Post by levy on Feb 2, 2022 21:44:58 GMT -5
Before the usual opening title card, before the standard disclaimer explaining that nobody can blame Levy’s handler for the words written in this promo, before a rushed and poorly-written satirical promo that only serves to further bury the character (don’t worry, you’ll still get that part) while butchering correct semicolon usage, the Superstar of David - Johnny Levy - stands amidst a newly erected set on a large, sprawling Hollywood lot.
The set is beautiful. Sublime. Packed with flashback scenes, character development moments, and even some slumber party action with Giovanni singing ‘Personal Jesus’ by Depeche Mode which leads into some toenail painting and sweaty sparring sessions.
Yes.
This truly will be the greatest Johnny Levy promo - nay, the greatest promo on Proving Grounds - in the history of this company.
That’ll show that stupid Billy Bennett bitch. Trying to upstage a main eventer like Johnny Levy?
Child, please.
So anyway, the set? It’s dope. And the promo? It’s about to be straight fire.
Believe that.
Just before the director is ready to call for action - or whatever Hollywood lingo they use that I honestly cannot be bothered looking up - there is a small kerfuffle. An aide, or assistant, or whatever they’re called, runs in from off-set to shove a comically large stack of papers into Johnny’s hands.
“Hey, what’s this, kid?” he says, or something vaguely approximating that.
“Mr. Levy sir, it’s a transcription of Tara Fenix’s promo! It just hit the streets!”
“Why, you don’t say? Here’s a shiny nickel for you kid, I like your moxie!” he says with a really stupid noir film accent, before slapping the assistant across the face so hard that he is rendered unconscious.
Clearing his throat, Levy’s eyes begin to scan the first paper. He’s noticeably mouthing words as he reads them, as though he needs to form the sounds with his lips in order to understand them on the page. That’s character development, by the way. I am making him near-illiterate. Or perhaps I shall forget this detail by the next deadline day.
Who’s to say?
As he reads, his face grows darker, eyes narrowing as he begins to whisper the words ‘fuck’ and ‘goddamnit’ over and over to himself in an increasingly vicious and unhinged tone. There’s even the hint of an Everglades drawl creeping into his voice, but it might just be all this smoke getting to… someone.
“You’re fucking kidding me, right? Someone actually went this hard on a midcard match for a WEEKLY Proving Grounds episode? Not even a Premium Live Event like The Crowning II: Big Drip Energy (™ pending by Big Levy Productions - also ™ pending)?!"
He falls silent again, continuing to read another full page or two before he scowls, snorts, and spits on the ground next to him. It actually hits the unconscious assistant who he KO’d with a slap like he was fucking Ali or Frazier or something. Real G shit.
“This. Is. Bullshit.”
He crumples up the page he was currently on, handing off the stack of papers to another conveniently appearing assistant before pulling a cigar from inside his suit jacket and lighting it up with the steady hands of a fucking professional. Johnny ‘The Machine’ Levine (changed to Levy in 1940 to escape Nazi-occupied France) inhales deeply on the smoke, except he doesn’t inhale because you don’t inhale cigars so he just kind of keeps it in his mouth for a while before exhaling a cloud of smoke.
In the background, Giovanni - who was here to film the slumber party scenes - is in the middle of explaining the finer points of, I don’t know, paintbrushes to some female crewmembers as Calliope frowns next to him.
“You know what? Fuck this whole promo we had outlined in our head. We doing this live, boys.”
====================
The scene cuts to a black room. So black in fact that you can’t see Johnny Levy which is really damn convenient because I have zero interest in explaining what he’s doing with his hands or tongue or whatever. All you can see is the burning ember of a cigar because he stay smoking.
“Ladies and gentlemen - and all the brave boys and girls fighting racism worldwide - we have to talk about a serious problem plaguing Proving Grounds. It affects us all, fans and handl- errr, wrestlers alike.”
“The issue is this. We have some people who are really dropping some serious heat on what is - to my understanding, at least - supposed to be a joke brand. A bit of lighthearted fun to take our minds off the ills that plague this society, like racism and blue-haired psychos running fake charity cruise scams, but we’ll get to that last part.”
“Where was I? Padding promo length by asking myself hypothetical questions that I could answer simply by running the tape back?”
“Yes, that is correct. That is exactly where I was.”
“But, I digress.”
“We live in troubling times, friends and fans, and in a place that is supposed to serve as a bit of pleasant relaxation and escape from these dark days, we find people - terrorists, if you want to know my real opinion - out there to destroy this serene resort, here in this desert of pain we call life.”
“You see, we like to have fun around here, crack a joke every now and then; but there’s no joking about the kind of nonsense to be found in certain corners of Proving Grounds. People cutting vicious, well-thought-out, pre-planned promos on their opponents who are simply looking to have a good time and relax in this fine hobb- err, I mean sport of ours.”
“Let me introduce you to one of these offenders.”
“Public Enemy #1: Tara Fenix. A long-time face in professional wrestling who has built up quite a storied career and resume. Frankly, a bunch of midcard babyfaces like Gio, Sonya and myself have no business in a ring with someone like her. Which leads me to one question?”
