Guess That Tag Partner/Transformations

📸@satanjones is live June 29, 2026, 11:17AM

“Hellooooooooo my little devils!”

Satan’s trying something new here. Less of a shouty entrance, more of an Animaniacs/Mrs. Doubtfire lilty entrance. But you shouldn’t mess with a classic, and so he reverts to shouting for the rest of the catchphrase.

“And you are LIVE! WITH! SATAN!”

Behind him, Kris Roswell puts his hands on his ears. Satan, of course, doesn’t notice. “Big day over here at Gray’s Wrestling Academy! We start working hard for our very first main event match. And even more than that, it’s a mystery match! OooooOOOOooooOOOoooo!”

Satan wiggles his fingers to the side. If this were a pre-recorded reel, which Satan does occasionally, he’d use sound effects and words on the screen. As it is, we just get finger waggles and an annoyed looking tag partner beside him.

“So Kris and I decided that today before getting some workouts in that we’d play a very special game of…GUESS!”

“I didn’t–” Kris starts.

“THAT!”

“--agree to any–”

“TAG PARTNER!”

Again, the fact that this is a livestream means no airhorns, no Price is Right music, no spinning graphic. Satan seems aware of this, as his smile falters, but he’s a showman.

“So let’s get the obvious bit out of the way. Hayes Hanlon was pretending he’d fight us both by himself, but he has a plan. He definitely has a super special tag team partner at ReVival, and he definitely told Lindsay Troy and company who it is, or else why would a tag match against us goofballs be the main event?”

“I mean, we have been successful,” Kris offers dryly.

“Sure, but we also opened UltraViolence Night 1. So this means whoever Hayes is bringing is going to be a big deal. So I’ll suggest a person, and since we’re live and don’t have graphics, you’ll draw the person on this whiteboard.”

“What?” Kris says as Aaron “Dith” Timble wheels a whiteboard into the shot. “No.”

Satan, after months and months of putting on a brave face for his followers, turns to his tag partner with a pout on his face. “Come on, Kris. Play with me in the space!”

“No. I can’t draw.”

“That’s what makes it funny! I’ll say ‘I think his partner is Tony Gamble,’ and you’ll draw a tiny stick person with a weird smile. Or I’ll say ‘it’s Bobby Dean,’ and you just draw a really big circle.”

Kris stands up and walks over to the Smith machine behind them. “I think I’m just going to get ready in the way I know how, thanks.”

Satan sighs. “Where is your whimsy?”

“I have whimsy!” Quinn Fleetwood shouts, so eager that he trips over the whiteboard and falls flat on his face. He pops back up and waves his arm. “I have whimsy! Pick me!”

Satan looks behind him at Kris for a long moment before smiling at Quinn. “Hell yeah, Quinn. Hell yeah. All right, my little devils, we’re going to take a few minutes to get ready, and I’ll be live again within the hour for GUESS!”

“THAT TAG TEAM!” Quinn shouts without any sense of pacing, volume, or even the right words. Rather than react to it, Satan smiles and ends the feed.

_______

📸@satanjones is live June 29, 2026, 11:43AM

“And we’re back!” In the twenty or so minutes since he ended the stream, Satan Jones has turned Gray’s workout space into something resembling a news desk. At least one version of Max Kael would be proud.

Satan sits at a table with his hands folded – he clearly has set his phone across the room for this to look more official. “This is your host, Satan Jones, one half of the undefeated tag team The Foot Soldiers!” Satan spares a look behind him, where Kris Roswell is still getting in reps at the Smith machine. He frowns for only a moment before looking back at his phone with a smile. “And it’s time to play…NAME!”

“THATTAGTEAMPARTNERWOAH!” Quinn Fleetwood shouts as he once again trips over the whiteboard. Satan politely waits for his assistant to pick himself off of the floor.

“And that’s Quinn. Anyway, let’s begin. As I said before, this partner that Hayes is bringing has to be a big deal. He also has to be an asshole, because only assholes would want to associate with that guy. I also think there’s a chance he’s bald, because there’s a mandate on how much combined body hair a team can have, and Hayes has got more hairs in his mustache than most people have on their head. So here are my official guesses. Ready, Quinn?”

Quinn looks up suddenly, as he was inches from shoving the marker in his nose to see what it would feel like. “Ready!”

