Post by Immanuel Taylor on Aug 19, 2011 22:47:30 GMT -5
Immanuel checked out of the Courtyard Marriott in Miami, Florida the day after the July 24th edition of Sunday Night came to an end and proceeded to book a room for three nights at the more modest Holiday Inn hotel, both in the central business district He purposefully missed his company booked flight back to San Francisco. Immanuel had a difficult time breathing as he laid awake in his bed in Miaimi on the 27th of July. The show was both a turning point and a revelation and Immanuel still reeled from its aftereffects. Redemption’s victory wasn’t what was distressing Immanuel, leaving him in knots of tension and anxiety. Oh no. They won fair and square, working with Tyreke Bell, Immanuel’s sparring opponent come Scars and Stripes, proved to be too much for Taylor. Add to that Redemption’s cohesion and strength as a team and there is no room for ambiguities.
No. What distressed Immanuel was what occurred in Rivera’s office after Bell left but Immanuel was instructed to stay. Immanuel had noticed a relatively large Eastern Euro-looking man following some time ago. Taylor, a former soldier, knows how to spot these things. The man was good, though, being able to drift slyly a considerable distance away from Immanuel, good enough to make Immanuel consistently doubt if he actually was being followed or not. The level of doubt itself oscillated from mild to strong dosages. Immanuel felt slight hesitation at times and outright denial at others.
This continued right until Immanuel left Rivera’s office on the July 24th edition of Sunday Night Vengeance. The second he left that office, he was goddamned sure that that European man was following and that Mark Rivera had most likely hired him. Immanuel still recalls how Rivera eyed him at the end of it, just after he grilled Immanuel about where he hails from. Immanuel can still picture Rivera’s hawk-like eyes, prying into Immanuel’s resolute figure. Rivera’s asking questions, wanting to know where Immanuel’s history lands. It all began with Kennedy, the young one that is. He never liked Immanuel from the beginning and Immanuel had thought that with the young boy’s departure during the EUW-Empire, he would get a clean break with whomever took his place.
Rivera turned out worse. And now, after Rivera’s goddamned smug-like callout to Immanuel a couple of days ago, Immanuel knows that he is being followed, that that Euro-looking man is probably still lurking around back in the Mission District, waiting to get a glimpse of the really white-looking Immanuel Taylor. Or maybe he’s already caught a glimpse and, learning from his mistakes in the first time, has been able to keep an eye on Immanuel. For all Immanuel knows, he could be right here in Miami, circling around Immanuel like a vulture, waiting to descend like a ghoul on Asylum-EUW’s number one contender for the Hardkore Title.
Immanuel leapt out of his queen sized bed and dashed to the bathroom, fully naked. The digital clock on the nightstand next to his bed emanated a glowing “9:12 AM” as downtown Miami, America’s richest city according to a 2009 UBS poll, continued to exert its life and pulse. Immanuel felt his chest compressed, pushed down by some gravitational mumbo jumbo, and he commenced taking deep breaths. Taylor was able to conjure up one world throughout this.
Fuck.
---------
August the 14th was an especially humid day in San Francisco and Immanuel took note of this as he made his way past the infamous Cable Car that oozes up Bryant Street next to Franklin Square. It's the evening now, at around 6 PM. Every two blocks, Immanuel entered a random shop, a convenience store or perhaps a Chinese laundry retail, and pretended to do something inside while keeping an eye on the front door. He then made his way outside the store and, whilst opening the door, was able to get a great view of his surroundings. Enough to take note of anything suspiciously redundant. Immanuel has training in this field and it slightly pleased him that he’s benefitting from his military past.
Immanuel had just departed from a local comic book store that doubled as a bootlegger for independent wrestling federation recordings. Immanuel was able to benefit from the shopowner’s obsessive categorizing detail of all underground wrestling shows from the year 1999 till this very day. The owner, a hipster nerd, loudly scorned when Immanuel asked him if he kept any recordings of past EUW-Asylum matches. Too general and bland, he hissed at Immanuel.
