Meet the Potential Man!

[music]

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“Tempest” Joey Malone was the most unlikely man to be at the head of his family.

He was, after all, seen as an idiot at the head of a procession of the worst people you’ve ever met. For all of his world championships and Hall of Fame enshrinements, Joey made a lot of enemies.

Yet for whatever reason, most of these enemies decided that the best way to really fuck with him was to marry into the family. Uncle Jeff married Joey’s younger sister, Uncle Keith married his sister-in-law, and Uncle Simon married his youngest sister. Two years ago, the man credited for retiring him would also be linked to the family when his youngest daughter married Joey’s oldest daughter.

If his extended family was the storm, then Joey Malone was the eye of that Tempest.

Once he retired, Joey managed to make a family out of all of these assholes. Somehow. It hadn’t been easy. Every family reunion often ended in chaos. It’s often said that it wasn’t a real Malone family reunion if a member of the family didn’t end up going to the hospital or spent a night in the slammer by the end of it.

So it was that the week after UltraViolence, the family gathered together. This time, Joey had designs on where to take them for an outing. He didn’t elaborate on what he had in mind, he just had the worst-people-procession follow his car. When they arrived at the PHX Arena in downtown Phoenix, everyone was more than a little suspicious. After all, there wasn’t an event happening there that day.

Joey led them all to a specific office that overlooked the whole arena, which meant that twenty-odd assholes and their children were crammed into a tiny office so that Joey could give a big speech. Joe had elected to stay outside the office (because it was cramped and smelt of Uncle Jeff’s liquor), so the only things he heard before things got real were the sounds of his father’s maniacal laughter, a rumbling from the ground, and the screeches of “JOEY, YOU MORON” and “YOU MOTHERFUCKER” and “IS THAT A FUCKING PYRAMID!?”

You know, typical things you heard at a family reunion.

Then Joey, several very flustered uncles, and their families led everyone out of the office and to courtside.

It’s impossible to understate how impossible the sight Joe saw was. For decades, Joey Malone had ludicrously claimed that every sporting arena in North America built before the year 2000 had one of these hidden beneath it. None actually believed him. What they saw defied belief, common sense, and the inner workings of what lay underneath downtown Phoenix.

There, in the center of the arena, was a goddamn Pyramid of Peril that’d risen up from the ground.

Joe himself only had one response.

“Holy shit.”

*.*

Oh. My bad. I’m supposed to remind you that I’m still scraping knives in here before I break in with some witty comment, but listen. You’ve got Nate Colton in the Almasy, and you know FLAMBERGE has been blowing up your DMs in the Gluecord about this one. You’ve got Google Translate open in another tab because of it. Like holy shit, FLAMBO should maybe lay off of the rosé before he flattens TAL’s dick yet again.

Anyway, the problem you have with Nate Colton… well, one of the problems… Hm, one of problems… is this: 

Nate Colton is “if” and “when”, but never “is.”

He has the potential to be Universal Champion!

His completed Colton Clutch move will go crazy!

He’ll hit a Black Flash too eventually!

Can’t wait until he finds out about fabby!

Nate’s that anime character that everyone hypes up as the next big thing, but in the end, he’s got 0 feats and 0 relevances and 7 kamikaze attempts. The “Next Diamond” is now the “New Diamond”, but there’s still a big heaping feeling of “Actually Cubic Zirconia.” He’s the guy that looks like he might actually do it and become the threat and the “hero” that PRIME needs, but in the end, he falls short when it counts the most. 

And what are you? 

Well, you stopped being the Potential Man yourself, and now you’re just Man. Man of Jolf. Amazing what picking up a couple of steel chairs and declaring them equipment for your Calvinball-adjacent sports league has done for you and your career. Now you’re in the big leagues, baby. You notched your first singles victory over a man that I don’t think knows what a wrestling is, and everyone saw how easily you handled that.

So now you’re in the deep end of the pool. 

But guess what, Joe-baby?

You’ve got a whole line of submersible jolf clubs ready to go, and we just outfitted fabby with scuba gear.

So get out there, swing away, and never stop swinging until Nate Colton and his brutal waft of potential failure is nothing but a distant memory on your quest to fulfill your potential.

*.*

Uncle Jeff held the 9-iron over his shoulder like it was second nature to him. Considering that Uncle Jeff was himself a former world champion professional wrestler – despite the beer gut and that unhinged look about him from years of living on a farm in Bucksnort – it was indeed second nature. Maybe Uncle Jeff was weirded out when he saw a wandering fabby moments before his nieces and nephew came running, but clearly he understood how the game of jolf was played when he blasted that son of a bitch mummy in the face like it was a Coral Avalon.