“Okay, so, bald. Asshole. Big deal. Let’s start with…Jason Snow!”

Quinn blankly stares at Satan. “Who’s that?”

“Who’s th-who’s that?” Satan shouts. “One of the legends of PRIME? One of the best ever? A guy who came back from the dead or Canada and won the Intense Title? The guy who was last seen fighting Hayes Hanlon? You were on the roster at the same time! You don’t know who Jason Snow is?”

Almost trembling, Quinn draws a picture of a bald stick man, then clouds and snowflakes around him. Satan looks at the whiteboard, then nods. “Actually, that’s pretty good. Looks exactly like him. Good job, Quinn."

Quinn stares at Satan. "Only my dad has ever told me that before!"

Satan turns from Quinn back to the camera and affixes his influencer smile. "I don't have nearly enough psychology degrees to adequately respond to that. Moving on! My next guess is a bit more obvious than my first: he's a member of the Gluebedoos, a guy who took some time off recently, and a guy who definitely has the pedigree to main event ReVival. Let’s see Hayes’ friend and whatever the French word for amie is, FLAMBERGE – but in keeping with the aforementioned hair corollary, FLAMBERGE with his beard shaved off!”

Quinn starts erasing his portrait of Snow on the whiteboard to replace it with a new masterpiece. As he draws, Kris Roswell sits up from his latest exercise as Roosevelt Black walks by in the background. Kris nods towards him and holds up a hand for a fist bump, but Roosevelt moves out of the way, shaking his head. Kris looks at him, confused, as Quinn shouts “Done!” and reveals a stick figure with a flat top, boxing shorts, and what appears to be a rectangle with a red circle inside.

“What’s that?” Satan asks.

“Now it’s my turn to be mock incredulous!” Quinn shouts, tapping the rectangle. “It’s the French flag, idiot!”

Satan nods slowly at the Japanese flag, then looks back at his tag partner, who sits at the Smith machine frowning. He turns back and looks at the camera. “Okay, that was a fun game!”

Quinn furrows his brow. “Only two guesses?”

“I have more: VENDBERGE, Steve Lemieux, Tyler Rayne, Mortimer Kjedelig, and Brandon Youngblood -- bald, remember,” Satan points at his head, then turns and looks at Kris again. “But I think I lost my whimsy too.”

“I have enough whimsy for all of us! Looks, here’s my Steve Lemieux!” Quinn quickly scribbles on the whiteboard for a moment before revealing his drawing of a skinny cow with glasses and another Japanese flag next to him. “Because his last name sounds French!” Quinn shouts.

Satan stands up and walks towards the phone. “All right, My Little Devils. We’ll talk later.”

Before he can turn off the camera, two things happen: Kris Roswell sighs a sigh that can be picked up by the microphone; and Quinn Fleetwood muses, “I should set up an etsy store to sell my drawings.”

_______

June 29

When I decided to get into wrestling, I did my research. I didn’t watch it a lot growing up, but I knew the athlete-to-wrestling pipeline was a well-traveled option, and so last year I watched tons of shows, promos, and interviews with wrestlers. And something I discovered was the idea of transformation as a part of wrestling. You go in as someone and you come out as someone else entirely. That honestly was one of the reasons I started on this path. Whoever I was with my family wasn't who I wanted to be forever.

So I knew when I came down to New Orleans to become a wrestler that there was a good chance I would be a different person whenever I returned home to Pittsburgh. What I didn’t realize was that transformation wasn’t just in myself. It was everywhere.

Some were good. Some were not. Some were surprising. Some were not. But as Satan and I prepared to face off against Hayes Hanlon and whoever he was tagging with, I catalogued all of the transformations that had occurred in the past weeks and months.

The Sixth Most Surprising Transformation: Satan Jones from Gregarious Influencer to Quiet and Grumpy Guy

Satan ended his livestream and everything changed on his face. His shoulders, which had been low and relaxed, hunched up; his face, which had mostly been a wide smile, crumbled to a grimace; and his tone, which was light and airy any time the cameras were rolling, was now a barely audible grunt. I was finishing a bench press set when he walked over to the machine.

“You good?” he asked me, though it didn’t look like he cared either way. He was frustrated with me, and I wasn’t feeling too happy about him either. In the ring we were in sync, but out of it was a different story. I was getting tired of the shift from on camera to off. Satan loved to pretend he was a happy, dopey guy. But then he'd close the app and become moody and morose, like he was now.