Immanuel made it to 1337 Mission Street and took the side entrance into the EUW-Asylum Headquarters, reserved for high-level employees and active wrestlers, and proceeded to make his way to a private small theater he booked in advance. Immanuel walked by a poster for Scars and Stripes 2011.
Immanuel Taylor and Tyreke Bell first laid eyes on each other at the 6-Man Over the Top battle royal, the match that signaled an end to Immanuel’s winning streak back then. He had just come off a successful title defense against Jackal, who would cost Immanuel that battle royal, and would be heading into another title defense at Retribution. Tyreke didn’t have any motives for vengeance or retribution come that match but was able to nonetheless defeat Immanuel Taylor.
And so the feud between Taylor and Church began and soon developed to involve title thefts, forced partnerships, mandatory physical separation and has reached a level that requires a comically masochistic barbed wired match to settle the feud once and for all.
Barbed wire. That’s what Immanuel had bought from the obsessive wrestling hipster earlier today. Not actually barbed wire, no, but a rare taping of a barbed wire match in an independent federation. The “independent” label, as Immanuel understands it, is supposed to mean that the match is untelevisied and thus the underground federation is unburdened with advertisers threatening to stop pumping in cash for TV spots. In short, the more independent this feds are the more chaotic the matches end up being. And what better way to prepare for a barbed wire match than to watch the most chaotic one recorded with a hand camera?
The UWA Barbed Wire match between Boris the Hammer and Naeem had gained underground infamy for its brutality and horror and, despite being shakily recorded by a hand camera, quickly circulated within the tight-knit community of wrestling hipsters who have sacrificed a social life for one that involves watching half-naked brutalize each other. Immanuel sat comfortably on one of the 30 chairs at the in-door EUW-Asylum theater after preparing the DVD. 10 seconds of fuzziness before the hand camera functions and a modestly stable image of both Boris and Naeem in the ring appears.
Naeem the Merchant is, as his name suggests, a merchant turned wrestler and, according to the text on the back of the DVD case, is an expert in Persian hand-to-hand combat. Immanuel had mistaken the name for an Arab. The other wrestler, Boris is of American nationality and, once again as the name suggests, carries a really big hammer with him to the ring. The hand camera swerved left and right, slow enough for Immanuel to get a good look on the barbed wire surrounding the ropes. The second Immanuel glanced at them, he easily saw that they were stolen and inserted here. It’s the same thing you usually see at over at military bases.
It only took Immanuel five minutes before he saw something that he would take to his grave. Boris used his hammer to neutralize Naeem, nailing him straight in the forehead before kicking him towards the barbed wire ropes. Naeem, shirtless when wrestling, let out a shriek as the barbed wire stuck to his already slashed back skin. The angle was perfect for the bootlegger’s handcamera and he was able to zoom in to get a truly disgusting angle involving barbed wire and torn skin. With Naeem literally tangled on the barbed wire, Boris dropped his hammer and charged ahead before leaping in the sky and pulling off a stinger splash.
Immanuel’s finger immediately clicked the pause button (II), which accidentally made everything worse as it ended up with a still frame of both men tangled in the barbed wire. Naeem’s shriek was cut off by the pausing of the video. Immanuel dropped the remote on the seat next to him before leaning over and rubbing his eyes.
Here he is. Immanuel Taylor. Facing an opponent inside the ring and possibly facing another one outside the ring. About a week from now he will be competing in a barbaric contest against a man he barely knows yet for some reason is intensely hated by him. Outside of the ring, at this very instance, Immanuel is dodging a mysterious European man whom Immanuel suspects was hired by his boss, Mark Rivera, whom is himself asking too many questions about Immanuel’s past. As punishment for Immanuel’s aloofness, Rivera made sure Immanuel, an orthodox and Pure-style wrestler, is stuck in the Hardkore Division.
