The Day After Father's Day, 2026.

Fred Dick and Big Ian Salt sat in the video room of the Dick Family Compound, which was pretty much a dilapidated barn with some hay bell seats and a jimmy-rigged projector overhead. Because it was a naturally-lit venue, the best time to study film was the crepuscular craig hours of twilight, a two hour window when you could clearly see the projectors screen and also, your own hands. After twilight, the image on the screen was most clear, but good luck seeing anything else.

It may seem obvious or you may have no idea, but Fred Dick loves basketball. If he had any real height at all, he would've dedicated his life to basketball instead of ace whompin’ contests.

Alas, Fred was like so many of us who loved the beautiful game of basketball: forced into Fandom by his own physical limitations.

One could ask why Fred was showing Big Ian Salt footage of Michael Jordan's second run in Chicago, aka the Space Jam Jordan era. The answer is fairly straightforward. Salt expressed an insecurity to Fred, and when Fred wanted to teach something, he had very limited resources for metaphors. His parents didn't read him any stories as a kid. He only had basic cable, and the lessons he learned from Sesame Street and Arthur, well, he'd mostly forgotten them.

There was fighting and basketball. That was pretty much it.

But because Salt's question was,

“Fred, I feel like I don't… really understand my role. As a Bandit, I mean. How can I figure that out?”

Upon hearing this, Fred had lots of very molten emotion which became extremely active in the volcano that was his heart. But for his friend, he swallowed it all back down into the magma.

Instead, he brought him to the film room.

Game 6 of the 1996 NBA Finals.

And although Jordan was clearly the star of the broadcast, Fred was showing Big Ian Salt someone else.

“19 fuggin’ rebounds,” Fred said, with a scoff that suggested humor behind how impressive he was. “And he held Sean Kemp – dat big muhfugger right thur – to nine measly points.”

Big Ian munched on stale popcorn. “He looks weird.”

“So?” Fred said. “I look weird, too. ‘Sides, when you as mean a muhfugger as Dennis Rodman is, you can style yo'self however ya want. Who gon’ say shid? Huh? Who?”

Dennis Rodman.

A man with questionable, mercurial ethics, and an absolutely demonic style of basketball that moved beyond physicality and became an expression of dominance.

“But Rodman doesn't score very much…” Big Ian said.

“Hmph,” Fred said. “You joined up with Rookie Jiles, ain'tcha? You ain't gotta worry about scorin’. Jiles gonna do all the scorin’ for yo’ team. All YO ACE gots to do, is be an enforcer on his behalf. Like Dennis Rodman right here.”

“Does that mean Jiles is Michael Jordan?”

“Read my lips, Salty Pepper. Fug. No. Jiles ain't no Jordan. He share some qualities, don't get me wrong. Competitiver than hell, way harder to beat after a loss. BUT, he more Allen Iverson than Jordan.”

Big Ian Salt nodded. He'd seen plenty of footage of Iverson when Fred tried to illustrate to the Lasagna Boys some lesson about why they should be practicing.

“Dat bein’ said,” Fred continued. “If yew think Allen Iverson wouldn't have wanted a guy like Dennis Rodman on his team, then yew dumb as hell and ort not be watchin’ basketball no way.”

“So then…” Big Ian said, scratching his chin. “I just need to be a… big, physical asshole of a human being that asserts his dominance over others, and this is how I can best assist the Bandits?”

Fred gave Big Ian Salt a big thumbs up.

“That's egg-zactly right,” Fred said with a wink.

Big Ian Salt winked back. But he didn't catch the pun, so he wasn't sure why.

“What's the first step then?” Big Ian asked.

“Ionno man,” Fred said. “Probably a fast car, a drug problem, and some hot women.”

Big Ian nodded. That sounded right.

“Fred,” Big Ian began. “If Jiles ain't the Michael Jordan of PRIME, then who is? Brandon Youngblood?”

Fred's lip slowly curved into a smile.