Yes, there were mummies.

It’s the Pyramid of Peril. That’s the Peril.

You know, unleashing the undead hordes is really not even in the top five stupidest things dad’s ever done. Pretty sure his eternal war with the gnomes tops that list. 

“Yeah?” Joe asked.

Joe had one of the irons from fabby’s ever-faithful jolf bag. Any future mummies or scarabs or Scorpions King would have a bad time. His siblings went off to look for the way out, now armed with the wonders within fabby’s jolf bag. Only one of them said “what the fuck!” when they saw the one covered in thumbtacks! Progress!

That left Joe and Uncle Jeff together.

Uncle Jeff had a grin somewhere underneath that bird’s nest of a beard he had going on, “Ain’t every day you invent a whole-ass sport just to get rid of fuckin’ Avalon. Wish I’d thought of it.”

As if for emphasis, he patted the 9-iron like he was showing off a car he was planning to sell someone.

This little baby can cave in so many skulls.

“I mean, I didn’t get to do it in the end,” Joe said, hanging his head low. He felt like he disappointed several people in his family by not murdering Coral Avalon during that whole “King of Conquerors” thing.

Really would’ve saved a lot of people time and energy if you had.

“Kinda had a guy try to kill me.”

Fucking Max.

Thank Anubis that Max isn’t in any way involved with Glue business and we don’t have to reap any further consequences for being in his stratosphere. It would be very awkward.

“Hell, least ya tried. I damn well tried to kill him several times, kept comin’ back like a fuckin’ cockroach,” Uncle Jeff said. Joe figured that perhaps the “cockroach” descriptor was why Avalon and Jiles always seemed to be on the same page, “Bet they’d call me to handle it if he stayed champion any longer.”

“I’m sure they would’ve.” Joe said.

Did LT even have Uncle Jeff’s number?

They heard more screams from somewhere else in the Pyramid. The two of them (plus fabby) heard those sounds and dismissed them. They’re all Malones in the end. They figured they’ll be fine.

It’s only mummies. I don’t even think they eat brains. At least, I hope they don’t. 

Actually, considering that mummies might eat your brains (and me along with it (I would rather not be eaten, thank you (pretty sure that razor blades digest in the same way that Nate Colton’s reputation doesn’t))), I should start screaming too.

Ahem.

ahhhhhhhhhh

Okay, got that out of my system.

“Y’know, most well-meanin’ folks in this business of ours get suckered into a loop of being some fuckin ‘hero.’ Kind of guy that picks fights just ‘cause they don’t like yer face,” Uncle Jeff said. He stroked his beard as he spoke, as though he was trying very hard to puff himself up as some wizened old-timer instead of the piece of shit that he actually was, “They ain’t got no plan. Don’t much care who gets hurt as long as their ‘justice’ gets done. Worse than villains, you ask me. We understand this is a business. Winnin’ belts, makin’ money, gettin’ chicks… That’s all that really matters.”

He grinned at Joe, “You got your eyes on the prize, boy, and I’m proud you ain’t a fuckin’ moron.”

Joe nodded. Not everyday someone notices that he was, indeed, not a moron.

He’d seen first-hand what such “heroism” got the people of PRIME – getting clowned upon.

They might have continued the conversation, but then they heard the growling of more undead approaching them.

Uncle Jeff sighed.

“By the way, Imma fuckin’ kill your dad when we get out of here.”

Better wait in line.

*.*

It’s because we’re not heroes, but we’re also not cartoon supervillains like those Whoresaw Pact nerds. 

Glue just is, man.

We’re the guys who piss people off because we’re all very good at what we do. All that fucking around we do is because we know, in our hearts, that everyone will find out that we’re the best wrestlers in this whole fucking company. So all of the gold (and fool’s silver) naturally goes to us.

I mean, look at you.

People forget that deep beneath all of the jolf, dabbing, and lightsaber noises, there is an actual pro wrestler under there. One that was trained by the very King of Conquerors who set a whole standard for what a Universal champion could be. You’ve additionally sat under the learning trees of Farthington and Atken and your scumbag uncles. You even know how to wrestle like Almasy himself once did. Do people even remember that?

You’re only 23 years old, even younger than FLAMBERGE.

You’re the one with all of the potential, and nobody’s calling it out the same way they always did with Colton.