A good movie script, yes, but not a good environment to be in when one is competing for the Hardkore Title. Immanuel sure as hell doesn’t belong in the Hardkore division but this is irrelevant. The Hardkore Title is up for grabs, Immanuel’s chance to regain it after Tyreke Bell won it at Retribution, and he has no doubt that he’s going to go to hell and back to win it. It doesn’t matter if Immanuel is a Hardkore wrestler or not, if he wants to be one or not. Sunday the 21st is a mission, an assignment, and Immanuel intends to fulfill it and leave Washington with the Hardkore Title.
Immanuel didn’t bother to watch the rest of the match, which resembles a horror flick more than a wrestling match. There’s no way Immanuel’s match with Tyreke Bell at Scars and Stripes will be like that. The barbed wire will surround the ring, will be there at each step but it’s not going to be used as a steel chair. For starters, the barbed wire would literally be mounted on the ropes. Thus, if Bell would want to use the edgy barbed wire against Immanuel, he would need to take Immanuel to the weapon rather than the conventional other way around.
Furthermore, Immanuel wouldn’t be trying to use the barbed wire. It is no secret that Immanuel Taylor, despite competing for the Hardkore Title, hates weapons and loathes using even the most innocuous possible weapon unless absolutely necessary. So this means Bell would have to initiate if he wants to hurl Immanuel into the barbed wire. Immanuel saw that as obviously risky.
Trying to push your opponent into the barbed wire? He could grab your wrists, twirl around, and irish whip you into the barbed wire. Or, in Immanuel’s case, if Bell tried to hurl Immanuel at the barbed wire, he’d have to get up close and personal with Immanuel which would give Immanuel the perfect opportunity to ground Tyreke on the floor and lock in a submission, thus taking out Bell’s offensive and also isolating the barbed wire element of the match.
Taylor got up, energized by reflecting on that strategy, and proceeded to extract the DVD from the associated DVD player. He grabbed his shoulder bag, turned off the lights of the theatre room and made his way out into the lobby. He took a handful of glances, left and right, and noticed no suspicious individuals. No white-skinned Europeans, except Immanuel himself. Immanuel, with the DVD in his hand, stood next to a trash bin and snapped the DVD into half before disposing of it in the metallic cube-like trash bin.
The trick in the barbed wire match is to avoid barbed wire. This isn’t a steel chair or a kitchen sink. An unintended positive aspect of the barbed wire match is how easily Immanuel can keep a distance from the barbed wire. Immanuel’s primary strategy is to get Church on the ground and wear and tear him with submission maneuvers. If Immanuel’s strategy works, then he gets to assert a strong offensive in the match. The only downside to this, of course, is that the fans will be bored out of their minds.
Most wrestling fans repeatedly neglect to acknowledge the fact that wrestlers are human beings. Many loyal Asylum-EUW fans would tune in to Sunday’s PPV and expect bloodshed and eye-capturing horror in the barbed wire match akin to the travesty Immanuel just watched. The fans at that UWA show must have loved watching Boris the Hammer butcher Naeem in that ring but they probably don’t realize that Boris the Hammer most likely became Boris the Cripple after that contest and Naeem….well, he probably had a skin graft operation or two.
Immanuel, with a watchful eye for any possible Euro-looking snooper, made his way throughout the hallways of the EUW-Asylum headquarters and passed a large portrait of Mark Rivera. Taylor reflected a bit on what Rivera would want to accomplish by putting Taylor and Bell in a Barbed Wire match. Maybe its just a by-product of his sadistic leanings, Rivera being Rivera, or maybe something else? Rivera seems to be irritated by Tyreke’s existence but perhaps not as much as he is of Immanuel.
Immanuel stepped out of the EUW-Asylum Headquarters and, having just reflected on why Rivera chose a particularly horrific match, decided to check on a little lead he might have on whom the Euro-man who followed him that night might be. Immanuel turned right and, with his head down as always, marched down the Mission Street in the Mission District. The South of Market district was to his left. Immanuel stopped at the BART station on 16th Street Mission before turning another right and walking along 16th street towards the Mission Dolores. He passed the infamous structure and smuggled himself into an alleyway and, now behind the Mission Dolores, found himself face to face with the obscure little café he always goes to.