Then he said, “BAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!! BAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHA!!!! HAHAHAHAHAHAHHA!!! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!! AAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHA!!! HAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHHAH!!! AHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!! … AAAAAAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHA—GOD DAMN, GOD DAMN, AYO, AHAHAHAHAHAHA, MIGUEL, YOU HEAR WHAT THIS DUMB ACE SAID!?!?”

And Miguel, locked in a kennel outside of the barn, sweating his ass off in the humid night air, yelled, “NO, WHAT DID HE SAY???”

And Fred said, “THIS DUMB ACE MOTHAFUGGER JUST ASKED ME IF BRANDON YOUNGBLOOD IS THE MICHAEL JORDAN OF PRIME!!!!”

And then Miguel and Fred both said, “AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAA!!!!”

Then Fred gasped for air, spit, wiped the drool driblets from his lips, and said, “Fug no. The Michael Jordan of PRIME has always been—”

🔪 🏀 🍼

"If you're going to be bad, you might as well be a good bad man. Not one of these mediocre bad ones." — Cormac McCarthy, The Orchard Keeper It had been a few weeks since that day but Big Ian Salt had taken the message to heart.

Especially the part about a fast car, a drug habit, and women.

He traded in the Benz and got a Porsche 911. The payments were massive, he didn't give a fuck.

He started smoking weed. He'd even listened to a song where the rapper Redman taught him how to roll a blunt.

He also got a girlfriend. Her name was Mina Sorokina. Russian last name, but American. Her father was an immigrant, and she had a lot of pressure on her to make it worth his effort.

She was also very attractive. Milky skin. Dark hair. Bright eyes. Cute face. She possessed the perfect amount of freckles, and further, an intense desire to be the center of attention at all times.

You might find it crazy that Big Ian Salt managed to find a girlfriend given his degree of saltiness, but the figure he cuts at 6'10 in a night club, doing the big guy head-nod dance (big guys, you know what I'm talking about), is enough to get a guy plenty of attention.

So when Mina approached him and then grinded her bootycheeks on his wiener area for the entirety of an Usher track from 2002, Big Ian Salt said, “You wanna be my girl? I'm loyal to the illest and I'd kill anyone who tried to hurt you.”

She said, “You got any weed?” And he said, “Yeah.” And then she agreed to be his girlfriend.

Then they fucked like rabbits for a couple of weeks and physical chemistry started making Mina feel like there was something deeper to their connection than their private parts. Something emotional and real.

Big Ian Salt didn't dissuade her from that false notion. Instead, he lied to her.

“I love you so much too. Always.”

Then they banged like cannons some more.

When Salt introduced Mina to Cancer Jiles, King Cool took one look at her, pulled Ian to the side, and said, “You did well. Too well. Something is off. Keep an eye on her.”

A few hours later, they were arguing in the Porsche speeding down a highway.

It started with a simple enough question, “Who is Lindsay Troy and why is she in your phone?”

Big Ian Salt could've just answered, but instead he took a puff of his blunt, and with smoke fleeing his mouth and nostrils, said, “WHAT THA HELL YOU DOING GOING THROUGH MY PHONE!?!?! I TOLD YOU NOT TO DO THAT!!!”

He had committed, wholeheartedly, to being a stoned, asshole-extraordinaire.

Mina, in turn, with tears welling in her striking, blue eyes screamed, “WHO IS SHE!?!?!”

And Big Ian Salt just snarled and said, “It's not your god damn business who it is. If it was your business, I'd tell you. But it's not. If you got a problem with that, figure out your own shit. I'm not your fucking psychiatrist. Fucking psycho.”

This cut Mina deeply, as it so often did when she accused of psychopathy just because her feelings were loud. For several minutes, she tried to keep herself together. But eventually, it ended with her crying uncontrollably while punching and slapping Ian as he tried to drive the Porsche.

Three weeks, folks.

This is a three week relationship.

“Why you cryin all over my leather seat!?” Big Ian Salt asked, annoyed.

“Because you got other females in your phone even though you said you were loyal to the illest,” Mina replied, through grit teeth.

Salt replied, “I am loyal to the illest.”