They just see the career tag wrestler. The clown.

They don’t see that you will be the one doing the clowning.

*.*

He found him not long after he and Uncle Jeff lost each other in the ensuing melee with the undead hordes. Uncle Keith, in his reading glasses, looked up from his cell phone and greeted Joe warmly, “Joe, my boy!”

His tone maintained a level of forced saccharine even with his next question, “Have you seen your dad? I need to have SUCH A FUCKING CONVERSATION with him.”

“Haven’t seen him.” Joe admitted. “Looking to kill him, too?”

“No,” Uncle Keith lied as easily as he breathed, “I’m just going to have SUCH A FUCKING CONVERSATION with him that he’ll be in the morgue when I’m done.”

“Cool,” Joe turned to fabby, who’d been trying his best to seem inconspicuous and seemed visibly uncomfortable with no longer being as such, “fabby, get him a conversation enhancer. 2-iron, if you please.”

The masked man wordlessly rummaged through the jolf bag before producing the set of brass knuckles with chair insignias and handing them over to Uncle Keith. Uncle Keith cast his prodigious nose upwards at the masked man, as though regarding him as something less than people.

Good, the standard fabby-reaction.

Once fabby was out of his sight, Uncle Keith turned the brass knuckles up and over, scrutinizing every detail of it. Ever the wordsmith, he said, “What, and let me just add, the fuck?”

“Pretty cool, right? Nothing makes a dick concave quite like a 2-iron.” Joe said, “Keep it. I made a few of them.”

“Why?”

“Well, turns out that when you’re pretending to be dead for half a year, you’ve got a lot of time to get on YouTube and learn how a forge works.” Joe said.

A man of many talents, we are.

Uncle Keith considered this, but pocketed the 2-iron for now. “A real go-getter! I like that in you. People like us, we gotta do whatever we can to level the playing field.”

Just by looking at him, Joe immediately understood what Uncle Keith meant.

Beneath his bravado was a man who had to fight tooth and nail to be recognized as a “heavyweight”. He was an inch shorter than Joe was, but a yard meaner. In a sport where men the size of Uncle Keith and Joe were regularly expected to fight the Hessians and Ivans of the world, they had to be pragmatic. They had to be a yard meaner than everyone else.

To do otherwise meant certain doom.

“I mean, I make it obvious what I’m going to do when I go around calling myself ‘Dick Puncher the Invincible.’ They worry about the zigs and the zags of when my fist comes for their junk, and then I zug them in the mouth with the 2-iron. ”

Uncle Keith chuckled.

“I might know a thing or two about that,” Uncle Keith said, “But I mean, take it from me. You have to do more than punch dicks and do the jolf thing. You gotta get in people’s heads. You have to be the fly in the ointment. You have to be the one to make them lose their cool and make mistakes.”

Yet he beamed with pride, “But you already knew that.”

“Sure do.”

They heard a growling down the hallway, and Uncle Keith rolled his eyes.

“Did I mention that I’m having a conversation with your dad after this? It’ll be one where I have a 2-iron and he doesn’t.”

Joe gritted his teeth, and hefted the 7-iron which screamed in delight(?) at the motion. “Looking forward to that conversation!”

*.*

The thing is, your family is even more famous than his. What was Jake Colton but a guy who never really escaped Indiana? What pedigree does Nate Colton really think he has over yours? You were quite literally born into greatness.

That's why you’ve had no other choice but to become great yourself, or get left behind.

Maybe you’re still a little under the radar. You’ve let people content themselves with the erroneous prospect that you’re the weakest link in the Glue. You’ve let yourself hide your true potential in tag matches. 

But here’s the thing: Glue has no weak links. We all stick together here.

So it’s time to show Nate Colton what his potential truly is. 

Which is to say, another first round exit from the Almasy.

Right where that biiiiiiiiiitch belongs.

*.*

Joey Malone suffered mightily for unleashing it upon the family, as one can tell from the not-insignificant amount of wounds that come from a bunch of teenagers hitting him over the head with random objects while the adults rightfully pointed and laughed at him. Keith might have mollywhopped him upon the head at least once.

Still, he laughed about what happened.

Of course he did. He’s always done whatever he’s wanted, consequences be damned.

Junior was riding pretty high, feeling pretty good about the match against Colton coming up. The encouragement of his Uncles Jeff and Keith helped. But now, with his sisters piling into their car and driving off, he was in the position of sharing the car with his father alone.

