It is the 4th of February. The Valentine's Brawl is only 11 days away, and we still have so much to do and address.
"I'm fine, Ma'am," says Nalah Shabani, General Manager of the Monday Night Madhouse, without her glasses, revealing the dark rings around her eyes.
"I'm doin' great, Sara!" says Jefferey Campbell, General Manager of the Friday Night Fight Pit, with a nice big smile on his face as he looks out of the window in his hotel room. "You know, they say Port Moresby's a fair dinkum dodgy spot to check out, but bloody hell, she's a ripper of a looker.
Sara bounces in her seat. "I can imagine. It's been a hell of a tour so far, hasn't it?"
"I'm havin' an absolute blast!" Campbell declares, still grinning.
"I personally can't wait for it to end," says Shabani.
Sara squints, her own grin disappearing. "Right... Elephant in the room time. Jeffers?"
"Yes?"
"What's the story with young Vités?"
"Yes?"
"What's the story with young Vités?"
Campbell straightens, "He's been bailed and bounced back. We'll keep him locked up tight until we get to Tonga."
"He should be locked up, period!" Shabani snaps, "He's an animal."
"And yer bloody ice demon went after 'im first, Ms Thoughts 'n' Prayers!" Campbell retorts.
"Kids, no more fighting or momma spank!" Sara says, wagging a finger, "The matter has been settled. And now that our fiery friend has had his revenge, I don't want Heladas or Vités anywhere near each other until the Brawl. Got it?"
"Yes, ma'am," Shabani says.
"Understood," Campbell says.
"Good," Sara replies, nodding. "And one more thing: when something like this happens, it's important that you are able to reach each other." She frowns, "So keep your phones on at all times."
Campbell shrugs, "Oi, me battery went cactus. I told ya that."
Sara's eyes flash, as do her teeth, "Jeffery..."
He holds up his hands, "Righto, righto. Won't happen again."
Sara smiles again, "Glad to hear it. You're free to go."
He gives them a two-finger salute, then logs off. Shabani scowls.
"Careful, girl," Sara warns, "You've only got a few more years before the wrinkles become permanent."
"May I speak to you on a private line?" Shabani asks.
"Oh? Sure."
They both log out.
*doo doo*
*doo doo*
*doo doo*
*doo doo*
*doo doo*
*doo- beep*
Sara: Hey, grrrrl! What it doooo?!
Shabani: With all due respect, ma'am, please spare me the theatrics.
Sara: ... Okay, what's on your mind?
Shabani: ... ... I'm... I'm b... I'm beginning... to worry... whether I can do this.
Sara: ... Are you?
Shabani: I'm not calling it quits just yet; I just... Last night... I watched 3 people breathe fire, and not like the circus performers do. I rewatched that clip a thousand times; I watched their chests and throats expand. The Drako Triad breathed actual fire from their bodies!
Sara (chuckles): Yeah, I saw that. You guys handled it pretty well.
Shabani: I didn't handle anything! Mike did. I was in my office, losing my mind over that disaster of a broadcast.
Sara: Disaster? That was one of the best episodes of televised professional wrestling I have ever seen!
Shabani: You can't be serious.
Sara: Hell yeah, I'm serious! From that Bloodbath title ladder match all the way to the main event. I was hooked! I didn't know what was going to happen next!
Shabani: That's precisely the point! These people are all out of their minds! And some of them aren't people, and I don't know if that's worse!
Sara: The superpower stuff didn't seem to bother you before?
Shabani: Because it didn't bother any of you. This is all normal to you, so I tried to treat it as normal, but each passing week it just gets harder. I've already talked about the Drako Triad, but this situation with Heladas... (sighs)
Shabani: Because it didn't bother any of you. This is all normal to you, so I tried to treat it as normal, but each passing week it just gets harder. I've already talked about the Drako Triad, but this situation with Heladas... (sighs)
Shabani (cont'd): I thought it made sense to put him up against Danys Vités at Ascension, and it did, thankfully. He beat Vités and became Thunderweight Champion, and he did me a great service by staying away from my show and sitting in the dark somewhere, monologuing about "being a god", and I thought nothing of it. Then he went to Manila and carved that boy's face open!
