The crowd were ready for the next match. The floor and the walls were vibrating from the thunderous applause and stamps of feet against the arena floor. Gethin stood at the gorilla position, watching as the lights went out in anticipation for his entrance through the curtain.
As the first few bars of his music began to bleed out across the building and the low pink and blue lights seep through the darkness, he places his signature gumshield into his mouth; feeling every ache and twinge in his body as he did so. The hard hitting, savage style he used was wearing down his body but that wasn’t going to stop him; not by a long shot. He walked through the curtain, morphing into a silhouette seen through the smoke at the top of the entrance ramp.
As the song picked up and the lights flickered to a murderous blood red, Gethin emerged from the smoke and matched down the ramp with purpose. His slow, sinister walk harkened back to a predator of the animal kingdom, it was deliberate and precise, no wasted motion. Once he had reached the ring amid a chorus of boos, he made his way to the far corner, cracking his knuckle and neck joints, preparing himself for war. He locked his steely glare to the top of the stage to await his opponent. He could work magic with Oscar, he knew it. The fans in attendance were in for a show tonight.
And with the
rising crescendo, the show had just gotten started, as fireworks and pyrotechnics exploded, turning the ramp into a carnival of light and color, and from the sparksm with his fist raised, and head held high, was Oscar O’Sullivan, who also got boos, but a few cheers, as many fans saw him as the lesser of two evils and chose him as the de-facto face of the match. The brutal, merciless sadist, vs the arrogant, slimy showoff. There were no good guys to be found here. Just two people who had their eyes on the title, and merely saw the other as a man standing in their way.
Then Oscar entered the ring, he smiled mockingly at Gethin, as he paced. Here was a smile that spoke not of mere confidence, but a face that wasn’t even considering the notion of failure. While Gethin was the the corner, as if hiding in the bushes to strike at his prey, Oscar stood in the center of the ring; the place where all eyes were drawn too. Standing there in his eye-catching purple and silver ring gear, he was the center of attention.
Gethin tightened his grip on the ropes as the lights came up from Oscar’s entrance. He had respect for his opponent, no doubt about it. In fact backstage, away from the bright lights of AWE, The One and Only was someone that Gethin held in high regard. He was a veteran of the squared circle, a man who carried himself with the utmost ayr of grace. This needed to be a good match, not only because it’s what the fans deserve but because it was what Oscar deserved for his service to the business and Gethin wanted to give him that.
The bell rang and the welsh wonder moved forward towards his opponent and offered up his left hand; not for a handshake but for a grapple, a test of strength, one of the oldest traditions in professional wrestling, which Oscar immediately accepted The two men jockeyed for position trading hold for hold in an early contest of catch as catch can. The crowd applauded the two of them for their technical ability. Oscar was a crowd pleaser, big spots were his bread and butter but for the most part he was like clay and could adapt to any style, any opponent. It was that which truly adhered him to Rhys, another professional. As they locked up again, Gethin swept his opponent's leg and took him down to the canvass, wrapping his arm up into an armbar.
Oscar treated the armbar as more of an annoyance than a limb-wrenching hold. Not to say he no-sold it, but he had a natural intuition for escalation. You wouldn’t spike for a DDT delivered fifteen seconds into a match. You’d spike for a tornado DDT delivered ten minutes in. Still, he writhed around, not making any move to escape it until he sensed the audience were losing interest. Once he felt that time was coming, he got both of his feet flat on the canvas, then bridged, rolled back, stood up and then executed a crisp front flip. Now Oscar had Gethin’s arm twisted, he gave it a yank for good measure then faced the crowd and bowed in a way that was far too smug for any impressed individuals to decide to cheer him. He got booed for that impressive display.
Gethin rolled his arm free of Oscar’s hold and moved off to the opposite side of the ring only for a second before squaring up to hs opponent, face to face and nose to nose, the brutal artist hissed through his gumshield
”Ready yourself” He gave the man mere milliseconds before he slapped the taste from his mouth with a hard open hand strike. The audience released a shared gasp at the disrespect shown. Gethin quickly followed up with a barrage of similarly strong slaps and chops, driving the eleven year veteran into the corner. He took a slight run up before hitting a stiff knee strike to Oscar’s gut. He then proceeded to brutally kick the purple and silver attack in the chest with hard hitting roundhouse kicks. With each kick, Oscar’s skin became redder and redder. He mounted the lower turnbuckle and mockingly bowed over his opponents head to resounding chorus of boos.
