Dude's head snapped to the side and for a second he just stood there with his hand slowly rising toward the big red handprint spreading across his cheek.

Micheal Graves pointed a trembling finger directly between his eyes.

"NEVER BESMIRCH THE NAME OF BARNEY GREEN AGAIN!"

"What the FUCK!?"

"THAT MAN IS A FUCKIN' XTREME LEGEND!"

"All I said was he wasn't that good!"


Graves hit him again.

"STOP HITTING ME!"

"THEN STOP SAYIN' STUPID SHIT!"

The man stumbled backward into a folding table covered in thirty years worth of XWF magazines, action figures, DVDs, championship replicas that were very obviously made of plastic, and one horrifyingly yellowed pair of underwear inside a Ziploc bag marked:


The sign hanging above it all read:


The man rubbed his cheek.

"You're insane."

Graves gasped.

"And now you're attackin' MEEE!?"

Graves raised his bitch slapping hand and the employee retreated back.

"Whoa, WHOA! I work here!"

"Then act professional, dummy!"

Graves carefully picked up an old Barney Green action figure whose paint was all cracked and missing, the head was partially chewed up, and somebody had drawn a penis across the chest in permanent marker.

Graves studied it like Indiana Jones discovering an artifact from the lost city of Atlantis.

"Look at this poor bastard.

Motherfucker was XWF World Champion once. Like twenty years ago. Now look at him. Ain't done much in ten years. Retired... least until the next time he needs some T-girl money.

Nobody talks about Barney Green anymore. Nobody thinks about him unless they actually knew the poor bastard. He's just a ghost from twenty years ago gettin' a little harder to remember every fuckin' day."

For a moment, Graves almost looked sorry for him.

"Ya know who'd fuckin' hate this?"

"Who?"

"Sebastian Everett-Bryce."

Graves held Barney up by the head.

"This little chewed-up motherfucker is Sebastian's worst nightmare. Not losin'. Not gettin' hurt. Bein' forgotten. All that legacy shit. All that SEB this, SEB that. Motherfucker wants his name carved so deep into this place it'll survive the apocalypse along with me and the cockroaches."

He looked back at Barney.

"Barney probably thought the same thing once.

Happens to all of us eventually."

He placed Barney into a shopping cart already overflowing with things nobody on Earth should've wanted. 

Most prominently, an old XWF Gilly branded 'Suck my Dildo' circa 2015.

"You're actually buying all this junk?"

Graves retrieved a Ziplock bag with 3 used Cherry vapes labeled as Loverboy Lane's used vape pods from the cart.

"Junk my ass! This shit's historically significant XWF merchandise!"

"Oh, yeah, of course! Historically significant... Used vapes and dildos..."

He pushed the shopping cart deeper into the warehouse until he came across a Samael Dyson "I DID IT MY WAY" T-shirt with a distressed Universal championship on the front that can't be more than a week old.

A SEB money clip containing fake Xbux with his face on it.

And a human tooth glued to a plaque with a missing engraving.

"The fuck's this?"

"No idea... A tooth?"

Graves turned the plaque over.


"Whose tooth though?"

"It doesn't say."

"Could be mine."

"Uh... do you recognize it?"

Graves opened his mouth and ran his tongue across his teeth.

"Nope."

Into the cart it went.

"You're buying an unidentified tooth?"

"Twelve bucks ain't bad, besides, it might be mine."

"You just said you didn't recognize it!"

"You know how many fuckin' teeth I've lost in the last three decades!?"











Next came an old framed event poster.


Graves stared at it for a minute.











"I think I was there."

"You think?"

"Probably."

"You don't know?"

"Motherfucker, that was like twenty years ago. XWF used to keep shit records and I barely remember Tuesday."

Graves pulled it off the wall.

"Hey, that's not for sale."

Graves looked at the giant EVERYTHING MUST GO sign.

Then at the employee.

"You wanna rethink that?"

The employee shrugged and into the cart it went.

Next, Graves dug through boxes full of old shirts. Most were dry-rotted. Some had wrestlers on them like MUNGBEAN that he hadn't thought about in years. Others had wrestlers on them like Chris Chaos that he was pretty sure nobody had thought about ever.

Didn't matter.

He kept tossing the shit into the cart.

"You can't possibly want all of this."

"Sure I can."

"Why?"

The employee pointed around the warehouse.

"Half this stuff is broken. Nobody even knows what some of it is. We've had boxes of this crap sitting here for years because nobody wants any of it."

Graves looked around.