Night-time in San Francisco gave the city a slightly dangerous feeling, not as sharp as you’d find in New York City but still sharp enough. Taylor kept to himself as he passed by the suspicious looking individuals behind the Mission Dolores and entered the obscure little café. Nadine was just cleaning up, it being mostly empty today, and Immanuel quickly took the opportunity to wave his hand towards her.
“Hey Jonathan!” Nadine said with a cool smile on her face, in addition to dirty dishes in her hands, as she stopped next to Immanuel.
Of course, the name Immanuel gave to her of himself was Jonathan Harker. She must have passed it to that Euro-looking stalker when he asked her for it. Immanuel thought of that earlier but then recalled that if Rivera hired him, the most probable scenario, then he must have given him Immanuel’s EUW biography folder. That’s what worried Immanuel. If that did occur, then the Euro-looking stalker would have been sure that Immanuel’s hiding something since Immanuel did give Nadine an alias.
“Hello Nadine” Immanuel said, very dull in his speech. “Do you mind if I take you aside and ask you a question. If you’re not too busy.”
“Oh, the place is mostly empty. Wait here a second and let me put the dishes down.” Nadine turned around and made her way towards the kitchen area as Immanuel stood there, shoulder bag in hand. He took a couple of steps backwards, positioning himself so he can see whoever’s coming from the front door but not the other way around. Nadine came back, she’s wearing sandals which show off her newly done nails and her waitress uniform looks nice on her figure.
“Want to sit down and get a cup of coffee? It’s on the house”
“Another time, perhaps” Immanuel said, using more words than he is accustomed to. He went on to continue with his question but stopped for a couple of seconds. “I’d love to get a cup of coffee with you another time but I’m really occupied at this moment. I just….umm…is that ok with you?”
“Yeah. Yeah. Sure.”
“Ok” Five seconds of silence before Immanuel, who was extra polite on purpose, continued. “I just wanted to ask you about my friend who came in that night and asked you about me.”
“Yeah….the European who looks like a Count” Nadine said before snickering. Immanuel managed to pull off a disfigured smile to go along. “Did you two meet up?”
“I’m afraid not”
“Oh”
“Yes. I…I wanted to ask you if you remember anything about him in specific? Any tattoos perhaps?”
Nadine stood for a moment, thinking. She then began nodding her head.
“Yeah. Yeah. He had a tattoo on his knuckles. He shook my hand after I told him about you. The tattoo was a word in another language. Maybe symbols or something”
“Can you draw it?”
“Umm….wait. I remember one of the symbols was an upside down “L” and there was one that looked like a “3”, you know, as in 3 the number. And I definitely remember an R that was the other way around. It was really weird.”
Immanuel was silent for a while. He knows a language that has similar characteristics to that. He kept his cool.
“Is there anything else? Do you know where he’s staying”
“No” Nadine stopped for a second. “I do, however, recall him showing me a picture of you. Yeah, and it’s definitely a recent one since…..wait, what are you doing?”
Immanuel already had his shoulder bag on the table. He clicked open the lock and took out a copy of his EUW-Asylum biography folder and opened it. There was a passport sized picture clipped to the document, the photo Immanuel took when he joined the EUW-Asylum wrestling corporation. He unclipped it and showed it to Nadine.
“That the photo he showed you?”
“Yeah” Nadine said instantaneously “Definitely. Your head had the same angle and pose”
“Thank you”
Immanuel put the photo back in the folder, closed it, placed it inside the shoulder bag, closed the bag and draped it over his shoulder before shaking Nadine’s right hand. He was overcome with a rush of adrenaline.
“I’m sorry I can’t have a cup of coffee with you, Nadine.”
“It’s…it’s okay, Jonathan.” Nadine now seemed worried. “Is everything ok? You seem a little…”
“I’m fine. I’m fine. Please, have a good night”
Immanuel let go of the handlock and made his way out of the café, stopping to wave back at Nadine, keeping up his disguise. It’s dark now in San Francisco, darker than when Immanuel first went into the café a couple of minutes earlier. Immanuel walked away, keeping his adrenaline bottled up. The photo he showed to Nadine is identical to the photo the Euro-looking man showed her. It just happens, of course, that the photo in question would be only accessed from the EUW-Asylum database.
