gavin sees some disembodied arms hand some paper to Johns on screen.
“Hold on folks, I have something else hot off the presses… literally just handed to me! When I received the birth certificate from LA, I had my people start look into Mr. Taylor’s other alleged background stories… and while he did attend UCLA on an amateur wrestling scholarship, I do not have verification of his athletic histories in baseball, hockey, golf, or football! The entire fact that this man has predicated his entire wrestling career on being a multi-sport superstar makes me feel better about saying this…
Gavin Taylor is a fraud!!”
The TV suddenly turns off, but there’s no question as to why, with Gavin Taylor now holding onto the remote control as he starts to pace around the room again. Everyone looks to him, but Gavin’s movements keep them standing back as a million thoughts race through his head. He eventually stops and looks to the TV.
“Well the thing about that…” he begins, but stops. Instead he continues pacing around, at an absolute uncharacteristic loss for words. He attempts to say a few more, but fails.
“Gavin?” Ava asks, her voice awash with concern. “Is this true?”
Gavin looks over to his agent, her big doe-eyes seeking nothing but the truth, And, as he looks at her, and looks around the room at the others within it, he can only offer a half-hearted shrug…
“Okay, so maybe a little tiny bit of my lineage was exaggerated. Maybe my parents had a summer home up in Vancouver so it was treated like a second home for me to the point where I claimed it when I got into the ring. You know what? So what? Who really cares if I never started quarterback for UCLA or never hit a home run off a Major League pitcher…”
Gavin Taylor was in the middle of a public appearance on the Bull Michaels Show. Evidently, Bull had asked Gavin about the recent accusations levied against him… that “Gavin Taylor is a fraud”… and Gavin was feeling a lot more animated about things.
“Is it a crime to run a role? Do Hollywood actors get called “frauds” by television pundits because they’re not real astronauts? No. People just enjoy the product they put out and call it a day. But somehow, I get attacked… my integrity gets called into question… over this? No way, man. I don’t buy it for a minute.”
His confidence was brimming… Gavin felt like he was fully in control of the narrative and that, for once in recent memory, maybe he was going to be able to dictate the future. It was a nice thought. Still…
Gavin thought back to an earlier meeting he had – one with his season-long antagonist, one Mr. Michel Corbeau. While he and the Network executive would never see eye to eye, their relationship had increased in animosity since it’s inception. At first, he felt that Corbeau was simply a doofus who didn’t understand Gavin or what he had to offer. He felt that being brought back to the Network was a slimy move to begin with. Gavin wasn’t happy with the slime, but he carried on because he wasn’t being fronted the money to simply pay off the deal. So when Gavin walked into Corbeau’s office unannounced and uninvited, throwing a stack of cash down in front of him, for the All-Star it was the bravest thing in the world. For the Network…
“What is this?” Corbeau inquired as he picked up the stack of cash. After breaking the elastic and fanning through the bills, Corbeau looked to Gavin with inquiring eyes. “A pittance?”
“My debt to this fucking Network,” Gavin exclaimed boldly. “I’ll have no more of your character assassinations, no more attempts to steal my trademarks, no more public burials of my good name, and most importantly, no more you. I am sick and fucking tired of having to deal with everything this Network has done to me. Making me question my own value… making me doubt whether or not I’m the All-Star…”
“According to InfoNews…” Michel begins, clearly looking to poke at a raw spot on Gavin’s psyche.
“Fuck InfoNews!” Gavin lashes out. “And fuck whoever gave that hack my birth certificate!”
“But still… not a real All-Star…” Michel continues, this time not allowing Gavin to cut in. “That kind of disingenuous marketing has to burn you pretty badly, doesn’t it? Your entire brand is compromised. You’ll probably have to abandon the All-Star name itself.”
Gavin laughs.
“Have you never met me?” Gavin asks incredulously. “Disingenuous? A compromised brand? I’m a star athlete who doesn’t give a fuck about what anyone has to say. You think your stunt is pushing people away from me? The fact that I have one of the most prominent “shit-eating” grins in wrestling… the fact that I resemble every high school jock who never quite let go of their glory days… the fact that I’m just plain better than so many others who try to do what I do is enough to push people away! You think you’re assassinating my character when all you’re doing is the same thing I’ve experienced for the last fucking decade! Well I will not be a tool for your means any longer. There’s every last cent I owed you – less any time accrued while playing your fucking games. I’m done with you, Corbeau. No more…”
Gavin lifts his head up and goes to leave.
“Pity,” Michel says. “It’s too bad what’ll happen to Sofi now…”
Gavin stops in his tracks, turning back to face his adversary. “Not on my conscience.”
“Of course not,” Michel responds as he counts through the money in his head. “She’s just been seen in public with you at every turn… has become a part of your All-Star entourage… would be a pity to see what becomes of her career if someone were to let go that she’d been cavorting with a married man.”
“Who?” Gavin asks, genuinely not understanding the threat that Michel is levying against him.
“You, you idiot,” Michel rises from his seat. He walks around the desk towards Gavin as he sneers. “Do you really think I would have let Network property fall into the hands of someone like you without having a contingency? Gavin, my contingencies have contingencies. As soon as that pretty little blonde number started getting more ingrained in your little circle, I knew that I had to start figuring out how to keep her in line like I’ve had to keep you in line. How do you keep a woman like Sofi in line? A sex scandal. And what that would do to a man of your repute? Well… your own marriage would probably be shattered.”
“You’re a moron!” Gavin snaps back. “You need to actually do the deed for a sex scandal.”
“Do you?” Michel asks facetiously. “Or would the mere impression of impropriety be enough?”
Gavin scowls, observing the twisted smile on the face of Corbeau.