Okay. We don’t usually count fabby as people, but full disclosure: he’s here too.

“Why did you bring us to the Pyramid, of all things?”

Joey laughed, “I always wanted to prove to people that they’re there, today was a good day for it.”

“Yeah, but then there were mummies.”

“Yeah, well, turns out the mummies sure don’t like being aroused from their eternal, perilous slumber!” Joey said, “But hey, we all needed the exercise!”

I am the scraping of knives dwelling in the mind of a professional wrestler, so I already know we get enough exercise as it is without introducing the fucking undead.

“Let’s hope that none of those mummies escaped their confinement while we were in there, then.”

“It’ll be fiiiiine!” Joey said in that cheerful tone of voice where you know that absolutely nothing is fine.

There was a long pause, and the silence drifted in the antiquated Chevy Suburban.

Joe Jr. was feeling pretty good, in all honesty. His uncles approved of him. Glue had his back. If he managed to overcome Colton, he might have a chance at the Golden Ticket.Then… Well, Joe will worry about the consequences of the Golden Ticket once he has it.

“So.” Joey said, “You want to tell me why your Uncle Steve is dressed up like a golden gimp in the backseat of my car?”

Fuck.

Despite the fact that it was 100 degrees in Phoenix, the temperature inside the vehicle dropped low enough that Joe swore he saw his breath. In the backseat, fabby shuffled uncomfortably.

“Come on, dad, it’s–”

Joe Senior interrupted, “Oh, no, don’t start.”

The man who sat at the eye of the Tempest flashed an unbecomingly murderous gaze in the mirror at fabby.

“You’re not fooling anyone with your mask, you know.” Joey said, “You’re lucky Simon and Alex didn’t make the trip out here for the fun Pyramid times. Weren’t you supposed to be in Greenland?”

Joe turned and mouthed the word “Greenland?” at fabby.

It took fabby a few moments to muster up an excuse, and he settled with: “It’s complicated.”

“Well, yeah. You’re here and all. That makes things complicated.”

Joe Senior turned to his son, “And you… knew it was him this whole time, didn’t you?”

“Yeah.”

“And you know exactly what he did, right?”

Junior thought about this one for a moment, “Yeah.”

There was a long pause, before Joey took all of the wind out of Joe’s sails.

“I’m disappointed.”

The two worst words you ever want to hear out of dad.

“Disappointed?” Junior asked, before he gestured at fabby, “Because of him?”

“Disappointed in a lot of things, I guess. Guess if it were up to me, you’d have gone to college. Gotten a real job.”

The “real job” speech is rich coming from a guy who made his fortune trying to kill other men in a shitty deathmatch fed. 

Joey vaguely gestured at Junior, “Maybe you’d have found a girl.”

Joe balled up his fists angrily at that one.

To this day, dad doesn’t understand the notion of asexuality. Lots of people don’t. Lots of people are like fabbies to their dicks and hormones, helpless. They all still think that you just haven’t met the right girl (or guy). They don’t know that the right girl has been the ring all along.

“Instead, you’re doing fuck all in PRIME, making yourself look like a moron. Who are these weird men you hang out with, this Goo-and-ati? And what the fuck is ‘jolf?’ And why are you hanging around STEVE!? It’s all a bad joke.”

“This coming from you?” Junior snapped, seething through his teeth.

“I was a wrestler before I was a clown, Joseph,” Joey said, “Every shortcut you take, every punch in the dick and steel chair to the face, it diminishes you, and it diminishes the legacy I left behind. I’d hoped Avalon would teach you that. Clearly, the lesson didn’t take. So now, I don’t know whether to be more disappointed in him or in you.”

Joe clammed up.

FuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckFUCKFUCKFUCKFUCKFUCK…

He had no comeback.

There’s nothing that he could’ve said that would’ve changed his father’s opinion.

The silence drifted all the way until they got back to Junior’s apartment. The moment Joey drove off, leaving Joe and fabby at the sidewalk, Joe ripped the 8-iron from the jolf bag and threw it as hard as he could into the side of the building.

“FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU–”

Meanwhile, fabby watched in silence.

The masked man had a strong feeling that this was his fault, and so he said nothing.

Joe ran over to where the 8-iron lay and…

Okay, cool, now you’re stomping on it. Get it all out there. Leave something for Colton, though. You’re gonna want him to experience that. It’s the one and only thing he’s got going over you.

His dad, at least, approves of him.

Make sure he pays for that.