Then down into his cart, where Barney Green stared back at him with a dick drawn across his chest, and Graves genuinely seemed confused by the question.

"I don't know... It's XWF shit."

"So?"

Graves looked at him like he'd just started speaking Chinese.

"The fuck you mean, so?"

"Seriously. Look around. Nobody wants this stuff."

Graves did.

Old faces stared back. Some he'd loved. Some he'd hated. Some he'd forgotten. A few he would've happily punched in the mouth again if they happened to walk through the doors.

He reached into a box and pulled out an old turnbuckle pad with three faded letters across it.


It was partially burned and stained with dry blood.

"See? That thing's probably twenty years old."

"Older."

"How do you know?"

"Cause I remember when some asshole set it on fire."

"Who?"

"Might've been me."

He threw the turnbuckle pad into the cart.

"You know what? Never mind. If you wanna spend your money on a bunch of shit nobody else wants, be my guest."

"You're an idiot if you think nobody wants this stuff."

"Why do you think this stuff is being liquidated?"

Graves looked around again.

At names nobody talked about anymore.

Broken shit from matches most people had forgotten ever happened.

Nearly thirty years of the XWF sitting around collecting dust.

Then he looked down at Barney Green and the dick on his chest.

"I want it."

Graves shrugged.

"Fuck else am I supposed to do? This place is pretty much all I've ever known."

"That's actually kinda sa—"

Graves raised his bitch slappin' hand.

"—terrifying. I was gonna say terrifying."

"Good save."

Graves pushed the overflowing cart toward the register.

"Alright. With the poster, the memorabilia, the figures, the tooth, Lane's used vape pods—"

"Cherry."

"Yes. The cherry used vape pods... Your total is $1,784.62."

Graves froze.

"My what?"

"Your total."

"For what!?"

"For everything you're buying!"

"The fuck!? I ain't buying shit! This is a rescue!"

"No, it's a store!"

Graves looked toward the front doors.

"Don't even."

"Don't what?"

"Whatever you're thinking."

"I ain't thinkin' nothin'."

Graves tightened both hands around the shopping cart.

"Sir..."

Graves took a step backward.

"Sir, you have to pay for that."

"That's fuckin' ridiculous. You said it's worthless junk."

He continued to inch back.

"I can SEE you backing toward the door!"

"Then quit watchin' me, dummy!"

Graves suddenly spun the cart around.

"HEY!"

"THE XWF THANKS YOU FOR YOUR DONATION!"

And took off.

"YOU CAN'T JUST STEAL IT!"

"I'M PRESERVIN' HISTORY!"

The cart slammed through the front doors and Graves disappeared into the parking lot with Barney Green bouncing happily on top of his pile of loot.

"SON OF A BITCH!"

The employee started after him, but second guessed it.

"Maybe I'll just call the police..."

Outside, Graves could be seen wrestling the overloaded shopping cart across a speed bump.












The rear doors of an old white cargo van sat wide open in the parking lot of a gas station a few blocks away.

A handwritten cardboard sign taped across one door reads:


Micheal Graves sat in the back surrounded by everything he'd 'rescued' less than an hour ago.

Seems preservation came with a profit margin.

A man held up the unidentified tooth.

"How much?"

"Forty."

The man slowly put the tooth back.

"Thirty-five!"

He kept walking.

"THIRTY AND I'LL THROW IN CENTURION'S UNDERWEAR!"

He walked faster.

"YOUR LOSS, DUMMY!"

Another customer was digging through a box of shirts.

Graves watched him pull the Samael Dyson "I DID IT MY WAY" shirt out of the box.

The customer flipped it around.

Six black silhouettes carried Samael triumphantly on the back.

"How much for this one?"

"All shirts are twenty or two for thirty, 'cept that one. Thirty for the shirt and another thirty for makin' me make money off that dipshit's name."

"What?"

The customer threw the shirt back into the box.

"You must really hate that guy."

"You think? Fucker's extra in everything 'cept actually fightin' somebody straight. Weaselly little fuck with little-big man syndrome.

But I ain't stupid. The dummy's smart.

Motherfucker faked an injury, dumped the Television Championship, waited for Remi to wear Sebastian down for a whole ass match, then came marchin' out with enough boots to invade Poland, turning his title cash-in into a fuckin' gang initiation."

Graves blew a chef's kiss.

"Beautiful."

"Isn't that cheating?"

"Of course it's fuckin' cheating!"

Graves looked offended by the question.

"You think I'm gonna criticize somebody for cheating? I spit colored shit into people's eyes!"

"Why?"

