[The grey sky sits dormant as the late spring humidity and heat of southern Florida permeates, all winds calmed save for an occasional gust that blows the dirt and dust of the Sun Life Stadium's expansive parking lot around and into the faces of the workers that occupy it at the moment. The camera pans up to see a patch of darker, nearly black, clouds slowly creeping in, with the low rumble of distant thunder warning all of the oncoming storms.]

Lazarus
Amazing, isn't it?

[The camera pans back to COREY LAZARUS, a cup of Seattle's Best coffee in his hand, the steam rising out of the sipper.]

Lazarus
Just a few short months ago, back when next weekend's event was still called High Stakes, this stadium before you, home of both the Florida Marlins and the Miami Dolphins, was called the Land Shark Stadium. An odd name for the home the of a professional football team named after an aquatic mammal that can serve as a source of nourishment for many species of shark, but an intimidating and memorable name nonetheless. And then it was changed to the Sun Life Stadium for purposes unbeknownst to anybody who uses their brain for more than just "two plus two equals four"-level stuff.

[He clears his throat, covering his mouth as he does so, and then rolls the sleeves of his black long-sleeve Sepultura Beneath the Remains tee up to his elbows. A black fitted baseball cap with a white Slayer logo across the top rests backwards on his head, adjusted briefly by a pair of hands that make their way to the pockets of his acid wash - formerly black - jeans.]

Lazarus
It's just another example of corporate greed, of re-branding for the sake of pushing forward what was perfectly acceptable as it once was. It happens to all things in life, really. MTV began as a way to advance musical careers via its rotation of music videos from promising new artists as well as acts already in the mainstream and, now, earns scorn across the generations for its pathetic shift into faux-reality television, bringing fame and fortune to talentless hack douchebags who call themselves "Snooki" and "The Situation." Social networking pages like Facebook and Myspace were ways for people from the same schools or social tribes could inter-mingle and keep in touch with those who have moved far away and now are little more than places for the flavor-of-the-month emo or crunk act to spread their wealth via clever advertisements designed with the latest Java and Flash programs. Not even the PWA is safe from re-branding. Due to the new and redeveloped AOWF community consisting solely, at least thus far, of the PWA and Rebel Pro, the annual May event for the last decade, High Stakes, has been renamed Out of Control. Why? Because that small collection of what passes for talent in the Carolinas has their own event named High Stakes. So rather than bring forth a legal battle that would likely force Rebel Pro to close its doors and see its "talent"...

[Corey pulls his hands out of his pockets quickly, making the quotation marks in the air with the index and middle fingers of either hand before sliding them back into his pockets.]

Lazarus
...revert back to total obscurity, a minor downgrade compared to the relative obscurity they currently enjoy, the Board of Directors has changed the name of the event while still keeping the same concept. It's nothing but trivial re-branding, like changing the name of the Sci-Fi channel to "SyFy." And that's S-Y-F-Y rather than S-C-I-hyphen-F-I, for those of you in the dark. But, as a quick aside in regards to Rebel Pro, I'm going to congratulate you, Marcus Marion. You put forth your best effort and pinned my shoulders to the mat for the one, the two, and even the three! I'm sure you'll be gloating to all of your little yardtard buddies about how you, the Rebel Pro Heavyweight champion, pinned a PWA Hall of Famer. It's just too bad I didn't take it seriously. I've spoken to great lengths in the last few years about knowing when to win and when to lose, when to just not give a shit, and this past Crossroads was the very epitome of that final option. I just did not give a shit if I won or lost. It was a catch twenty-two: if I won then I'd beaten a nobody, and if I lost? Then that nobody got to go home and flap their diseased gums to all of their friends in the woods behind the rest stop that they beat a former PWA World Heavyweight champion. No matter what, though, I gained nothing. And if there's nothing to gain? There's no real reason to put forth the effort. A big congratulations to you, Marcus Marion, for barely walking away with a win over a man who just felt like taking a nap that night.

[A little smirk, and a shake of the head.]

Lazarus
So, much like years past, every athlete heading into this event understands that the stipulations for each match will not be known until minutes before their match is to begin. Two years ago saw Riona Langly and Scott Nash Strader absolutely destroy each other in a match so brutal that, hey, even I can admit that I'd be weary of signing on for it. Neither one knew what the actual stipulations of the match were going to be, as the fans had to vote on who got to choose them: Riona, Scott, or Robinson, who was still convincing people that he was the PWA President at the time. And Riona won. She was bloodied and broken and bruised and various other synonymous words, having received more scars from just that one match alone than many others collect throughout their entire career. But she won. To close out the night I had to face Lex Demise, a man known the world over as one of the most sadistic and vile pieces of shit to have ever taken a breath. I didn't know if I'd have to be on the lookout for all five hundred and eighty-seven of his "finishing"...

