Come and Get It
The camera opens in an empty AWS arena.
Not during the show.
Not with lights sweeping over the crowd. Not with music. Not with smoke. Not with some boy in kickpads standing on the ropes trying to get himself clipped for a highlight reel.
Just the ring.
The canvas still carries old boot marks from the last show. A few chairs are stacked crooked near the barricade. Coiled cable runs along the floor. Somewhere in the building, somebody is dragging steel across concrete, and the sound scrapes through the silence.
In the middle of the ring stands Boone Carter.
Forty-one years old.
Big.
Weathered.
The kind of man who does not look like he walked into the building for attention. He looks like he walked in because there was work waiting on him.
The Parental Advisory Championship rests over his left shoulder.
Boone looks down at it for a long while before he looks at the camera.
“This title used to mean somethin’.”
He lets that sit.
Not loud.
Not theatrical.
Just flat enough that it sounds worse than anger.
“Before boys started mistakin’ a shopping cart full of toys for a fight. Before everybody learned how to stack glass pretty, swing a tube, bleed on command, and call that violence. Before hardcore became a word folks used when they wanted credit for gettin’ hurt instead of makin’ somebody pay.”
Boone shifts the belt on his shoulder.
“This title used to mean somethin’.”
He taps the faceplate once with two fingers.
“I know what that means because I was there when this kind of fight still had a cost.”
Boone steps toward the ropes, then stops before touching them.
“You want to know where I learned about violence? It wasn’t off a message board. It wasn’t from watchin’ some skinny kid take a stupid bump and wait for applause. I been in Japan. I been in buildings where the air changed when the wire came out. I been in places where the crowd didn’t laugh when a man hit the floor, because they knew they might be watchin’ somethin’ he didn’t get up from.”
A small breath.
“I been through the American side of it too. IWA Mid-South. Armories. Fairgrounds. Buildings where the locker room smelled like tape, blood, cheap beer, and bad decisions. Places where nobody cared how pretty you were. Nobody cared what you called your style. They cared if you could take it, give it back, and walk out without askin’ somebody to carry your bags.”
His eyes narrow.
“That was the difference.”
Boone looks down at the belt again.
“Back then, violence meant somethin’. It had a shape. It had rules, even when the rule was that there weren’t many. It had consequence. You didn’t throw a man into barbed wire because it looked good in a picture. You did it because you wanted to take a piece of him and leave it there. You didn’t spill tacks on the floor because it made the match louder. You did it because you wanted every step he took after that to remind him who put him there.”
He turns slightly, looking toward the empty seats.
“And now AWS wants Parental Advisory back to its roots.”
Boone gives the faintest, ugliest hint of a smile.
“Good.”
He turns back to the camera.
“Because I didn’t win this belt to polish it. I didn’t win it to stand out here and pretend it’s just another strap with different letters on the front. If this championship is supposed to be the violent one, then it’s gonna be the violent one. Not cute. Not ironic. Not a damn circus.”
He lifts the belt off his shoulder and holds it in front of him.
“This belt is goin’ back where it belongs.”
He lowers it.
“Hell.”
The word lands clean.
“From this point forward, any man who wants the Parental Advisory Championship from Boone Carter’s shoulder is gonna have to come get it under deathmatch rules.”
Boone points down at the canvas.
“And I don’t mean whatever garbage is gettin’ passed off as ultraviolence now. I don’t mean twelve boys standin’ around waitin’ their turn to fall through furniture. I don’t mean light tubes stacked like firewood just so everybody can pretend mess equals meaning.”
He shakes his head.
“No.”
A beat.
“I mean traditional deathmatches. The kind that make sense. The kind that put a man in a ring, take away the safe places, and ask him a simple question.”
Boone leans forward.
“How bad do you want it?”
He lays the belt over the top turnbuckle and keeps one hand on it.
“There’ll be two ways this title gets defended.”
He raises one finger.
“Texas Death.”
Then a second.
“Japanese Deathmatch.”
Boone nods once, like that should be simple enough for everybody.
“Texas Death is for the men who think they’re tough enough to stand back up.”
He starts walking slowly along the inside of the ring.
“No disqualifications. No count-outs. Weapons legal. You want to use a chair, use a chair. You want to wrap your fist in chain, wrap it. You want to drag me into the crowd and see if concrete does what your right hand can’t, go on and try it.”
He stops.
“But you don’t win by just knockin’ a man down once. You gotta earn the count.”
Boone looks straight into the lens.
“You score a pinfall or a submission, and then the referee starts countin’. If the other man can’t answer ten, it’s over. If he gets up, the fight keeps goin’.”
He pauses.
“And because AWS seems to like makin’ things meaner, we’re doin’ it my way.”
He steps closer.
“Modified Texas Death.”
Boone’s voice stays controlled.
“At the start, you still gotta earn it. Pinfall or submission starts the ten count. But once both men have scored a fall, once both men have proved they can put the other one down, then the match changes. No more covers. No more savin’ yourself by rollin’ a shoulder. No more crawlin’ into a pin to buy a few seconds.”
His jaw tightens.