"Cause regular spit ain't purple. Stay with me."

Graves tossed the shirt over his shoulder.

"Sam did exactly what Sam should've done. Had the briefcase. Used the briefcase. Got the Universal Championship. None of that Isaiah King backup plan bullshit. A man of action!

Besides..."

He leaned forward.

"Result's all that matters, right?"

"I guess?"

"Don't guess. Know. Sammy's been preachin' that shit for anyone who'll listen. Nobody cares how ya got there. Nobody remembers the fine print. History just says you won."

Graves smiled.

"I fuckin' love that philosophy."

"Why?"

"Cause I beat him.

And that's why Sammy starts gettin' real fuckin' specific whenever my name enters his mouth."

Graves held up one finger.

"Micheal Graves never pinned me!"

A second finger.

"Micheal Graves never submitted me!"

He held up a third finger and waited.

"What's the third one?"

"Ex—fuckin'—zactly!

He never says Micheal Graves never beat me. Cause he fuckin' can't! In fact, he tends to glaze me when it's sellin' his ass! Fuck you for tellin' everybody only the result matters, then suddenly turnin' into a fuckin' forensic accountant when the result says Micheal Graves."

"What's a forensic accountant?"

Graves froze.

"How the fuck should I know!?"

"You just said it."

"Yeah, because I thought it sounded right."

The customer nodded.

"It did!"

"Thank you!

And ya know, there is a funny part to all of this, but it ain't how Sammy won the belt. He's right. Who cares? The real funny part is how badly he needs for everybody else to care."

"What are you talking about?"

"This motherfucker is runnin' around screamin' DEATH TO THE XWF like he got kicked outta Al-Qaeda for being too fuckin' dramatic!"

Graves threw his arms out mockingly.

"THE LEGACY DIES WITH ME! I'M GONNA POISON EVERYTHING! I'M GONNA DESTROY THE XWF!"

He dropped his arms.

"Then he wins the belt and one of the first fuckin' things he does is check the website."

"The website?"

"THE FUCKIN' WEBSITE!

Motherfucker noticed they still had Sebastian listed as champion and threw a fit demanding recognition and respect! Think about that shit. Sammy hates the XWF so much he checked the fuckin' website to make sure it loved him back!"

The customer laughed.

"DEATH TO THE XWF!"

Graves raised a pointed finger.

"But first, could somebody update my profile page?"

Graves stared at the little Dyson on the shirt.

"You don't wanna kill the XWF, Sammy. You just want it lookin' at you.

All this DEATH TO THE XWF shit? That's just you bangin' pots and pans in the kitchen because Mommy shut the bedroom door and forgot you existed.

Now you're standin' there with the Universal Championship in one hand and your fuckin' phone in the other, refreshin' the website sixty times a minute screamin' LOOK AT ME! LOOK AT ME!

You ain't an executioner.

You ain't even KindaCarver.

You're just a neglected little fuckin' brat with a championship belt."

He tossed the shirt back into the box.

"Good news, Sammy. At Relentless, everybody's gonna be lookin' at ya.

Bad news is they're gonna be watchin' me take your fuckin' belt."

Another customer reached into the van and pulled out the SEB money clip.

"How much for this?"

Graves looked at Sebastian Everett-Bryce's face printed across the fake bills and groaned.

"Oh, for fuck's sake."

"What?"

The customer held up the money clip.

"It's kinda nice."

"Of course it is. Sebastian probably had a fuckin' focus group decide which picture made him look the richest."

Graves snatched it out of his hand and flipped through the fake bills.

Every single one had Sebastian's face on it.

"Jesus Christ."

"You don't like him either?"

"Never said that."

Graves stuffed the fake money back into the clip.

"Sebastian beat me."

The customer waited.

"That's it."

"That's it?"

"What the fuck else you want? An investigation? A recount? Sebastian Everett-Bryce beat Micheal Graves at Bad Medicine.

There. Saved him six thousand words."

He tossed the money clip onto a box.

"And he didn't just beat me either. Motherfucker hurt me."

Graves rubbed at his ribs without really thinking about it.

"For weeks."

"Sounds like he kicked your ass."

"You tryin' to get slapped too?"

"Just saying."

"Yeah. He kicked my ass, but I took somethin' from him too. Now Sebastian should be worried about me clawin' my way into this match."

"Because he beat you?"

"No, dummy. Because he did everything right! He hurt me worse than anybody had in a long fuckin' time. He left me walkin' around weeks later still feelin' Bad Medicine every time I bent over to tie my shoes."

