It’s another hot and humid day in this quiet and somewhat familiar Wisconsin subdivision.  Waiting on the doorstep of a somewhat familiar family home is a FedEx delivery man—still no more than a kid, really—and once again he needs a signature for the overnight envelope he has in his hand.

So, he rings the door bell and looks forward to seeing the man who he now knew would be answering that bell. 

Just as before, the front door opens and a large man peers through the screen door.

"Hey, big guy" the delivery man says, trying to indicate a sense of connection with the man behind the screen door, as if the occasional awkward mechanics of parcel delivery constitutes an on-going relationship between the two men.  “Another overnight envelope for you, Mr. Popular.  Need your autograph right here.”

The door opens.  The receipt is signed.  The package is handed over. 

For the man taking the envelope inside his home, this stray moment is over.  The door bell had rung, he answered it; he’s signed his name and claimed his property.

For the FedEx delivery man, however, this was another brush with, possibly the most famous man in Stoughton—and certainly the most famous man on his route.  This was another chance to interact with a man he’s seen on television and that means that delivering him a package is the most exciting thing that happens to this young delivery man. 

But, it doesn’t really matter because this still isn’t his story.

“Mr. Popular,” Erik Stalin said to himself, repeating what the delivery man had called him.  He chuckled at the thought and made his way back to the room where he’d been watching and re-watching the most recent WWA Underground event.  The DVR was paused in the middle of Stalin’s own segment on that show—a long speech where he detailed his opinions on modern wrestling and made several promises.

“I certainly don’t feel terribly popular,” he admitted to himself.

Stalin found the remote for the DVR and hit play.  He watched himself again, not out of vanity, but paying attention to the crowd’s reactions.  In the moment, it had felt so clear and strong—like he had reached the majority of fans in exactly the way he’d hoped.  But now, watching it again without the rush of emotions and adrenalin that are always part of any live performance, Erik could sense that he’d talked too much and reached nobody. 

Of course, he was glad for the time to make his case in front of not only the live audience in Toronto on that night but also for the WWA fans who were watching at home.  He’d read the internet message boards after his debut appearance, where he rather impulsively took it upon himself to add some injury to the insult of Andrew Everett’s final WWA appearance—and he noted that while many people enjoyed what he’d done, they didn’t truly understand his reasons for doing so.  He had hoped that his efforts in Toronto would put his actions into the proper perspective.

Angrily, Erik Stalin watched Erik Stalin take up too much time on a wrestling show talking about how he wants more wrestling on a wrestling show.  The irony was not lost on the big man and it was like he was punishing himself by watching it over and over again, feeling more uncomfortable with every replay, so that the lesson would truly be learned. 

“I’ve got to start fighting people.”

He had intended on entering this new company quietly.  He’d wanted to build his reputation slowly—to earn the respect of the fans and the other workers from his efforts in the ring.  Then, and only then, had he wanted to express his feelings about the state of the wrestling industry.  That way, he could lead by example.  He could prove that his way of thinking had merit.  He could have insured that his promises were not idle threats but words spoken to power and truth. 

Instead, he’d made a stronger impression much faster than he’d ever imagined—but it was a muddled one.  What were the fans to make of this new face on the scene who shows up where he’s not invited and beats down a beaten wrestler who had done no specific offense to him?  What were they to think of an unknown who spends a few minutes to talk about what he thinks they might want…while not having ever proven to them that he’s capable of giving that to them?

He may have found the shortest distance between “intriguing” to “irrelevant” in the history of this business.

“I’ve got to stop talking,” Erik said, to burn the thought into his mind, “and I’ve got to fight somebody soon.”

He looked down from the television screen to the coffee table in front of him.  That’s where he’d dropped the overnight envelope that he’d just received.

The envelope was opened easily enough and Stalin pulled out another packet of papers, all bearing the WWA logo on them.  Stalin took a deep breath and started to look over the papers.  These were not character or storyline ideas from the WWA Creative Team.  After having rejected almost all of their previous ideas, it was possible that they’d already given up on trying to mold him into something they thought he could be. 

These pages were different.  They were booking instructions.

Erik Stalin was going to get the chance to fight somebody.

Stalin scanned the page and half-expected to find Drew Rosen’s name mentioned somewhere in the confusing legalese of what appeared to be a contract for match booking.  For whatever reason, Drew’s seemed obsessed with mentioning Stalin in almost every public interaction he’s had since the Underground in Boston…on Twitter, on WWA Insider and even in an interview segment in Toronto—an interview segment that Stalin had not seen before he took to the entrance area stage to talk to the Toronto fans. 

But, he didn’t see Drew Rosen’s name mentioned anywhere on the pages he flipped through.  Indeed, he didn’t see any specific booking instructions at all.  What he found was a strangely worded invitation, of sorts, to participate in the upcoming Underground to be held in Detroit—which might have been a nice thing to have known before he’d made his way from Toronto back to Stoughton.  The invitation, as written out, requested an answer to whether or not Stalin agreed to participate be returned to them.