He doesn’t speak, instead there is a loud collection of voices from just off-screen. The studio audience, one would presume; and they state the following words as one:
“WHO BOOKED THIS CRAP?!”
“Yeah, needless to say there is once again some kind of anti-Jewish, anti-Italian, or anti-Rich bias at work here. But that’s fine, because we’ve come to expect such terrible behaviour from our GM Indy Darling, who has still not gotten back to me about the diversity and inclusion statistics I sent him on that USB drive.”
“And you know what? We shall overcome.”
“Anyway, Tara, sweety, you must be lost. This isn’t Fallout where people literally kill themselves dropping upwards of 8k for a fucking weekly show. This is Proving Grounds. Chill out, before someone around here gets hurt in that ring. We’re all just here to perform for and entertain our adoring fans and… oh wait, you wouldn’t have any idea about that, because literally nobody cares about you.”
“Oh sure, I think you have a lot of Twitter followers? Yeah, that’s cool. I have 89 million. All of them, purchased from Indonesian bot farms. So what? Oh, you did a Charity Cruise? Yeah, how much of that money found its way to the kids in need and how much was spent on blue hairdye? Johnny Levy’s whole goddamn life is a charity cruise, because everywhere I go I spread joy and happiness. I show people that it’s possible to be better.”
“And Tara, I’m here to say the same to you. Stop this insanity, please. This promo was just… I mean, I can’t get into specific details because I don’t want to break the Project: Honor ‘no direct replies’ rule; which I still don’t fully understand, by the way.”
“But suffice to say, it’s too much. Too good. It wasn’t necessary to bury a poor, downtrodden Jewish millionaire in such a manner, and I will probably be in touch with the ACLU. Also I have informed my cousins in Congress that you probably embezzled the majority of those ‘charity’ funds, so I’m sure an investigation will be pending.”
“Enjoy that.”
“Ah yes, Brandon Hendrix. I had a whole bunch of stuff planned for you. Lame idiot who ditched the fans he didn’t even have in the first place to, I don’t know, something about an injury? Did Mark Hunter mess your shit up or was it some other dimeless loser from Proving Grounds history; those dark days that plagued this company before the arrival of myself, Giovanni, and Sonya Benson? But mainly myself?”
“I don’t know. All you vanilla midgets look the same, even when you’re over 6 feet tall. Spiritual midgets is what I’m getting at. You see, you think everyone in the audience is super excited to see you run back and deliver some heatless, meandering speech in the middle of the ring. It would be amusing if it weren’t so sad. You ought to thank me for gracing you with just a fraction of the heat that I wield like that goddamn dude from the X-Men who could control fire, what was his name, Pyro?”
“Ah yes, Pyro. Another dimeless loser, but I think he was from Fallout. Again, I must move on as I grow so, so sleepy. The cigar is - as the kids say - hitting right. I think I got that correct? I’ll have to run it by ‘my boys’ later.”
“So we’ve handled the psychotic blue-haired Twitter avenger. We’ve touched on the great and no-zzzzz oh shit I fell asleep because he’s literally so boring but anyway his name is Brandon Hendrix. All that’s left is…”
“Shit, what’s her name? That chick who got all pissy because Giovanni handed her a victory she could never, ever accomplish on her own? The one who will be quickly forgotten the moment she stops showing up every show? The person who is only over with the crowd because they’ve decided to leech heat off the only goddamn draws on the entire brand?”
“No, seriously, what’s her name? I can’t remember.”
“The Gold Something. Golden Goose, we’ll call her.”
“Golden Goose, I don’t really know what to say to you. I wish you the best in all your future endeavors but stop trying to earn points by hassling my boy Giovanni.”
“So, to wrap it up.”
“All this is my way of saying, we are taking this shit to the fucking streets. I am officially demanding Cha- err, Indy Darling - institute a word cap of no more than 2,000 words for weekly shows, upped to perhaps 5,000 for Premium Live Events. And by words I don’t mean literal words, because that would imply a text-based medium. Allow me to make it simpler for y’all following along at home.”
“Let’s say we have something called an ‘Effort Unit’. This ‘Effort Unit’ is roughly equivalent to the effort required to type, edit, and code approximately 1,000 words of something called ‘roleplay’. I propose an upper cap of 2 ‘Effort Units’ for a weekly Proving Ground show. Make sense?”
“Cool. So just understand this, I am only beginning on this quest. I don’t care how long it takes, how much ridiculous nonsense I have to say, or how many tens of minutes of segments we have to bombard you with every show. You will break before we do.”
“You have been warned.”
“No word caps? No peace.”
“And by that I mean ‘no Effort Unit caps? No peace’, of course.
“And we out this bitch.”
"Oh, and you're not getting any closing credits this time. Because to hell with it, you know? We protesting now."
"PROTEST! PROTEST! PROTEST!"
"Okay for real, have a good night y'all. See you at the show!"
"Oh, and you're not getting any closing credits this time. Because to hell with it, you know? We protesting now."
"PROTEST! PROTEST! PROTEST!"
"Okay for real, have a good night y'all. See you at the show!"