Immanuel made his way back to the Hotel Tropicana and would be making his way to his title match at Sunday the 21st, now he is doing both with the full certainty that he is officially fighting two battles, inside and outside the ring.
No. What distressed Immanuel was what occurred in Rivera’s office after Bell left but Immanuel was instructed to stay. Immanuel had noticed a relatively large Eastern Euro-looking man following some time ago. Taylor, a former soldier, knows how to spot these things. The man was good, though, being able to drift slyly a considerable distance away from Immanuel, good enough to make Immanuel consistently doubt if he actually was being followed or not. The level of doubt itself oscillated from mild to strong dosages. Immanuel felt slight hesitation at times and outright denial at others.
This continued right until Immanuel left Rivera’s office on the July 24th edition of Sunday Night Vengeance. The second he left that office, he was goddamned sure that that European man was following and that Mark Rivera had most likely hired him. Immanuel still recalls how Rivera eyed him at the end of it, just after he grilled Immanuel about where he hails from. Immanuel can still picture Rivera’s hawk-like eyes, prying into Immanuel’s resolute figure. Rivera’s asking questions, wanting to know where Immanuel’s history lands. It all began with Kennedy, the young one that is. He never liked Immanuel from the beginning and Immanuel had thought that with the young boy’s departure during the EUW-Empire, he would get a clean break with whomever took his place.
Rivera turned out worse. And now, after Rivera’s goddamned smug-like callout to Immanuel a couple of days ago, Immanuel knows that he is being followed, that that Euro-looking man is probably still lurking around back in the Mission District, waiting to get a glimpse of the really white-looking Immanuel Taylor. Or maybe he’s already caught a glimpse and, learning from his mistakes in the first time, has been able to keep an eye on Immanuel. For all Immanuel knows, he could be right here in Miami, circling around Immanuel like a vulture, waiting to descend like a ghoul on Asylum-EUW’s number one contender for the Hardkore Title.
Immanuel leapt out of his queen sized bed and dashed to the bathroom, fully naked. The digital clock on the nightstand next to his bed emanated a glowing “9:12 AM” as downtown Miami, America’s richest city according to a 2009 UBS poll, continued to exert its life and pulse. Immanuel felt his chest compressed, pushed down by some gravitational mumbo jumbo, and he commenced taking deep breaths. Taylor was able to conjure up one world throughout this.
Fuck.
---------
August the 14th was an especially humid day in San Francisco and Immanuel took note of this as he made his way past the infamous Cable Car that oozes up Bryant Street next to Franklin Square. It's the evening now, at around 6 PM. Every two blocks, Immanuel entered a random shop, a convenience store or perhaps a Chinese laundry retail, and pretended to do something inside while keeping an eye on the front door. He then made his way outside the store and, whilst opening the door, was able to get a great view of his surroundings. Enough to take note of anything suspiciously redundant. Immanuel has training in this field and it slightly pleased him that he’s benefitting from his military past.
Immanuel had just departed from a local comic book store that doubled as a bootlegger for independent wrestling federation recordings. Immanuel was able to benefit from the shopowner’s obsessive categorizing detail of all underground wrestling shows from the year 1999 till this very day. The owner, a hipster nerd, loudly scorned when Immanuel asked him if he kept any recordings of past EUW-Asylum matches. Too general and bland, he hissed at Immanuel.
Immanuel made it to 1337 Mission Street and took the side entrance into the EUW-Asylum Headquarters, reserved for high-level employees and active wrestlers, and proceeded to make his way to a private small theater he booked in advance. Immanuel walked by a poster for Scars and Stripes 2011.