“You wouldn’t,” Gavin intones.
“Gavin,” Michel chuckles. “What part of our interactions has led you to believe I wouldn’t do that? I sent your birth certificate to fucking Alec Johns and gave him TV time to run you down, for fuck’s sake. I have dragged you into the mud and put you on several losing streaks. Gavin, everything you have in life… you don’t deserve it. And I will keep going until you have none of it. Now get out of my office…”
Gavin did, in fact, leave the office on that note. As it is, he sits in his hotel room, holding onto something. He’s pensive as he taps on the object in his hands, again lost in uncharacteristic thought. As he sits on the foot of the bed, his wife Madison Chase-Taylor enters the room, clad only in her housecoat. Walking over towards Gavin, she sits down beside him.
“Did you get anything?” she asks him. Gavin lifts his head away from his hands, looking at her as a smile crawls onto his face.
“Dumb motherfucker,” he says, passing the object over to Maddie. She looks it over and presses a button on it. They listen…
“Do you really think I would have let Network property fall into the hands of someone like you without having a contingency? Gavin, my contingencies have contingencies. As soon as that pretty little blonde number started getting more ingrained in your little circle, I knew that I had to start figuring out how to keep her in line like I’ve had to keep you in line. How do you keep a woman like Sofi in line? A sex scandal. And what that would do to a man of your repute? Well… your own marriage would probably be shattered.”
Maddie’s face begins to redden.
“That dick!” she blurts out. Gavin nods as she stops the recording. “But like… he actually said it?”
“Guess he doesn’t think too highly of my intelligence,” Gavin smirks. “He didn’t think I’d think to record any of his bullshit.”
“So what do you want to do?” she asks him.
“From where I sit, we’ve got his balls in a vice,” Gavin remarks. Finally he was in a position of power. Finally he would be able to find his peace. “Let’s take him down. Maybe the Network can grow beyond him, and everyone under him can get a new lease.”
“I’m not a hero.
No, let me rephrase that.
I’m not your hero.
No, you see, I spent years trying to cater to you and placate you while reaching for success my own way. I figured… no… I was always told that I was on the fast track… that somewhere along the way real recognizes real, and fans recognize talent. Well here I am, the most talented man on the Supreme Championship Wrestling roster and yet do I get the chance to show how good I am? Do I get the chance to exercise that natural athletic prowess that I brag about so openly?
Or am I remembered for the corners I cut and the shortcuts I take?
I have been doing this for SCW for nearly two years now. This is actually my second Rise to Greatness as a member of the SCW roster. I am undefeated in those metrics. I mean yeah… you could talk about my encounter with Drake Hemingway, but let’s be honest about it: We were both EMERGE property at that time, loaned to SCW to pad out the pre-show. And although I lost that match on that night, I do not count it among my Rise to Greatness moments. Why? Because I wasn’t SCW at the time, it was the pre-show, and quite frankly, even though I lost my Championship that night, I won it back shortly thereafter, so why the hell should I allow myself to be blemished with that mark against me?
Last Rise to Greatness was really the first time we say RISE TO GAVIN! My coming out party… the night where I defeated not one, but two world-class athletes. Jake Starr is a fucking Hall of Famer for crying out loud… a Supreme Champion of Supreme Championship Wrestling. I beat him. Aubrianna Powers, one of my close friends, a World Champion athlete in her own right. I beat her! You put me in the ring at this event and magic fucking happens! Last year it was two… this year, why not make it three?
And that’s exactly what I’m doing. Instead of two World Champions… World Championship caliber wrestlers… I’m facing three former World Champions. But when you look at it… Gavin Taylor thrives in situations just like this. Gavin Taylor thrives when his back is against the wall and everything thinks that hope is abandoned. So Rise to Gavin… the United States Championship, interim or otherwise. It doesn’t fucking matter. I’m put into a position where no one thinks I have a prayer in the world at winning. Which is exactly why I’m going to win.
You see, I look at the match, at my three opponents, and yeah… I see trouble ahead. Xander Valentine might be one of the most dangerous, vicious men in the business ever. And yeah, I survived him because I’m that tough and I live to fight another day. Glory Braddock has been Champion basically everywhere she’s gone, and let me tell you: Glory sure as fuck gets around. Christy Matthews? You can’t deny her record, especially when she was the last person to get a 1-2-3 on me. I know they are tough opponents. I’ve faced them all. They’ve all beaten me.
So you could say I’m due.
But you know what? I’m not going to go about things the “proper” way. Honor? Dignity? Integrity? This is the United States Championship we’re talking about here and I’m more than worthy of carrying that mantle… but I’m going to have to do whatever I can… whatever it takes. Survival isn’t good enough. A respectable showing? Worth about as much as a cup of coffee if you were to go into it with two dollars already. The other three may think they “have to win” to justify some crusade or vindicate some message. But me? I need to win! I have been so close to the top for so fucking long only to have it continually… continually ripped out of my grasps either by another competitor or a crooked Network official… I have bene jerked around. I have been put upon. I have been beaten down, underrated, and made to look like less than I am.
You don’t think I deserve this opportunity? Fuck you… I’m using that opinion as my motivation. Everyone who thinks I’m out of my depth… everyone who thinks that Gavin Taylor is an easy first out. I’m going to prove everybody wrong. I’m going to show everyone that Gavin Taylor is legit. My night. My time. I’m not giving up. I’m not stopping. I’m going to show you all that I belong on top… and I’m going to do that by winning at Rise to Greatness! I will become the United States Champion of the World in a performance so iconic… so perfect… that there’ll be no other alternative but to view this event…
As RISE TO GAVIN!”
"The All-Star" Gavin Taylor 