Shabani (cont'd): And the fact that he's married to that Queen Cobra, that... creature in human skin. I was told she was venomous, but what she bit Ngozi and Esposito, I- Then there's the Madness who show up each week and try to murder someone, and I'm relying on them to one day bring the Tag Team titles to the Madhouse- How on Earth was Campbell able to keep them in-line? The Jabbars? Yes, it's true, I drafted them for their platform and athleticism, but I didn't realise they were secretly sociopaths?
Sara: Nalah..
An-And you mention the Bloodbath title? Festa barely knows who or where she is half the time, and now she's holding that Godforsaken title belt you created!
Sara: Nalah.
Shabani: And she's only holding that because that- that child, Roger Evans, who somehow escaped flesh-eating bacteria from Ethan Stewart dropping him in a Honiaran sewer last week, came back and put Stewart through a table-
Sara: Nalah- Nalah.
Shabani: Athiambo is creepy and keeps dropping people on their heads! Talon thinks he's Napoleon! I have a pop star on my roster; I don't even know what I was thinking drafting her-
Sara: Na-
Shabani: The only one with her head on straight is Zaide Chen, and even she has some kind of history as some sort of hitwoman for her father or whatever that Blind Archer nonsense is abou-
Sara: NAAAAALAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!! Breathe...
Shabani (takes several deep breaths): I'm sorry, I was... rambling. As I said, I'm not ready to call it quits, but... I... need help-advice! I'd like some advice on how to go forward.
Sara: Okay. Well, first things first. You know how at the beginning of the show, you called Ethan Stewart down to the ring to confront him about what he did to Evans in Honiara?
Shabani: Yes?
Sara: Never do that again. You have no business getting in the talent's face like that, especially a man like that. You know why?
Shabani: ... Why?
Sara: Because you're 5 foot nothing, nothing hundred pounds, and he knows that. They ALL do! I've been trying to tell Jeff the same thing. I don't know how many times Paul Grizzly has to grab him by the throat and pick him up like a baby doll for him to get it, but he's Australian. They ride emus into battle and fight crocodiles and shit, so maybe it's just how he's wired. I know you ain't built like that, unless you got some of that Maasai in you. Those guys over there chasing lions away from their kills and stuff.
Sara: Because you're 5 foot nothing, nothing hundred pounds, and he knows that. They ALL do! I've been trying to tell Jeff the same thing. I don't know how many times Paul Grizzly has to grab him by the throat and pick him up like a baby doll for him to get it, but he's Australian. They ride emus into battle and fight crocodiles and shit, so maybe it's just how he's wired. I know you ain't built like that, unless you got some of that Maasai in you. Those guys over there chasing lions away from their kills and stuff.
Shabani: I do not. I am Swahili, but I don't see the point-
Sara: The point is you're a tiny, non-athletic pencil pusher. That's what they see when they look at you. You can fine them, you can suspend them, you can fire them, you can rain down all manner of legal and administrative hell upon them, but one of them decides to pick you up and snap you like a breadstick; there's nothing you can do about it.
Shabani: Then how am I supposed to exercise my authority as General Manager?
Sara: From a DISTANCE! You ever seen V for Vendetta?
Sara: From a DISTANCE! You ever seen V for Vendetta?
Shabani: No.
Sara: Good, the graphic novel's better. Anyway, there's a guy called Sutler who's the High Chancellor of this authoritarian, post-apocalyptic version of England, and, in the movie, he only ever appears on a big screen barking orders and spewing propaganda. That is what you need to be, alright?
Shabani: A talking head on a big screen?
Sara: Yeah. It keeps you above the chaos, out of reach of these animals, and lets you be a character! It's a TV show, Nalah; you gotta be larger than life. You need to build a cult of personality that commands attention, and you do that by emphasising your strengths, which are your intelligence, your voice, your way of speaking, and hiding your weaknesses, like the fact that you're tiny.
Shabani: Do you have to keep calling me tiny?
Sara: You gonna get a growth spurt?
Shabani: No, but...
Sara: Then I'mma call ya tiny.
Shabani: I'd appreciate it if you didn't. I mean, how would you feel if I called you fat?
Sara: Are you calling me fat?
Sara: Are you calling me fat?
Shabani: N-No... I was merely-
Sara: Good, because I would eat you.
Shabani: ...
Sara: It'd be real easy too. Like a breadstick.