Immanuel Taylor and Tyreke Bell first laid eyes on each other at the 6-Man Over the Top battle royal, the match that signaled an end to Immanuel’s winning streak back then. He had just come off a successful title defense against Jackal, who would cost Immanuel that battle royal, and would be heading into another title defense at Retribution. Tyreke didn’t have any motives for vengeance or retribution come that match but was able to nonetheless defeat Immanuel Taylor.
And so the feud between Taylor and Church began and soon developed to involve title thefts, forced partnerships, mandatory physical separation and has reached a level that requires a comically masochistic barbed wired match to settle the feud once and for all.
Barbed wire. That’s what Immanuel had bought from the obsessive wrestling hipster earlier today. Not actually barbed wire, no, but a rare taping of a barbed wire match in an independent federation. The “independent” label, as Immanuel understands it, is supposed to mean that the match is untelevisied and thus the underground federation is unburdened with advertisers threatening to stop pumping in cash for TV spots. In short, the more independent this feds are the more chaotic the matches end up being. And what better way to prepare for a barbed wire match than to watch the most chaotic one recorded with a hand camera?
The UWA Barbed Wire match between Boris the Hammer and Naeem had gained underground infamy for its brutality and horror and, despite being shakily recorded by a hand camera, quickly circulated within the tight-knit community of wrestling hipsters who have sacrificed a social life for one that involves watching half-naked brutalize each other. Immanuel sat comfortably on one of the 30 chairs at the in-door EUW-Asylum theater after preparing the DVD. 10 seconds of fuzziness before the hand camera functions and a modestly stable image of both Boris and Naeem in the ring appears.
Naeem the Merchant is, as his name suggests, a merchant turned wrestler and, according to the text on the back of the DVD case, is an expert in Persian hand-to-hand combat. Immanuel had mistaken the name for an Arab. The other wrestler, Boris is of American nationality and, once again as the name suggests, carries a really big hammer with him to the ring. The hand camera swerved left and right, slow enough for Immanuel to get a good look on the barbed wire surrounding the ropes. The second Immanuel glanced at them, he easily saw that they were stolen and inserted here. It’s the same thing you usually see at over at military bases.
It only took Immanuel five minutes before he saw something that he would take to his grave. Boris used his hammer to neutralize Naeem, nailing him straight in the forehead before kicking him towards the barbed wire ropes. Naeem, shirtless when wrestling, let out a shriek as the barbed wire stuck to his already slashed back skin. The angle was perfect for the bootlegger’s handcamera and he was able to zoom in to get a truly disgusting angle involving barbed wire and torn skin. With Naeem literally tangled on the barbed wire, Boris dropped his hammer and charged ahead before leaping in the sky and pulling off a stinger splash.
Immanuel’s finger immediately clicked the pause button (II), which accidentally made everything worse as it ended up with a still frame of both men tangled in the barbed wire. Naeem’s shriek was cut off by the pausing of the video. Immanuel dropped the remote on the seat next to him before leaning over and rubbing his eyes.
Here he is. Immanuel Taylor. Facing an opponent inside the ring and possibly facing another one outside the ring. About a week from now he will be competing in a barbaric contest against a man he barely knows yet for some reason is intensely hated by him. Outside of the ring, at this very instance, Immanuel is dodging a mysterious European man whom Immanuel suspects was hired by his boss, Mark Rivera, whom is himself asking too many questions about Immanuel’s past. As punishment for Immanuel’s aloofness, Rivera made sure Immanuel, an orthodox and Pure-style wrestler, is stuck in the Hardkore Division.
A good movie script, yes, but not a good environment to be in when one is competing for the Hardkore Title. Immanuel sure as hell doesn’t belong in the Hardkore division but this is irrelevant. The Hardkore Title is up for grabs, Immanuel’s chance to regain it after Tyreke Bell won it at Retribution, and he has no doubt that he’s going to go to hell and back to win it. It doesn’t matter if Immanuel is a Hardkore wrestler or not, if he wants to be one or not. Sunday the 21st is a mission, an assignment, and Immanuel intends to fulfill it and leave Washington with the Hardkore Title.