Graves pointed at his feet.

"I wear slip-ons now."

"Smart."

"Thank you."

Graves pointed at him.

"But here's the issue. I'm still fuckin' here. You proved Micheal Graves can break, Sebastian. Congratulations. Now explain why the broken motherfucker is standing in the middle of your Universal title rematch!

You beat me, but I got back up. I beat Isaiah King. Got back up. Judd Hollow damn near cooked me medium-well and I still got back up and beat his ass too.

And you've already admitted the cost of facing me once. Now it becomes a test of endurance and I've spent all year outworking everyone while you've spent the year winding down."

Graves shrugged.

"Turns out healing wasn't what made me stupid."

"That's good?"

"Fantastic news!"

Graves picked the money clip back up and glared at Sebastian.

"So what exactly did Bad Medicine actually solve for ya, Seabass? You didn't get rid of me. You barely survived me the first time. Now you gotta do it again with variables that ain't workin' to your favor."

"So you think you can beat him this time?"

"I think it ain't the same match."

Graves held up three fingers.

"Three people."

One finger went down.

"One of 'em is me."

Another down.

"One is Sammy."

He left the middle finger standing.

"And one is Sebastian."

"Was the middle finger necessary?"

"Very.

See, Sebastian's good. Really fuckin' good. Smart. Patient. Knows when to hit ya, knows where to hit ya, and he don't panic easy... Usually."

"Usually?"

"Remington Storm walked past the motherfucker."

"Okay?"

"Didn't acknowledge him. Didn't kiss the ring. Didn't stop and tell him how pretty his fuckin' hair looked."

Graves leaned back against the van.

"And it bothered him so much he gave her a match."

"Because she ignored him?"

"His words, not mine. Petty made him do it. That's fuckin' useful information."

"How?"

"Everybody thinks he's calm. He ain't calm. He's contained.

Big fuckin' difference.

A grenade sittin' on a table looks pretty calm 'til someone pulls the pin.

Ignore Sebastian? He gets petty. Embarrass him? He remembers that shit. Take somethin' he thinks belongs to him and suddenly Mr. Cool, Calm and Collected starts twitchin' like a rich kid watchin' somebody key his fuckin' Bentley."

Graves pointed toward the Dyson shirt lying nearby.

"And Sammy didn't key the fuckin' car. He stole the whole goddamn thing."

The customer looked at the shirt.

"You think Sammy ain't gonna spend every second pokin' at him? Remindin' him how everybody watched him get carried out of his own fuckin' championship reign?

Hell no! Sebastian wants Sammy. Sammy wants him. They got revenge, stolen championships, hurt feelings..."

Graves made a disgusted face.

"Probably sexual tension."

"What?"

"You fuckin' heard me!"

Graves tossed the money clip back to him.

"Sebastian wants his championship back bad, and he'll be gunnin' for the man that took it from him.

Wasn't me.

And that makes me more dangerous than normal."

"So... uh, how much for the money clip?"

"Fifty."

"That's insane."

"Sebastian's face is on the money. It's probably worth a lot."

"I'll give you twenty."

"Thirty-five."

"Twenty-five."

Graves thought about it.

"Thirty, and I'll throw in the Samael shirt."

"Deal!"

Graves handed him both, then watched the man hold Sebastian's money clip in one hand and Samael's shirt in the other.

"Huh..."

"What?"

"Funny lookin' at 'em together. Sammy likes chaos, but Sammy's chaos got a fuckin' production crew. People runnin' interference, explosions, dildos dropping from the sky.

Sebastian likes control. Watches ya. Figures ya out. Waits for the mistake.

They say opposites attract."

Graves thumbed himself.

"I happen."

"You happen?"

"Graves happens, yes. 

You can prepare for Sebastian Everett-Bryce. You can prepare for Samael Dyson and the chaos he brings.

Then Micheal Graves happens to ya.

Maybe I bite ya. Maybe I spit in your eyes. Maybe I drop ya on your fuckin' head. Maybe I climb somethin' I got no business climbin' and fall through the both of ya."

"You don't know what you're going to do before the match? That seems like a bad strategy."

"Yeah? Well, how the fuck are THEY supposed to know if I don't?"

The customer actually thought about that.

"That's... weirdly logical."

"Sammy's dangerous as fuck, especially with the ART Foundation behind him. Well, good for him. Too bad I don't understand numbers. 

Sebastian already proved I ain't unbeatable. Good for him too, but he's learnin' that beating Micheal Graves once and being done with Micheal Graves ain't the same fuckin' thing. I don't stop bein' a problem just because you think you've solved the problem.

