This is your chance to redeem yourself

ALBANY, NY – At Just Wrestling, we love the Washington Avenue Armory. We really do. Our history has been made here time and time again, dating back to the first time we graced its laminate flooring, the debut show of The Second Tour whose main event – Myles Jake, Brock Shepherd, and the incumbent JWC Judas Crippen – is still remembered as one of the best matches in Just Wrestling’s Veoh.com library. So it was fitting that for three of our leading lights the Armory once more offered a place to make history. For Sean Edmunds, it was the first time he would step into a show as Champion. For Cade Bane, it was his first time seeing his name on the marquee. And for The Back Alley Brawler… it was nothing short of his chance to redeem himself.

Skylar Montgomery might have stunk out PRIME this week, but he wasn’t above playing his usual role, and with impromptu partner Jesse Ramey shaped up for the glittering return of old favourites the Rowdy Boyz. Ramey looked faintly disgusted at the company he was having to keep; even more so when Montgomery, who had failed to cut eye-holes in tonight’s mask, was easy pickings for the coordinated double-teaming of the rainbow-haired Rowdyz. Our second encounter continued the theme of famous names losing to less heralded talent, with Clyde Fox continuing to prolong the bizarre discontinuity between defeating Tessa Windsor and Chris Storm at GCW Shockwave, and flopping in the glare of the Armory lights. For Dash Springfield, the brighter the lights, the harder they fall, and the King of Fashion waved goodbye to Tour X by making Fox another Fashion Victim.

Funnybone drew a mixed but loud reaction from the fans, his cartoonish Joker getup looking all the more garish in contrast to his black-clad opponent, Anathkash Dakari. The martial artist flew into Adam Hartman without warning, finishing up an early combo with a devastating simultaneous head and elbow strike, but Funnybone kept getting up for more, a chilling laugh audible beneath his painted face. A flying elbow from the top almost did for Dakari, but at a cumulative 8-4 the mystery man has some substance to him and a kickout was followed by the tables being turned. Quite literally. Funnybone turned vicious, too, manically swinging a chair to keep from being planted through the table, but Dakari had his heart set on splintering Funnybone’s dreams and a great somersault onto the prone Hartman did just that. Funnybone’s laugh was finally silenced, dragged into the ring and pinned after a spectacular final spot.

The ringside area was cleared of its detritus as the first combatants made their way out for the Battle Royal, and among just nine MVP hopefuls there was no Jade Argent, no Steve Harrison, no Aaron Nothings. There was Skylar Montgomery, but for the briefest of moments before he was launched from the ring by champion Edmunds. And then a hush descended, as The Back Alley Brawler shuffled to the ring in the now-familiar jumpsuit but with the new sight of a thick white fracture cast over his right arm. Without his One Hitter Quitter, the Bronx Barbarian was a sheep without the wolf’s clothing, and he stood in the ring quite unmolested as the rest fought on without him. Fox and Cusack went over the top before Funnybone’s leap was telegraphed by a sidestepping Bane and Hartman found himself flying at the Brawler. Unable to get his injured arm away, Brawler felt all Hartman’s 221 pounds crush it. His eyes turned purple, he caught Funnybone with his free arm, and deposited him calmly over the top rope.

Bane, Springfield, Dakari and the champion fought it out, a final four with Brawler ignored in the corner, sweat pooling around the edges of his flat cap, his face progressively whitening. Dakari got rid of Springfield, atoning for the result of two weeks back, and with Bane and Edmunds locked in combat there was only the Brawler in Dakari’s sights. Sympathy not being in his nature, it was time to engage, and Brawler held him off as best he could, his movement severely impeded by the cast on his strong arm. In the end it was no use, Joe Balboa toppling pathetically to the floor, suddenly looking his 47 years in every wrinkle. Our referees helped him to his feet and sat him in a ringside chair; the prison guards looked on, chuckling. Until both being flattened by a projectile named Cade Bane, tossed bodily out by Edmunds. Cue mass cheering.

It was down to two for MVP: Dakari and Edmunds. Neither would give an inch, Dakari one of the promotion’s most skilled performers, and Edmunds adamant on living up to the gold whose reflection features his face. But there could only be one. With every passing moment Edmunds tired, and the Brawler, regaining his strength at ringside, began to bellow his support for the man who eliminated him, the upcoming championship three-way firmly in mind. For now, though, Edmunds had his eye on the more immediate prize, and having reversed Dakari’s whip, followed up and sandwiched him between the ropes and a thick, hard clothesline. Dakari tumbled over the top, a firm kick to his flailing hand ensuring there was no catching onto the bottom rope. Sean Edmunds, current Just Wrestling Champion, took the MVP crown.

He didn’t even get to leave the ring before Bane and the Brawler were back in. As the bell rang, Brawler looked up at the lights and tore off his cast to a rush of support from all around the Armory. His arm now swaddled only in a loose, discoloured dressing, there was new life in the old man. He knocked Bane and Edmunds down intermittently with his weaker left arm, the driving forearms far too powerful for cruiserweight opponents even if there would be no One Hitter Quitter. It was all Cade Bane could do to keep his feet, and when he did found himself starstruck by the sight of the bull-like Brawler charging the Champion. Edmunds stepped away, ring-savvy as he is, and cruelly wrenched the Brawler’s broken arm. Even Joe Balboa couldn’t quench the cry of agony. Professional wrestlers aren’t paid to have a sense of right and wrong, but Bane couldn’t see that go on and flew into Edmunds’ temple with a missile dropkick. The champion was knocked out – of the ring and possibly of consciousness. This was it – this was Bane’s moment.

The Brawler clutched his arm, the dressing falling away, something mangled within. Bane stood, stared. The Brawler looked back up at him through grey eyes. His cap had long since fallen away, and angry welts oozed on the side of his head. Spittle flecked his chin. He strained for something inside. Bane took his head, planted a right hand in it as if testing bathwater for heat. The Brawler accepted the blow, offered no response, and waited for more. A second came, harder, truer. Bane backed himself into the ropes and scissors-kicked the Bronx Barbarian’s head. The Brawler dropped to the mat without complaint. Bane helped him back up, ran to the ropes once more.

BAM. CRACK. The gap between the two sounds was infinitesimal. Bane was flat out. People shook their heads, trying to dislodge the unpalatable truth from within. The kind of One Hitter Quitter they never wanted to see. The three. The Brawler looked up at the lights, rolled to his side, and spewed his guts out on the canvas. Then, he may have passed out. Bane was prone next to him. Edmunds was still unmoving outside. All three men lay still, but the Brawler was different. It might have cost him a lifetime of One Hitter Quitters, and as his arm trailed at an unnatural angle, we began to wonder whether this might be the end of the road for The Back Alley Brawler. At 47, he’d sacrificed his arm for the sake of the Just Wrestling Championship. Torn off his cast. Pulled away the dressing. Swung through thick air, with that devastating accuracy that made his name. The jolt of bone, only tentatively re-fused, snapping apart from itself once more. But he wasn’t a bridesmaid anymore.