Immanuel didn’t bother to watch the rest of the match, which resembles a horror flick more than a wrestling match. There’s no way Immanuel’s match with Tyreke Bell at Scars and Stripes will be like that. The barbed wire will surround the ring, will be there at each step but it’s not going to be used as a steel chair. For starters, the barbed wire would literally be mounted on the ropes. Thus, if Bell would want to use the edgy barbed wire against Immanuel, he would need to take Immanuel to the weapon rather than the conventional other way around.
Furthermore, Immanuel wouldn’t be trying to use the barbed wire. It is no secret that Immanuel Taylor, despite competing for the Hardkore Title, hates weapons and loathes using even the most innocuous possible weapon unless absolutely necessary. So this means Bell would have to initiate if he wants to hurl Immanuel into the barbed wire. Immanuel saw that as obviously risky.
Trying to push your opponent into the barbed wire? He could grab your wrists, twirl around, and irish whip you into the barbed wire. Or, in Immanuel’s case, if Bell tried to hurl Immanuel at the barbed wire, he’d have to get up close and personal with Immanuel which would give Immanuel the perfect opportunity to ground Tyreke on the floor and lock in a submission, thus taking out Bell’s offensive and also isolating the barbed wire element of the match.
Taylor got up, energized by reflecting on that strategy, and proceeded to extract the DVD from the associated DVD player. He grabbed his shoulder bag, turned off the lights of the theatre room and made his way out into the lobby. He took a handful of glances, left and right, and noticed no suspicious individuals. No white-skinned Europeans, except Immanuel himself. Immanuel, with the DVD in his hand, stood next to a trash bin and snapped the DVD into half before disposing of it in the metallic cube-like trash bin.
The trick in the barbed wire match is to avoid barbed wire. This isn’t a steel chair or a kitchen sink. An unintended positive aspect of the barbed wire match is how easily Immanuel can keep a distance from the barbed wire. Immanuel’s primary strategy is to get Church on the ground and wear and tear him with submission maneuvers. If Immanuel’s strategy works, then he gets to assert a strong offensive in the match. The only downside to this, of course, is that the fans will be bored out of their minds.
Most wrestling fans repeatedly neglect to acknowledge the fact that wrestlers are human beings. Many loyal Asylum-EUW fans would tune in to Sunday’s PPV and expect bloodshed and eye-capturing horror in the barbed wire match akin to the travesty Immanuel just watched. The fans at that UWA show must have loved watching Boris the Hammer butcher Naeem in that ring but they probably don’t realize that Boris the Hammer most likely became Boris the Cripple after that contest and Naeem….well, he probably had a skin graft operation or two.
Immanuel, with a watchful eye for any possible Euro-looking snooper, made his way throughout the hallways of the EUW-Asylum headquarters and passed a large portrait of Mark Rivera. Taylor reflected a bit on what Rivera would want to accomplish by putting Taylor and Bell in a Barbed Wire match. Maybe its just a by-product of his sadistic leanings, Rivera being Rivera, or maybe something else? Rivera seems to be irritated by Tyreke’s existence but perhaps not as much as he is of Immanuel.
Immanuel stepped out of the EUW-Asylum Headquarters and, having just reflected on why Rivera chose a particularly horrific match, decided to check on a little lead he might have on whom the Euro-man who followed him that night might be. Immanuel turned right and, with his head down as always, marched down the Mission Street in the Mission District. The South of Market district was to his left. Immanuel stopped at the BART station on 16th Street Mission before turning another right and walking along 16th street towards the Mission Dolores. He passed the infamous structure and smuggled himself into an alleyway and, now behind the Mission Dolores, found himself face to face with the obscure little café he always goes to.
Night-time in San Francisco gave the city a slightly dangerous feeling, not as sharp as you’d find in New York City but still sharp enough. Taylor kept to himself as he passed by the suspicious looking individuals behind the Mission Dolores and entered the obscure little café. Nadine was just cleaning up, it being mostly empty today, and Immanuel quickly took the opportunity to wave his hand towards her.
“Hey Jonathan!” Nadine said with a cool smile on her face, in addition to dirty dishes in her hands, as she stopped next to Immanuel.