Oscar hadn’t even needed to try and sell the pain of those chops and strikes. They hurt! The warning was definitely appreciated. Oscar made a show of rearing his read and looking around for the ref, just so that the audience's eye (As well as Gethin’s out of kayfabe) could be caught by his movements and realise what he was about to do. For good measure, he spoke quietly the words ‘low blow’, and when the ref wasn’t looking, he low-blowed Gethin as hard as he could, swinging his entire arm right up.
With Gethin reeling from that, Oscar slipped outside through the ropes, climbed the turnbuckle, and then caught Gethin’s head in between his legs and executed a Springboard Frankensteiner, sending Gethin crashing onto the middle of the ring. Now playtime was over, and Oscar wasted no time in marching to middle of the ropes, hopping to the second rope, and moonsaults onto Gethin’s prone body, before trying a cover, which barely made it past the one count. Even so, Oscar had made the first pin attempt. He’d drawn first blood.
Gethin rolled away from the pin attempt to the corner of the ring in order to try and catch his breath. He clutched his nether regions to sell the low blow, his face exasperated in pain. The moonsault had knocked the wind out of him. He growled through his mouthguard as Oscar rushed towards the corner only to be greeted by a strong knee to the jaw as the Welsh dragon sprang to his feet and leapt into the air. He hooked the back of Oscar’s head and proceeded to drill his opponent with several more heavy knee lifts before following with a snap European uppercut that knocked him down to the mat.
Not wasting any time, Rhys jammed his fingers into the roof of Oscar’s mouth and began to physically drag the personification of arrogance across to the corner of the ring. Once there he pulled him to his feet and began to climb the turnbuckle in reverse, wrapping his arm around Oscar’s chin. Gethin locked his fingers together and straightened his back, lifting O’Sullivan from the ground and pulling back, essentially hanging the One and Only right there in the ring. Oscar struggled, writhed, and flopped around, but to no avail, he was caught. The ref began the count to 5 and Gethin of course held on to at least 4 and ¾ before dropping him like a sack of potatoes.
Dropping from the apron, the brutal artist quick dove into a pin attempt only for Oscar to break it at 2. Oscar then sat up, with one hand on his jaw, selling the pain, and wriggling his jaw from side to side, before biting a few times. Content, he lay back down, and then kip-upped back to his feet, staring down Gethin with hate. The time for games and showmanship were over, and Oscar showed this by rebounding off the ropes and running towards Gethin. Gethin hoped to strike his opponent with a spinning backfist but Oscar ducked under the move, rebounded off the other rops, and executed a sliding tackle, knocking Gethin onto his back. Wasting not time, Oscar got to his knees and locked in his submission hold; Over And Out.
All of the sudden, the Cardiff Psycho felt an intense amount of pressure on his body and neck as Oscar locked in a patented submission hold. Despite the pain he was in, Gethin knew that this hold was simply to prolong the match, a rest hold was often used as a way to pan a show run time, give the wrestlers a breather and increase the psychology of the match and if for nothing else, Oscar was a master of in ring psychology. After a few fleeting moments in the hold, Gethin managed to move his long legs to just beneath the bottom rope, there in forcing the ref to break up the submission.
Gethin sold the pain by clutching at his body. He pulled himself up to his feet, as their war raged on he let out a visceral yell, feeding off the pain within his being to fuel his burning thirst for violence. Oscar was not going to give Gethin time to recover or am himself up, though, and turned round to hit the brutal artist with a pele kick. This made his foe reel but didn’t knock him down, so Oscar got back to his feet and followed it up with some quick and desperate looking punches. Gethin began to no sell Oscar’s moves, with every strike just increasing the fury on his face. As Oscar lunged forward for another attempt, Gethin caught his wrist in a double wrist-lock and drilled him with a roundhouse kick to the chest, causing the OAO to fall to his knees. Pulling Oscar into a front facelock, the welsh dragon promptly proceeded to strike him with several rapid fire point elbow shots to the back of the head. This match was intense and the crowd was eating it up but it was time to go home.
Oscar swept the legs out from underneath Gethin, bringing down to the mat beside him as he tried to reach his prone opponent, Gethin dove forward and applied a roll up cover, grabbing onto the ropes as he did so. The referee counted a quick 1 2 3 and the welshman hastily left the ring to a massive amount of boos. The fans had been robbed of a potential classic thanks to Gethin’s underhanded tactics. He pressed a finger to his temple and called out
”I thought you were supposed to be the smart one!” He smugly grinned as he began to walk up the ramp, basking in the hate of the paying fans.
Oscar was still looking down, in disbelief of what just happened. He didn’t see Gethin’s taunt, or if he did, didn’t react to it. The beaten up showoff slid out from under the ropes and hobbled up the ramp, following the path of the victor, Gethin, but didn’t look ahead as he did so.
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