“I’ve been invited,” Stalin thought.  “Not booked…but invited to participate…”

Stalin dropped the pages and the envelope and they landed heavily on the table.  He went to his laptop and logged on to wwa-online.com.  If he was being invited to participate in something happening in Detroit, it would probably be a good idea to find out WHAT he was being invited to participate in.  

He saw that the main event for Detroit would be decidedly less silly than the shambolic mess that he’d witnessed in Toronto.  He saw that Drew Rosen had already been booked in a match where he would compete against Wolf Hunter for Hunter’s Television Championship.  He scanned all the way down the card, as posted for the public’s awareness, until he came to the curtain jerking match—the match that would open the show.

His cautious enthusiasm of getting to find out who his first official opponent would be turned to weary disappointment—because Erik was not being asked to compete, as he’d hoped, against one opponent.  The invitation, it turns out, would be to join an “over the top rope” Battle Royal against five other men.  The lure was that the last man remaining in the ring would become the top contender for the Television Championship.

Stalin didn’t think that would be lure enough to make him accept the invitation without question.  These type of matches were certainly entertaining to some, but they were also chaotic and haphazard.  Injuries were common and being able to exhibit your wrestling skills would be limited.

As he examined the wrestlers that he’d be competing against, his distaste for this match didn’t fade. 

There were the three wrestlers who had competed in a triple-threat match in Toronto:  Steven Mason, (who had surprised Stalin by actually seeming to care enough about the match to win it cleanly and clearly), Chris Slayton (who Mason pinned in that match) and Max Maxwell (who had not impressed with his own efforts in that match, and there were backstage whisperings about whether or not his first match with WWA would be his last.) 

There was a wrestler who was part of the altogether silly main event on the Underground in Toronto—a wrestler calling himself the American Freebear.  His inclusion and Stalin’s invitation to participate indicated there was still someone involved with WWA Creative that couldn’t give up on the idea that Stalin and Freebear should feud. 

And there was Jackson—a wrestler who participated in a very sloppy match against Seth Copeland in Toronto.  From what Stalin had seen on WWA Insider, Copeland could be excused for his sloppiness, based on injuries and some sort of mind games that an unknown enemy was playing on him—but Jackson’s sloppiness seemed purely self-induced.  Perhaps forcing him into this match, with wrestlers with far less history with the company, was punishment for such sloppiness in the ring.

And then, the website actually indicated that he, Erik Stalin, has been invited to participate but has not yet agreed to terms to do so. 

“Their webmaster knew about this before I did,” Stalin thought to himself.

He stood back up and took a deep breath.  He knew what his initial reaction was—he wanted to tell the WWA that he would NOT participate in any such foolishness as a six-man-Battle Royal.  His refusal to do the things that he knew would not help him get his message out there was his only weapon and he’d agreed to work with WWA knowing that he’d have to put his foot down if he expected to have any sort of control over how he was used and what he’d be expected to do.

But, he also knew that he needed to fight somebody. 

He was looking for a fight and now they’ve given him a fight.  And heaven knows he’s miserable now.

Stalin walked back over and picked up the booking request.  He wasn’t booked for this match—he was merely being extended an invitation to participate in it if he so chose.  It was extraordinary and he recognized that a few strings must have been pulled for his benefit here.

 The questions that Stalin was trying to not to ask himself were “What strings?” and “By whom?” because those questions weren’t going to do anything but distract him.  He needed to remained focused on these crucial first impressions he was creating for himself with the fans.  He’d shown that he was strong, opinionated and ruthlessly efficient in his debut appearance.  He’d shown that he was smart, articulate and that he had a plan in his most recent appearance. 

Now, he needed to decide whether it made sense to take the WWA’s invitation to participate in a match which screamed “We don’t know what to do with these guys, so just throw ‘em all in a ring and see what happens” or to turn down the invitation in hopes of getting the chance to debut in a more traditional “one man versus one man” fight while risking the public perception that he was all talk and no fight. 

He could go to Detroit and make a fool of himself.  He could wait at home for the next envelope that might not offer anything better, if it offered anything at all.

Stalin, in frustration, threw the booking pages back down on the table.  The force of doing so pushed the envelope off the edge of the table and onto the carpeted floor. 

Out of the envelope, previously unnoticed by Erik Stalin, fell a DVD case.  The big man bent down and picked it up. 

The DVD itself was did not have any identifying markings on it.  It was blank media—the kind that you use when you want to burn something from another source.  There was no way of telling what it was just by looking at the disc itself.

There was, however, a Post-It note attached to the DVD case. 

“Before you say yes or no to the match, watch this,” it read.  “Watch this all the way to the end.”

This is the second time that a Post-It note has been attached to something inside an official envelope from the WWA to him.  The first time was before the Boston show.  The information on the Post-It note in that envelope lead Stalin to find out that Andrew Everett was going to tank the match on purpose that night…and it gave Stalin the impetus to be there to make an example of him.

This time, it wanted him to watch a DVD.  So, Stalin turned off the DVR and put in the DVD.  He waited for the disc to load and he had no idea what he was about to see.

The first thing that he saw was an electronic slate.  This indicated that the footage on this DVD was filmed in Toronto on the night of the recent Underground there.  It also indicated that the footage was filmed by WWA’s marketing department—so, it was not filmed intended for broadcast…but it was filmed to help the company better know their audience.  The electronic slate indicated as much. 