“No,” she sniveled. “If you were loyal to the illest, there wouldn't be a Lindsay Troy on your phone.”

Big Ian smiled. But he didn't smile for his own feelings. He smiled the most manipulative, intentionally-attractive smile he had in his arsenal.

Then he rolled the windows down, and hit the gas on the Porsche. The night air felt good at 80 miles per hour, soaring through their hair.

“On God I'm loyal to the illest,” he said, side-eyeing her with that manipulative smile.

She looked at him intensely. He didn't know what for.

“Pull over.”

“Why? You really that mad?”

“I love you,” she said. “And I'm tryin’ to fuck.”

Big Ian looked at a camera that didn't exist. He winked at it.

Then he pulled the car over smack dab in the middle of Pound Town.

…this seems like it will end really, really well.

Doesn't it?

🔪 🏀 🍼

You think Dennis Rodman wouldn't pull the Porsche over to bang his girlfriend? The same girlfriend who is probably gonna end up cutting his tires and keying his car one day?

Of course he would.

And since I just became the new Bad Boy of PRIME, I think now is as good a time as any to address my opponent.

The Bandit Who Never Was.

The Man an Egg Short of a Full Carton.

Brandon Crumblood.

You know I think back to the beginning of this year. The highly-anticipated return of one of the legends of this industry after his brief hiatus.

I remember thinking to myself, there's only one reason a guy like this keeps wrestling. It's the same reason LeBron James keeps playing basketball.

Legacy.

That one last run. That one last championship. That one last pursuit of being called the greatest of all time. 

But the problem you have is the same problem LeBron has.

Neither one of you are Michael Jordan.

And I know that hurts you, Brandon.

But there's only one Jason Snow, and you aren't him. Especially at your current age.

Granted, Snow's last run in PRIME was his Jordan on the Wizards era. 

But if you can't see that you're essentially just LeBron on the Lakers at this point, then you might as well sell your eyes to an organ farm, because you aren't using them anyway. 

Sure, you're still dangerous. Still capable of winning when the circumstances are right.

But…

You don't have the aura you used to have, Brandon.

You don't instill that fear you used to instill.

Let me put it to you this way.

Your days in the driver's seat? They're done. 

Your days pursuing the title as the captain of the ship? They're done.

And unlike LeBron, Philly doesn't want your fuckin’ ass.

It's a tough pill to swallow, but it's no shame, my guy. It's a medicine that finds every mouth eventually.

But what pisses me off about it the most? What pisses me off the most is you have three choices. Two are good, and one absolutely fucking sucks.

The first is you could honor your agreements and join the Bandits. You think LeBron wouldn't have wanted to pursue a championship with the likes of Allen Iverson and Dennis Rodman? Of course he would.

But your selfishness got in the way. Your bitch-assed ego.

The second is you could step aside, and let Bronny James get some fucking minutes. I know you got a boy who is a damn good wrestler. We saw the News when it dropped. Where is he? Why aren't you steering his career instead of holding onto yours, when you've ALREADY ACCOMPLISHED everything that you're going to accomplish?

Because your selfishness gets in the way.

Your bitch-assed ego.

Your third choice?

The choice you made?

The absolutely shittiest choice you could've made?

It was to dishonor your agreement with Cancer, and instead continue your selfish, loner-samurai bullshit.

It was to refuse to give up your light so your son could find some. Instead, you continued to make him live bearing the immense weight of your name, beneath the shadow of your own eclipsing figure.

Your SELFISHNESS got in the way.

To the extent ya boy Ian is over here asking himself, god damn, where does the bitched-ass ego stop and the real Brandon start?

Do YOU even know?

Why are you STILL HERE, Brandon?

DO YOU EVEN KNOW?

🔪 🏀 🍼

Maybe that same question could've been asked to Big Ian Salt on the last episode of ReVival.

You know, the one where he was accused of being a police officer, and then uppercutted by a drugged out psycho named Rezin?

Or maybe we'd rephrase the question, “WHY ARE YOU STILL PRETENDING TO BE SOMETHING YOU'RE NOT?”

