Daryl Prichard vs Sally Talfourd

[Alex Smiley]

Reminder:

- Word limit for Group Stage matches is 1500.
- 1 RP per wrestler per match.
- Deadline: January 20, 2019, at 11:59PM Pacific.

[saltal]

The camera comes in on an opening shot of an abandoned Toys-R-Us, though someone's done half a job of hanging a tarp over the signage that says (in poorly spray painted lettering) "Fan Fest 2.0". The shot transitions to a printed A4 paper taped to the front glass door:

SPECIAL GUESTS AND APPEARANCES:

Kevin Spacey (Actor) R. Kelly (Singer) TBD
Smiley Sighrus (YELP Top 11 Miley Cyrus Impersonator)
Phil Robertson (Republican)
Sally Talfourd (Wrestler?)
Rob Kardashian (Human Being)
Brandon Harvey (Comedian)

And then we fade inside to find a destitute and derelict ... bunch of people. The building isn't much better either, though it probably has a superior natural odour. The camera winds through the throng of crowds, passing booths with people you might know charging money to share the same air and stalls selling bits and pieces of  your childhood ... so long as your childhood involved bullying, teasing and cripplingly loneliness ... or Star Wars.

And it's through all of this that we find the long-missing-but-not-missed Last Magician, reappeared for what surely is one of her last tricks. Or, rather, she's here to turn tricks? The whole atmosphere makes it unclear.

"Did you get the bottle whiskey?" Sally asks, staring eagerly at Shane's hands in the misplaced hope that there's a bottle in one of them.

The camera shakes as Shane indicates in the negative, "No, something better."

Sally sits up, all excited, the life and perk we're used to seeing reappearing for the briefest of moments, "Two bottles of whiskey!?"

Again, the camera shakes, "Your phone. It's got missed calls ..."

Sally deflates back into her chair, her shoulders slumped and mumbling under her breath, "... I'm not giving those pandas back ..."

With only the slightest pause to file away for later a follow-up question about those pandas, Shane pushes on, "From that guy from the Experts? The one who called a bunch last year?"

A flicker of life once more, a spark of interest crosses Sally's eyes and her voice can't hide the curiosity, "Oh yeah? Give it here."

And, just like a millennial who's been served a plate of food Sally is completely engrossed in her phone. She scrolls through messages, digests them, retrieves her voicemail, listening intently as her chance at redemption is spelled out. Experts Tournament. Mattamy Centre. Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Replacement. Week 6. Daryl Prichard. Money.

"Shane," Sally tosses the phone to her manager-cross-cameraman who fumbles it with his free hand, "We're outta here."

"But Sally ..."

"I know, I know. I feel bad as well not staying to the end of this convention," She looks around, wistfully and longingly, "What with the free shrimp buffet."

As she starts to turn away, the crowds parting for no other reason than to avoid contact with a genuine female, she glances over her shoulder back to Shane for one last brief moment.

"But with what's on offer at the Mattamy Centre ... we'll be able to afford all the shrimp we can eat!"

Sally trails off into the crowd which closes like a wave behind her. Shane is left standing at the "Least Magician" booth, the sign crooked and the carpet sticky.

------------------------------

The two bottles of Jack Daniels I drank last week.
The three-week-old sushi found next to the heater I'm going to eat for breakfast today.
Daryl Prichard.

I will remember two of these things when you ask me, at the end of the year, what did I do with 2019. And, in case it needs spelling out: I had the mother of hangovers last week and that sushi is probably going to kill me.

Leaving you, Daryl Prichard, as the unmemorable moment of 2019.

Now I know that sounds pretty mean. So, you know, if you want to talk it out and all that you know where I'll be later this week to have a chit-chat and all. And I guess I'm kind of sorry for saying it in a way. But I suppose I compared you to bad alcohol and rotten fish for this one reason:

Fire up.

If I am stepping back in the ring ... my god I want it to be for a really good reason. I want to be back in this business – if even for just one night – for something that people remember. Heck, for something I remember! Because I tell you what, Daryl: I was enjoying my life of ignorance and bliss.

I was happy living in my little bubble, thinking that the wrestling world was in safe hands. That I had made it just a little bit better and I could sit back and watch the fields grow for the next generation to harvest. I'd drawn the fans. I'd drawn the ratings. I'd drawn the money and the prestige and the hype. I'd inspired and lifted and shown the world over how truly great a woman ... a wrestler ... and industry could be. I loved living in that peace of mind. That solitude. I stepped out along with some of the greatest and the best of a generation that built the twenty-first century of wrestling.

I turned down the chance to get in on the ground floor of this Experts do-hickey last year. My bubble said to me (the magical talking bubble that it is) "No need, Sally – the wrestling industry is fine without out." So I let the opportunity go by.

But something inside of me knew I was lying to myself. I slowly, but surely, opened my eyes as I wondered "How is wrestling, today?" and "Who is the new Sally Talfourd now?" and "What does this new crop stand for?"

The answer to those questions?

Busted.

No one.

They don't even stand on things, much less for things.

Yeah, that's right: I've just accused a whole generation of hovering. And, really, I'm not wrong. All this new crop just ... hovers. They neither rise nor fall. They neither succeed nor fail. They neither build nor destroy. They just ... exist.

Now I don't know how entrenched you are in this new generation of wrestling, Daryl. I don't know if you've been running around since Jim Crow was an actual person or have only broken into this industry last week. Either way, I look at you and what you've done in this tournament so far ... the career ... or should I say "career" you're carving out for yourself at EMF ... and you just embody the whole hovering thing.

You just exist. You exist in this business. You exist in this tournament. You exist in your very own life. But what do you do? What do you really do? What do you do in the ring>? In a match? Heck – what do you even do on a Friday night when you've got no date, no Vaseline and the Internet is down?

I hate to cut so close to the bone. I hate to be so forthright and in your face. It's hardly been my style all these years. But someone needs to crab you ... grab the people like you ... grab the industry you've let rot away and just speak the truth.

And the real truth, the ultimate truth we all are finding out week by week, is this tournament.

This tournament – the Experts Super6 – this is the light on the hill. It's the repressed memory coming to the surface of what wrestling once was and can be again. What should fill the airwaves and the screens and is the topic of conversation for the next three weeks. The Super6 is isn't just another wrestling tournament, it's the wrestling tournament that will redefine wrestling. The Experts isn't just another organisation, it's the organisation that will remind fans and wrestlers alike of just how good all this can be.

And, just to bring this all back to what matters most to you this week, Daryl:

Sally Talfourd isn't just another wrestler.

I am the wrestler that the rest of your career will be defined and measured and judged. Could you stand toe-to-toe with Sally Talfourd? Could the Spiderking (... yeah) match it against the Last Magician? Could this up-and-coming wrestler finally deliver on all those promises of kicking ass, taking names, leave no prisoners?

I'm going to go out on a limb here and say not only can't you, but you never will. You're not hardened by the turmoils of Experts Tournaments of yesteryear. You're not hardened by the Level-One's, the Jack Benevolence's, the Doug E Fresh's, the Rex Evan's, the Mark Mania's of this world.

I am.

I am here still.

And I am here now.

I wonder if you will be here in two, three, five years from now, much less a week?

I think we both know the answer to that.