Under “Title”, the electronic slate read “UG-T.O.  Testimonials: ES”.  After about 15 seconds of the electronic slate, a young man’s face appeared on the screen.  Behind him, people rushed from inside a building, out glass doors and into the night—but this young man stayed and looked into the camera. 

“What did I think of the show tonight?” the young man asked the camera, obviously repeating the question he had himself just been asked.  “It was great!  I’ve never been to a wrestling show before.  The things they do…amazing.  Like, they’re jumping off the ropes and landing on each other…  I don’t know how they don’t break their necks.  It’s all just WHAM!  You know?”

The young man pauses in his enthusiastic, if spectacularly undetailed, retelling of the night’s events.  He’s obviously being asked another question that he’s having trouble hearing over the noise of the fans mass exodus from the arena, but the questioner is not mic’ed up.

“What do I think of…who?”  The young man seemed confused.  “Erik Stalin?  Oh, the guy with all the smoke and the red lights.  He didn’t do anything.  He just stood there and talked.  Yeah, I didn’t get him.”

There is a jump cut edit to another man—this one, a bit older than the first.

“Erik Stalin?”  Yeah...  What’s his deal, right?”  The man made a face as he explained his opinion on the question he’d been asked.  “He says he’s all about the fans.  He says he’s real…whatever that means.  I don’t know what he’s talking about.”

Stalin realized that this entire DVD was going to be people talking about him.  People that had just seen the show in Toronto were being asked to give their opinions about Erik Stalin, on behalf of the WWA marketing department—and he was getting a chance to see and hear what they thought.

And it was as bad as he’d feared.

Person after person…regardless of age, regardless of ethnicity, regardless of gender…all basically said the same things about Erik Stalin—that he was just some guy on a wrestling show and that he didn’t matter all that much to them.  Some of them didn’t get what Erik was so mad about.  Some of them didn’t understand why he was trying to make the fans like him when he seemed so bad-ass when they saw him on the Boston show beating up on some poor schmuck.  Some of them couldn’t imagine why anyone would be against things that are entertaining.

Stalin watched this DVD for what seemed to be an eternity but turned out to only be a half hour.  Many times during that half hour, he felt like shutting the DVD off.  He felt shamed.  He felt small and insignificant.  He even began to wonder if he’d made a horrible mistake by joining this company and expecting to make a difference here.

And then, he saw a sullen looking teenager with long curly hair that fell into his face.  At first, he talked about how he was excited to see Tom Sawyer in action and how disappointed he was to find out that Tom had been taken to jail for fighting with Jaymz Watkins.  Erik sighed heavily.  There probably wasn’t another performer in the company with whom he felt less in common with than Tom Sawyer—and he was making a strong immediate impact in winning fans over to his terribly entertaining flippy-floppy sort of wrestling. 

But, when asked about Erik Stalin, the boy’s face lit up.

“You know, I didn’t know what to think of him,” the boy said.  “But he came out on stage tonight and…I like him.”

And it was Erik Stalin’s turn to have his face light up.

“I mean, all he did was come out and talk…but what he said…it made sense,” said the boy.  “It’s like…he’s…I don’t know…”

Stalin wanted to reach through the television screen and assure the boy that it was all right, that he should take his time, that he should use whatever words he could find in his head.

“He means it,” the boy finally came up with.

And it was a smile that started, slowly, to creep across Erik Stalin’s face. 

“It’s like…the way he talked to us tonight.  He really talked to us,” the boy said.  “He’s probably the only wrestler that I’ve ever heard that didn’t assume that every fan of wrestling was stupid.”

And it was a smile on Erik Stalin’s face that grew.

“I just get this feeling that when he fights…he’s really gonna fight,” the boy explained.  “He’s not going to pretend to fight and think we won’t notice the difference.”

And in Erik Stalin’s head, it was like a choir of angels appeared just to sing Hallelujah.

“I think that’s what we all want,” the boy said.  “And if he’s any good at fighting at all…he’s going to be my favorite.”

And Erik knew, he needed to fight somebody.  He needed to fight somebody soon. 

“If Stalin keeps this up, I’m definitely going to enlist in his Red Army.”

And with that, the DVD recycled back to the menu screen.  This curly haired boy’s interview was the last testimonial on the disc.  There was nothing more to be seen or heard.

Erik Stalin sat down.  His eyes darted from the television screen to the pages on the coffee table and back a few times, but, beyond that, he seemed stunned by what he’d just seen.  He gave himself a few minutes to process the information in his mind. 

One conclusion seemed clear in his mind. 

“I reached him,” Stalin said out loud, to no one but himself.  “If I’ve reached one…I can reach them all.”

His eyes widened.  His mouth opened. 

“This could work.” 

Stalin reached forward and grabbed the papers off the table.

"This could actually work!" 

He skipped the page with the request for him to inform them whether or not he planned on accepting the invitation to participate in the Television Championship Top Contender Battle Royal.  All he needed was information on exactly where and exactly when the show would take place.

“One way or the other, I’m headed to Detroit.”