Jamal Payne © ~versus~ Ace Sky

AWS Pride Championship

Ace Sky's exceptional performance has greatly impressed the bookers, earning himself an opportunity to compete the AWS Pride Championship.

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2x Maximum Promos, 2k Word Limit

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Concussion protocol is way more advanced these days and Ace is actually happy about that, he often feels stupid how despite his IQ and everything he was dismissive towards concussions and science and health related to the brain when it came to wrestling, to attempt a brand new super finisher with the corkscrew shooting star press the only relief is the lack of serious injury. Just flat on face to canvas. Even in defeat Ace has still impressed management, now he gets to face Jamal Payne. Jamal Payne is the antithesis of Ace Sky, a powerhouse with a background in not just the usual of weight lifting and football but also trained in boxing from his father.

Jamal.

Jamal came into the business as someone who did have to still pay his dues certainly however that process was a lot less stressful for him as it is for cruiserweights and female wrestlers.

There is a prejudicial system created by the sayers of the industry, these aren’t wrestlers these are carny businessmen who infiltrated the sport and turned it into a global empire with their own preferences and ideals of what a “ superstar” wrestler is, being “ larger than life” trumped the importance of legitimate wrestling skill if said wrestler who fits all the characteristics and make up inside and out of what a pro wrestler is, they are the species of “ pro wrestler” however they could be now be excluded due to being small and that’s not really a disqualifier unless you have a prejudice, the thing that makes pro wrestling cool is the lack of some rules, that there are no bounds who in size and gender can compete. Pro wrestling isn’t rigged or anything , it is legit competition however there are scales that are tipped and bookers/ promoters can do a lot to achieve certain outcomes.

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Ace POV inner thoughts:

When you are starting out and there’s ridiculous hazing in an already insular environment as pro wrestling was back when I was starting there is no way to know if you are being hazed or just bullied.

The point of hazing from my perspective is to keep a new person humble and also allow them to ingratiate themselves into the locker room, you have to show you can take some shit and if you’re unfazed and take it you usually earn respect through it, it is very juvenile, sophomoric and reeks of toxic masculinity in today's standards, back then it was the late 90’s. I had thought I had built up all this experience, I was a backyard wrestler which had a big stigma but I also had an impressive background through Taekwondo and amateur wrestling unfortunately that really did not matter. I was the pariah cause I was the smallest at 5’6 and 130 pounds, I was 15 but I looked 9 years old, I was instantly a target of verbal abuse and taunting.

Back then I had no idea why they were so mean to me, I had never experienced that, people often tell me nowadays it was probably because they were jealous of me, they saw my potential and knew their ceiling as never getting past a local level. Most of my early matches after I debuted , during or after win or lose they would send someone out to put me through a table.

Getting put through a table is wild, first couple times were frightening, wrestling is this battle for power and your own physical autonomy is in jeopardy, especially undersized like myself. What ended up happening to my favor is fans respected me more and more, the real trick I had to figure out was how to literally turn the tables and put the attacker through the table. One time the world champ came in , this Big Brad Bandit 6’8 heavyset greasy long haired biker badass went to put me through a table again after a couple months , I never stopped fighting it and resisting it and this time it just worked, I slipped out of his grasp and I hit him with a front drop kick from behind sending him into the corner turnbuckle, he hit his face on the pad and fell back on the table in perfect position, I rushed to the top of the turnbuckle and hit a moonsault on him which broke the table.

From there on out I haven’t gotten put through a table. Promoters will get their message across what they want for their brand, for their business and in a business where you can’t expect anything, it is very chaotic some chaos is controlled by a higher power, any time I was put in a Body slam challenge match against a heavyweight or super heavyweight/monster type, the table match turmoil I mentioned. The powers that be often, the boys( the locker room) even have all at some point wanted to clip my wings since day one, d I haven’t let them. I’ve had to scheme and sneak sometimes and other times I had to kick down the door, break glass ceilings and those doors I had to kick down and ceilings I had to break were not even for a spot at the top, I had to move those mountains to even achieve a spot at the lowest/ started ranking, in some ways I feel that is how it should be, it’s complicated that we have a standard that this business of pro wrestling is where the best are really the best of the best and you are not being judged on those standards of what makes you the best- top tier-technique, professional prime time level presentation, box office draw potentiality, size/ height, gender/sex are superfluous , that is just judgement at a surface level that has is not an accurate system to judge talent on.

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Ace Sky is backstage, hobnobbing with the camera crew and techs—the same backstage staff most wrestlers and higher-ups ignore like NPCs.

Ace sits in a lotus pose atop an equipment box, calm and grounded, talking directly to the camera crew filming him. The room is quiet—the words matter.

“The first promotion I started at professionally at 15 they used to put me through tables after every match. Sometimes I lost. Sometimes I won. Didn’t matter. I was 130 pounds and looked 9 years old—I wasn’t what they wanted to sell.

But here’s the part they don’t want you to think about:

If I was a woman, they wouldn’t have bothered with the table. They would’ve stuck me in a bikini and said, ‘Smile for the camera, sweetheart.’”

“You think this is just about me being small? No. It’s about anyone who’s ever been told, ‘You’re not marketable. You’re not believable. You’re not worth investing in.’

I’ve seen women get dismissed, sexualized, and overlooked by the same voices that once told me I’d never make it—because if it were up to them, I wouldn’t have. Their criteria? Box office numbers and TV appeal.

But none of that matters once the bell rings. Because in that ring, I’m a legit threat. I’ve fought guys twice my size—guys who look like a million bucks but don’t have a dime’s worth of killer instinct. And yeah, I’ve kicked the hell out of them.

And honestly? That doesn’t feel good. It doesn’t feel right—to brutalize someone who was set up to succeed but never taught to survive.

But I do it. Because they made me this way. They built a system that only rewards the surface, then act shocked when someone like me breaks through and starts burning it down from the inside.”

Yes you are exception to that, You came in with the right size and have been doing this for around the same time as me, you qualified not purely based on your looks, I'm sure the opponents of yours before me overlooked you, dismissed you, I'm sure you've had to go through certain struggles with the social -professional-interpersonal labyrinth.

That's the odd thing, every wrestler, all of us we experience that crap and it really affects us, it does a lot to our psyche even and these complexes have given us a brotherhood but it keeps us separated because we have been traumatized to use the inner turmoil the business puts on us to prove we belong against each other when most of us know intellectually, literally " this guy is a good wrestler, just like me, now we have to fight" and for what? To entertain hard-working people, that is a thing I believe is good and needed because our stories, our hardships in this industry resonate with working-class people, this isn't a unique process it happens in all art forms and sports and entertainment industries and that's why fans matter because they aren't the masses of savages who just want to see bloodsport they see themselves in us , we know this as children we were fans of this, we all are standing on the shoulders of these giants who made us feel powerful, who fought for what we believe in or at least against something we hated or saw as injustice.

“What happens in the locker room isn’t just wrestling. It’s what happens in boardrooms, in studios, in government buildings, even courtrooms.

Same games. Same lies. Same people pulling strings behind the curtain, trying to decide who gets to shine and who’s told to wait their turn.

But here's the truth: if you're told to wait long enough, eventually, you break down the door—and make your own spotlight.”

There is a responsibility as champion to everyone to management to the fans at both a consumer and personal level , I make the case why I should be champion and how I feel I am able to do so.

The one thing I try not to do, I never want to promise anything, I never promise I will win, all I can promise is that I believe I can and that just has to be good enough until the last bell rings. "