“I'm good, man. I’m just not really feeling the whole goofy thing today. Don’t want to publicly bash my opponent on your Instagram page. You know that’s not my thing.”

“Yeah, I know. But I don’t actually know what your thing is.”

I shelved the bar and sat up. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

Satan gestured to the whiteboard, where Quinn was furiously scribbling something. “When we got to PRIME you were the athlete, and I was just the guy with weird hair. But over the past seven months I’ve built something. It’s goofy, it’s stupid, but it’s mine. People who watch PRIME know who I am.”

“Do they?” I stood up and looked up at him. I was never the picture perfect presentation of an athlete. My height gave me an advantage in normal situations. But in the wrestling world, just like in the football world, I was constantly reminded of how small I was. Even so, I wasn’t intimidated by Satan’s size. “Or do they know the character you’re playing?”

“What’s the difference? It’s something they can latch onto. Ever since your brother got here you’ve intentionally made yourself a background character. I’m not saying you have to change your hairstyle or start spewing catch phrases, but you’ve got to show the people who you are. Like when we bumped into Hayes at Ultraviolence.”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“Well, like I said, at the shows you’ve been mostly silent. But suddenly this guy says tag wrestling is lame and you stepped up to him. Why was that?”

I didn’t answer at first, thinking about what had changed in me over the past few months. But I wasn’t the only one who had changed.

The Fifth Most Surprising Transformation: Hayes Hanlon From Starry-Eyed History Buff to Unsatisfied Star

“It wasn’t what he said. It was who said it.”

Satan frowned. “I hadn’t seen you interact with him before.”

“I didn’t, but when I was preparing to get into wrestling I watched early shows from the ReVival era, and Hayes Hanlon stood out to me more than anyone. He was so dynamic, so enthusiastic.”

“Really? Grumpy McSurlypants was enthusiastic?”

I shook my head. “He was a fan, Satan. He would interact with some of the old legends and stop just short of asking for their autograph. He told Nova he had his poster on his wall. He was so enamored with the history of PRIME. When he won the Universal Title the first time, I rewound the show five times to watch the crowd reaction. The entire arena exploded. Everyone there felt the same thing when he held that title: this guy loves this sport as much as we do. His win was for all of us.”

Satan nodded slowly. “Well he’s nothing like that now. What happened?”

“What happened?” I asked, laughing. “What did Hayes tell us he was doing at Ultraviolence?”

I watched Satan think through it for a moment. “Floating?”

“Exactly. He’s been floating for years at this point. I guess he grew jaded by the business, or frustrated that he couldn't defend his title. He joined a stable of ruthless wrestlers hoping that he’d find something to replace whatever he was missing. And based on the way he looked at us that night, and on the obvious attempt to break into the tag scene with this mystery partner, he’s still looking for it. So yeah, he pissed me off, but seeing what he is now versus what he used to be? That pissed me off even more, and so I snapped back.”

The Fourth Most Surprising Transformation: Kris Roswell from On-Screen Sidekick to Trash Talker

Satan thought about that for a few moments, his earlier frustration with me melting away. “It’s just not who you’ve been lately. I was surprised – pleasantly so – but I didn’t understand it until now.”

“You’re right. Foster told me to take a step back after that attack on my brother. I guess I did too good a job. But you asked what my thing is. I may not have whimsy. But if your thing is having followers, and making funny content, and getting praised for your body…”

“My abs do look good right now, don’t they?” Satan asked, rubbing them.

“...then my thing is tag wrestling. Think about the last two people we fought with. That dickbag Sebastian Cross who said he doesn’t deign to fight tag team wrestlers. Who put his brothers up against us because it’s apparently a lower artform. And now Hayes is calling our tag division ‘little’ and making us feel like lesser wrestlers because we’re a team? Fuck that and fuck him. It made me mad. So I told him so, and maybe I got us into a tough situation with some big surprise reveal that we might not be ready for.”

When Satan had approached me a few minutes before, he was angry at me. Confused about who I was and what I believed in. Now he was grinning. Despite our differences, when it came down to it, our team was what mattered the most. We both wanted to win. And if talking about our team and our success was going to rally Satan to my side. I would keep going.