“After that, it becomes survival.”
Boone slowly raises his right hand and counts with his fingers.
“Any knockdown. Any weapon shot. Any lariat. Any fall into wire, tacks, steel, concrete, fire, whatever kind of hell AWS decides to stack around this ring.”
His hand drops.
“The referee counts. You stand or you lose.”
He lets that settle.
“That’s Texas Death.”
Boone walks back to the belt and taps it again.
“Then there’s Japanese Deathmatch.”
His tone changes slightly. A little more respect in it. A little more memory.
“That one’s different.”
He looks toward the empty entranceway.
“Barbed wire ropes. Boards. Tacks. Tables. Chairs. Bats. Chains. Fire if the building allows it. Explosions if AWS has lost enough sense to sign the papers. Falls can happen anywhere unless somebody says otherwise. No rope breaks, because there ain’t no ropes worth grabbin’. No count-outs, because leavin’ the ring don’t save you. No disqualifications, because the whole point is findin’ out what a man does when there’s nobody comin’ to rescue him.”
Boone takes the belt back onto his shoulder.
“You can win by pinfall. You can win by submission. Or you can win because the other man can’t answer ten.”
A pause.
“That’s not random.”
He shakes his head.
“That’s not garbage.”
His eyes harden.
“That’s tradition.”
Boone steps through the middle of the ring, center camera now.
“I seen men treat deathmatches like art. I seen men treat ‘em like war. I seen men treat ‘em like a paycheck they were lucky to survive. I also seen men treat ‘em like a joke. Like all it takes is a bag of tacks, a couple tubes, a little blood on the forehead, and now they’re part of somethin’.”
Boone’s voice drops.
“You ain’t part of nothin’ just because you bled.”
He points at himself with his thumb.
“I bled in places where nobody knew my name yet. I bled in front of people who didn’t care if I got famous. I bled because the man across from me was tryin’ to win, and I was tryin’ to make sure he remembered losin’.”
A breath.
“That’s the part some of you forgot.”
He walks closer to the camera.
“Violence ain’t decoration.”
Another step.
“Violence ain’t personality.”
Another.
“Violence is what happens when a man decides he is willin’ to take somethin’ from you that you need.”
Boone holds up the Parental Advisory Championship.
“This is what they’re gonna try to take from me.”
He puts it back on his shoulder.
“So now I’m tellin’ every man in AWS, every man in the back, every man sittin’ at home watchin’ this belt and thinkin’ Boone Carter is old enough, beat up enough, scarred up enough, tired enough to be taken.”
He stares.
“Come on.”
No smile now.
None.
“Come take it.”
The building hums around him.
“But understand what that means before you put your name on the paper.”
Boone points toward the floor outside the ring.
“It means barbed wire might be waitin’ where ropes used to be. It means tacks might be waitin’ where your feet land. It means a table might be wrapped in wire. It means a chair might not just bend over your back. It means there may come a point where the referee ain’t askin’ if you kicked out.”
He leans in slightly.
“He’s askin’ if you can stand.”
Boone lets the silence stretch.
“And I am real good at makin’ men think about stayin’ down.”
He rolls his shoulders once.
“I’m forty-one years old. I ain’t supposed to be here, right? That’s what people like sayin’. Boone Carter’s too old. Boone Carter’s from another time. Boone Carter’s body got too much mileage. Boone Carter survived too many wars and now all that’s left is whatever pieces he dragged home.”
His expression does not change.
“Maybe.”
A beat.
“But those pieces are still heavier than most men whole.”
He taps the belt again.
“And this championship? This championship is gonna find that out too.”
Boone slowly turns, showing the empty ring around him.
“This ain’t gonna be a belt for pretty wrestlers lookin’ to prove they can get ugly for one night. This ain’t gonna be a belt for stuntmen lookin’ for applause. This ain’t gonna be a belt for boys who think ultraviolence started when they learned how to spell it.”
He faces the camera again.
“This belt is for men who understand consequence.”
He lifts his chin.
“Men who can hurt.”
His eyes narrow.
“Men who can be hurt.”
A pause.
“And men who still walk forward when they know both things are true.”
Boone takes the title off his shoulder again and holds it in both hands.
“Parental Advisory used to mean somethin’.”
He looks at the faceplate.
“I’m gonna make it mean somethin’ again.”
Then he looks up.
“Not by talkin’ about how violent I am.”
The belt drops back against his shoulder.
“By punishin’ every man who tries me.”
He steps toward the ropes, still not touching them.
“So here it is. Texas Death. Japanese Deathmatch. Barbed wire. Tacks. Chairs. Tables. Chains. Fire. Whatever old evil AWS wants to drag out from under the floorboards.”
He pauses.
“Bring it.”
Boone’s voice gets colder.
“Any man who wants this belt from my shoulder is gonna have to walk through hell to get it.”
He looks down once more at the championship.
“And if he makes it through…”
Boone looks back up.
“I’ll be standin’ on the other side.”
A final beat.
“Waitin’.”
The camera holds on Boone Carter, the Parental Advisory Championship resting against his shoulder, before the feed cuts to black.