You knock me down, now you gotta worry about the other guy. Turn around and suddenly I'm back up doin' some other stupid shit nobody planned for. I'm not one big fuckin' disaster. I'm several medium-sized disasters in a trench coat and glasses. You can't plan for that!"

"That's your sales pitch?"

Graves shrugged.

"It's worked for thirty years.

Besides, I ain't gotta settle their grudge. I just wait for one motherfucker to go down before I catch the other in Grave Consequences. Then I steal three fuckin' seconds. They can keep the revenge. I'm takin' the belt."

"Why do you even want it? Aren't you a legend?"

"Judd Hollow called me a legend too. You know what's funny about people callin' me a legend?"

"What?"

"I always kinda sucked."

The customers just stared at him.

"You're selling yourself really well."

"Fuck you, I'm serious!"

Graves waved toward the pile of old XWF shit behind him.

"Go back far enough and I was a fuckin' mess. Angry. Unfocused. Half the time I didn't know what the fuck I was doing besides hurtin' whoever happened to be standing closest to me.

Then I came back ten years ago bigger, meaner... and still didn't know what the fuck I was doing."

He shrugged.

"Turns out brute force and making people uncomfortable as fuck can take ya pretty far."

"That's inspiring."

"Thank you.

But then some motherfucker put on my face and went on to have a better year being Micheal Graves than Micheal Graves ever had being Micheal fuckin' Graves!"

"That would piss me off."

"Oh, it pissed me off. 

Mainly cause suddenly I had to ask myself a really shitty question.

What if that asshole wasn't making me look bad?

What if I made me look bad?"

For once there wasn't a joke in waiting.

"So I got off my ass and got serious about winnin'. Turns out I should've tried that shit twenty years ago. I won the Universal Championship. Went through to the finals of March Madness. I've lost two fuckin' singles matches all fuckin' year. Scoops got me. Sebastian got me. Sammy fought me to a draw once, then I came back the next show and beat that ass.

I ain't some old legend crawlin' outta storage hoping there's still a little Gravy left in the jar.

This is the best Micheal Graves there's ever fuckin' been, no *Allegedly* to it! Proven by the fact that I'm in the Universal title picture for the third time this year. 

And fuck Judd Hollow for thinkin' anybody gifted me shit around here. One look at the match history tells you exactly why these main events keep coming up Gravy!

I love this fuckin' place.

I don't wanna watch Sammy tear it apart with his attention seeking bullshit, and I don't wanna watch Seabass polish it so fuckin' clean we're scared to get blood on the floor.

XWF ain't supposed to be safe. It ain't supposed to be pretty. It's supposed to hurt. It's supposed to scare ya. It's supposed to make ya wonder what kinda dumb asshole would keep comin' back after everything this place does to ya."

"And you keep coming back."

"Exactly! And I don't trust either one of those fuckers with the keys."

"Keys to what?"

"My fuckin' home!"

Graves reached into the van and pulled out the burnt turnbuckle pad.

"Sammy thinks bein' champion means the whole fuckin' company oughta stop what it's doin' and watch him throw a tantrum.

Sebastian thinks bein' champion means the whole fuckin' company becomes part of his story. His championship. His empire. His XWF.

Graves looked down at the old faded letters on the pad.

"Truth is, it don't belong to either of 'em."

He tossed it back into the van.

"Ain't mine neither... You hold the fuckin' thing until somebody comes along and takes it from ya.

And right now?

I think I'm the worst possible motherfucker to try keeping it from."

The customer looked past Graves into the van.

"So, uh... how much for that Barney Green figure?"

Graves immediately spun around and snatched Barney from the pile.

"Barney!? Nothing. No. Not for sale."

"Seriously?"

"He's a fuckin' Xtreme legend!"

"You just spent five minutes explaining that being a legend doesn't even mean you're good, annnd if you sell it to me, maybe you'll get some good karma for your quest to save the XWF."

Graves froze.

"Fuck savin' the XWF. I just wanna make sure it's still something worth survivin'. Somebody's gotta keep this place fucked up proper."

He looked at Barney.

Then at the customer.

"You know what? Take it, kid."

Graves forcefully shoved the Barney Green figure into the man's chest.

"Come back after Relentless and I'll autograph it as Universal Champion."





















































"In fact..."

Graves slid out of the van and shoved the keys into the customer's chest.

"Why don't you just keep all of it!"

Then took off on foot with the speed of a gazelle on crack as the police moved in.