Shabani: ...
Sara: Man, I want some breadsticks right now, but I CAN'T HAVE ANY for another TWO MONTHS because my HUSBAND IS A BIG MEANIE!
Shabani: Can we stay on topic, please?
Sara: Right, that's the common-sense safety advice. And one more thing, in that regard, if you HAVE to be in there, make sure you've got Brendan and his boys with you, because again-
Shabani: I'm... tiny.
Sara: Exactly. Now, on a wider scale, you need to understand that Psycho Style is professional wrestling in its purest form, and that's what the people pay for. So, while we do need you to be a firefighter, sometimes literally, you also need to be a firekeeper.
Shabani: Could you provide an example, please?
Sara: Let's go back to the Bloodbath Title picture. What Stewart did to that Evan's kid last week was horrifying. Thank God, he's still alive. But when he came back last night, fighting through pain, drugs, illness just to screw Stewart over. That was AMAZING! Heladas and Vités brawling in the streets of Mount Hagen, reckless, dangerous, a legal nightmare, but it boosted our buys for the Valentine's Brawl! Do you understand?
Shabani: I'm beginning to. There are... some fires worth that should be contained, but allowed to burn regardless.
Sara: And when they've served their purpose, put them out.
Shabani: I get that, but one of those fires is... Jessie Moore. That woman... There's a very real possibility that she walks out of Dunedin as the Jewell's Champion.
Sara: Maybe, maybe not. Whenever there's a belt on the line, Ngozi-Moore only goes one way. Except for a coupl'a times in '14, but come on.
Shabani: That might be true, but Ngozi is 45 years old. Moore isn't a young woman, but of the two, she's closer to her prime, and she's VICIOUS!
Sara: Ngozi's pretty vicious too, as you saw.
Shabani: I just don't know if it will be enough. I haven't seen their previous matches, but-
Sara: Then maybe you should, General Manager.
Shabani: ... Right.
Sara: And there's no point fussing. If Moore wins, so be it.
Shabani: No, not so be it. If she wins, she becomes the face of my brand.
Sara: Your "Madhouse" brand?
Shabani: It's not just that she's a violent, temperamental lunatic. She's also cartoonishly racist! I mean, did you see that slur-ridden tirade she went on last week in Honiara? I kept telling Mike to cut her mic, but he refused out of fear she'd come after him!
Sara: That was the one where she verbally spanked your number 1 draft pick, right? Ha! That was some good stuff.
Shabani: I'm serious, Sara. I mean, for all her hatred for Ngozi, I was expecting her to throw out the N-word!
Sara: You thought she'd say the N-word on a show with a Black GM, in a company with a Black CEO?
Shabani: I don't know! She's unpredictable; she pulled a gun on Chloe Davis, for goodness sake!
Sara: Which was fake?
Shabani: I didn't know that. Chloe didn't know that. No one knew until the moment that she revealed it was fake!
Shabani: I didn't know that. Chloe didn't know that. No one knew until the moment that she revealed it was fake!
Sara: Exactly. Look, Jessie's a lot of things, but she's not stupid. She still wants to make money, and she knows how to draw heat, which in turn makes people interested in seeing what she'll do next or in watching her get her comeuppance. She also knows her limits. The N-word is the only racial slur anyone with the power to shut us down cares about; she's not going to say it on a TV-14 broadcast.
Shabani: I see...
Sara: I'm not going to say that she isn't racist. Just not Black people or Hispanics. She and Sanka are good friends after all, and she married a Dominican man.
Shabani: Those are terrible qualifiers.
Sara: All you need to know is that her beef with my cousin is and has always been personal.
Shabani: If you say so. That doesn't mean I'm okay with her becoming my champion.
Sara (sighs): Look, at the end of the day, it's your show. If something happens that you don't like, do what you gotta do. Just be prepared to live with it.
Shabani: Yes.
Sara: And one final thing. Make nice with Jeff. There's a lot you can learn from him, and vice versa. The competition between you is real, but we're all still a team.
Shabani (sighs): I... understand. ... Thank you, Sara.
Sara: Anytime. It is literally what I'm here for, and like I said in our last meeting, you're doing a good job. Just be flexible, and use that big brain of yours to protect yourself.
Shabani: I will.
*dop*
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