Of course, the name Immanuel gave to her of himself was Jonathan Harker. She must have passed it to that Euro-looking stalker when he asked her for it. Immanuel thought of that earlier but then recalled that if Rivera hired him, the most probable scenario, then he must have given him Immanuel’s EUW biography folder. That’s what worried Immanuel. If that did occur, then the Euro-looking stalker would have been sure that Immanuel’s hiding something since Immanuel did give Nadine an alias.
“Hello Nadine” Immanuel said, very dull in his speech. “Do you mind if I take you aside and ask you a question. If you’re not too busy.”
“Oh, the place is mostly empty. Wait here a second and let me put the dishes down.” Nadine turned around and made her way towards the kitchen area as Immanuel stood there, shoulder bag in hand. He took a couple of steps backwards, positioning himself so he can see whoever’s coming from the front door but not the other way around. Nadine came back, she’s wearing sandals which show off her newly done nails and her waitress uniform looks nice on her figure.
“Want to sit down and get a cup of coffee? It’s on the house”
“Another time, perhaps” Immanuel said, using more words than he is accustomed to. He went on to continue with his question but stopped for a couple of seconds. “I’d love to get a cup of coffee with you another time but I’m really occupied at this moment. I just….umm…is that ok with you?”
“Yeah. Yeah. Sure.”
“Ok” Five seconds of silence before Immanuel, who was extra polite on purpose, continued. “I just wanted to ask you about my friend who came in that night and asked you about me.”
“Yeah….the European who looks like a Count” Nadine said before snickering. Immanuel managed to pull off a disfigured smile to go along. “Did you two meet up?”
“I’m afraid not”
“Oh”
“Yes. I…I wanted to ask you if you remember anything about him in specific? Any tattoos perhaps?”
Nadine stood for a moment, thinking. She then began nodding her head.
“Yeah. Yeah. He had a tattoo on his knuckles. He shook my hand after I told him about you. The tattoo was a word in another language. Maybe symbols or something”
“Can you draw it?”
“Umm….wait. I remember one of the symbols was an upside down “L” and there was one that looked like a “3”, you know, as in 3 the number. And I definitely remember an R that was the other way around. It was really weird.”
Immanuel was silent for a while. He knows a language that has similar characteristics to that. He kept his cool.
“Is there anything else? Do you know where he’s staying”
“No” Nadine stopped for a second. “I do, however, recall him showing me a picture of you. Yeah, and it’s definitely a recent one since…..wait, what are you doing?”
Immanuel already had his shoulder bag on the table. He clicked open the lock and took out a copy of his EUW-Asylum biography folder and opened it. There was a passport sized picture clipped to the document, the photo Immanuel took when he joined the EUW-Asylum wrestling corporation. He unclipped it and showed it to Nadine.
“That the photo he showed you?”
“Yeah” Nadine said instantaneously “Definitely. Your head had the same angle and pose”
“Thank you”
Immanuel put the photo back in the folder, closed it, placed it inside the shoulder bag, closed the bag and draped it over his shoulder before shaking Nadine’s right hand. He was overcome with a rush of adrenaline.
“I’m sorry I can’t have a cup of coffee with you, Nadine.”
“It’s…it’s okay, Jonathan.” Nadine now seemed worried. “Is everything ok? You seem a little…”
“I’m fine. I’m fine. Please, have a good night”
Immanuel let go of the handlock and made his way out of the café, stopping to wave back at Nadine, keeping up his disguise. It’s dark now in San Francisco, darker than when Immanuel first went into the café a couple of minutes earlier. Immanuel walked away, keeping his adrenaline bottled up. The photo he showed to Nadine is identical to the photo the Euro-looking man showed her. It just happens, of course, that the photo in question would be only accessed from the EUW-Asylum database.
Immanuel made his way back to the Hotel Tropicana and would be making his way to his title match at Sunday the 21st, now he is doing both with the full certainty that he is officially fighting two battles, inside and outside the ring.