“But we will be ready for it, Satan. Know why? Because we’re fucking good at this.”

The Third Most Surprising Transformation: The Foot Soldiers From Laughingstock to Maybe the Best Tag Team in PRIME

“We’ve taken literally everything PRIME has thrown at us, and neither of us have been pinned yet. Sure, we don’t have the tag titles, but we have a clean win over the champions. We beat The Albion. We beat a PRIME Hall of Famer and another PRIME legend who may end up in the Hall of Fame before it’s said and done. We came in as a failed kicker and a guy with funny hair and we–” I pounded his chest to punctuate my words “--kicked. Ass. So let’s go do the same thing to Hayes Hanlon, Jason Snow, FLAMBERGE, or the fucking Pope himself.”

Satan grinned and slapped my chest in response, then pulled me in for a hug. “That’s what I’m talking about!” he shouted. As we ended the hug, I looked over at Quinn Fleetwood, who turned the whiteboard to us to reveal two stick figures: one with devil horns and one with messy hair.

“That’s you!” he said unnecessarily. “I can sign it if you want.”

“That’s okay,” I said as Satan and I walked towards the ring to go through warmups. I started to feel better as we talked about strategy and worked on double team moves against Quinn. Things had been transforming around me at such a rapid pace, but as long as I held onto the things that mattered, like my tag partner and our friendship, we would be okay.

At the end of the workout, Satan dashed to the locker room to get changed while I sat on the floor, thinking about Hayes Hanlon. About our upcoming match.

About where that match would take place.

I saw a blur move past me and stood up. “Damn, you’re jetting out of here,” I told Satan. “Date with Mindy?”

“Uh…yeah,” he said, but I could tell he was lying. That was confirmed a few seconds later when Hercules and Roosevelt came out together.

“Hold up, Jones!” Roosevelt said, hurrying up before slapping an arm around him. “Man, I’m starving!”

Hercules suddenly stopped. “Shit, I forgot something. I’ll catch up with y’all at the restaurant.” He walked back towards the locker room, smiling at me. “Catch ya later, little bro. Can’t wait to see you main event next week. Hope you remember where the show is.”

Hercules gave me a wink and went inside. I locked eyes with Roosevelt, and I saw the reflection of another transformation in his eyes.

The Second Most Surprising Transformation: Kris Roswell from One of the Guys to Social Pariah

The guys were getting dinner. I wasn’t invited, and they weren’t even hiding it. Well, Satan was, but Roosevelt told me everything in that stare.

When I first got to Gray’s and was learning the ropes, Roosevelt was the first guy to invite me out. To show me how everything worked. He played cornerback in high school and wanted to talk football and the world. He was a tag wrestler just like me, had to learn how to work with someone he hadn’t met before. We had a lot in common. But now he hated me. Now everyone except for Satan and Quinn hated me.

“Wait for me, guys!” Quinn shouted as he ran out, throwing his letterman jacket over his shoulder and dragging the whiteboard behind him. “Do any of y’all have a truck that can hold this thing?”

They even invited Quinn. That told me everything I needed to know. I used to be part of the dinner crowd, and now I wasn't. I didn’t belong here.

And I knew exactly who was responsible for that transformation.

Standing up, I went into the locker room and saw him there. He was facing his locker, his head tilted down, but I could see the side of his face. He was smiling. He knew what he had done to me since he arrived, and he was happy about it.

I sidestepped until I was a few steps behind Hercules, then charged him, nailing the small of his back with my shoulder. His head hit the side of the locker, but he couldn’t fall because I had him pinned.

“You’re so proud of yourself,” I said, slamming his head into the locker again. “Turning this gym against me. Threatening to tell everyone about Herbert. Ruining my life. And don’t think I don’t remember where the show is. I bet you have some plan to spring our family on me when I get to the arena. Well let me tell you something, shithead. If you try anything – any fucking thing – to fuck with me while we’re in Pittsburgh, I promise you. The way Herbert got hurt was an accident.” I put my hand on the back of his neck and whispered into his ear. “This won’t be.”

Then I released him and he slumped to the floor. Stealing his grin, I left the gym and headed towards my car to grab a pizza by myself, thinking about the most surprising transformation since I started wrestling.

The Most Surprising Transformation: Kris Roswell from Normal Person to Burgeoning Psychopath