But then, given that under this moniker of Big Ian Salt, he is manipulating and gaslighting women, cheating to win, and screaming and fist fighting people who disagree with him, one might say that maybe this is who he really is, now.

Maybe this wasn't who he was before.

But you know what they say.

Fake it until you make it.

He can still hear him, sometimes.

The old him.

Locked in the cage of his heart, a cage getting smaller and smaller by the day, a blonde haired little boy who misses his dad still cries out.

But the voice gets easier and easier to ignore.

There was a time when Big John Pepper would never, in a million years, do what Big Ian Salt did yesterday afternoon.

On his way out of Georgia, heading up a long stretch of highway, he stopped by a McDonalds, ordered 200 chicken nuggets, and drove up to Tallulah Gorge State Park.

He found a nice park bench and had a seat, and one by one he ate those nuggets. All 200. There must have been twenty barbecue sauce dipping packets, maybe more. He didn't count. He didn't give a fuck.

This was a test.

The name of the test was “How Dead is Big John Pepper, and How Alive is Big Ian Salt?”

It was perhaps the most important test of his life.

After all, think about what he's trying to do. This is a man attempting to do something that some elite masters of meditation can never accomplish. He's trying to accomplish a feat that only ghosts ever manage. He's trying to do the same thing to himself that his dad did upon dying.

He's trying to abandon himself.

And if it kills that little crybaby in his heart, all the better.

He wasn't put on this Earth to be a candy ass.

And the last thing he wanted to do was force that child to live in the shadow of what he was becoming.

It'd kill that little boy tenfold, to see the man he would become.

Better to go ahead and get rid of him, right here.

The thought of it brought a tear to his eye because the little boy in his heart could hear the thought too and he hated it.

He couldn't even understand why anyone would want to get rid of him.

But everyone always did.

With his bottom lip quivering and his eyelids filled to the brim with emotion, he stood from the park bench and walked towards his car.

He cranked up the Porsche and drove away.

On the park bench, he left behind 20 empty cases that said “10 Chicken Nuggets” on each of them. He left untold numbers of barbecue packets.

He defiled the park bench, and the wind did the rest as his accomplice.

Tourists would discuss with each other how rude it was that someone would just dump their McDonald's trash in the water of Tallulah Gorge.

Something about doing that, it hushed the sounds of the crying boy inside him. It darkened his eyes in a way that felt comfortable, cool, and immediate. He needed that. The darkening.

As he drove away, he texted his girlfriend, “u up?”

She replied, “its 230pm yeah ofc im up”

“I just killed a kid,” he texted her back.

She replied, “lol who cares come over”

“Cant” he answered.

“Y not”

He didn't answer. She'd hate that so much. This would in turn make her think about him more.

Yeah, he was really starting to settle into this whole Dennis Rodman thing.

“Fred Dick is wiser than people think,” Big Ian said to himself as he drove away from his own dead body.

And maybe he was right. Maybe Fred's advice to embrace a Dennis Rodman-esque roll in the Bandits was just the thing he needed. Maybe he NEEDED to become the opposite of everything he stood for.

Sure, being a folk hero is nice and all.

But had anyone ever even tried being a folk villain? 

What would that even look like?

Big Ian Salt obsessed over the idea. A folk villain. A strange notion that tickled the back of his neck, right where it met his cranium.

To become such a wholly and utterly American villain, such that the entirety of the United States of America recognizes you as one of note, such that you reach folk status. He racked his brain.

Who was the last guy to even try this?

Dennis Rodman?

None of the other tall tales had dared such a feat.

Maybe he was going about this all wrong.

They threw him out of the club, right? Pecos Bill, John Henry, and that cursed bastard called Paul Bunyan. They wanted him out and they got him out.

This whole time, he thought he needed to earn his way back in.

Maybe… maybe he just goes back and takes the motherfucker from those dumb marks.

Truth was, he didn't know what the end result of becoming a folk villain even looked like.

But he knew how it started: littering freely in sacred places. “Do not let your inner child die. It is who saves you and does not let you go mad with the pressures of adulthood.” — Mark Transki