[Finger quotes.]

Lazarus
...moves, if we'd have a half-hour to an hour to destroy each other, or if I'd have to bury him until just a few minutes before I made my way out from behind the curtain, and not knowing what I'd have to do made it nigh impossible to plan out a proper strategy. But I buried Lex Demise that night. I buried his career. I buried his pride. And, for all intents and purposes, I buried him. So that brings us to next week, when Strader's daughters are defending their PWA World Tag Team titles against two different, yet equally makeshift, teams. One of them is the proverbial loser of the PWA, Kyle Stevenson, and a little slice of Szechuan chicken known as Ai Mei Montrose. The other? Myself, "The Premiere Attraction," and a seven-feet tall, three-hundred plus pound behemoth known as Deacon Frost.

[Corey clears his throat again before cupping his mouth, using his thumb and index finger to stroke the stubble on either cheek as he talks into his hand.]

Lazarus
Usually people, when cutting their promos, will discuss their competition in the order that they brought them up. In cases like this one, they would discuss, say, the champions first, since they brought them u first, and then they'd throw out a little bit of trash talk to the other challengers in the match. Fuck that. I'm the Living Icon, babe! I innovate, not imitate, despite how cliché of a phrase that is. Let's start off with my partner, Deacon Frost, shall we?

[Corey licks his lips before adjusting the black Slayer cap on his head. He takes a sip of coffee, a deep breath, and then looks directly into the camera.]

Lazarus
Deacon Frost is a man that I've encountered only a handful of times, if even, throughout my decade-long career, and I can't recall ever having a single bad word to say towards him or, well, just in general. He's a monster, after all. "The Apex Predator," as a matter of fact. He has these dreadlock-like tendrils hanging from his head, a mask that covers a face only a mother from his home planet could love, and enough technology to bring about the demise of the entire Aztec civilization due to a few too many of his preferred hunts getting out from their cages. Oh, wait, I'm thinking of a different predator. My b.

[A light chuckle.]

Lazarus
I kid, I kid. Deacon Frost is a man that has traveled the world, wrestling in far off lands where the native languages are completely incomprehensible before returning home to the United States to bloody his knuckles, as well as the noses and faces of would-be shit-kickers, in promotions as grand as the PWA and as diminutive as any other company the size of Rebel Pro. And now, thanks to his allegiance to one Eli Storm, and all of the business opportunities that it brings, he's found his way back onto national television, onto global Pay-Per-View, and finds himself teaming with a man nearly a foot shorter than he is, but whose achievements far outweigh the hundred-plus pounds that he gives up. Why am I speaking of this man, this makeshift partner of mine a week from this Sunday evening, as though he were a rival? To be quite honest with everybody, it's because I don't have that much luck with tag team partners, be they long-time friends like Malcolm and Hiro or even temporary ones like Viktor Stone, a man I'm sure Frost knows well enough. Wait a second...let's think about that for a moment in traditional Jeff Goldblum fashion.

[Laz takes another sip of his Seattle's Best before placing a finger on his lower lip, angling down his eyebrows as he stares ahead of him at the parking lot ground.]

Lazarus
Hmmm...in the last two years I've been teamed randomly with Kumquat Kid, Jonathon Wehali, Malicious, and even a chucklehead like Alex Wilkie...hmmm...

[Another sip of his coffee.]

Lazarus
When I teamed with Malicious last year in the Intercontinental title contender's tournament against Project X and Alex Wilkie, I won...hmmm...

[He closes his eyes, mouthing out random words.]

Lazarus
When I teamed with Alex Wilkie the week before Revolutions Per Minute 2008 against Project X and Raizzor? I won...

[Another sip of the coffee.]

Lazarus
Hmmm...and when I teamed with Nightmare against McNasty and Matthew Engel before Retribution two years ago, I won...and I won when I was paired up with Ryan Lewis in the opening round of the United Forces Tournament...it almost seems like...

[A smirk. His trademark devilish one. Lazarus opens his eyes, and looks up at the camera.]

Lazarus
It seems to be that whenever I'm paired with a partner not of my own choosing that the world bares witness to the Hollywood Kid walking out of the ring with another tally in the W column. So to you, Deacon, all I have to say is that you better be ready to become one half of the PWA Tag Team champions with yours truly because, as they quite rarely say in Vegas, the odds are in our favor.

[He clears his throat again, takes a sip of his Seattle's Best, and then lowers his arms.]

Lazarus
But this isn't just a case of us walking into the ring and getting the Tag belts just for showing up, of course. We have two other teams, four other people, to go through. My mother always told me to save the best for last, but she was a pill-popping alcoholic cokefiend.

[Corey looks at the camera, raising an eyebrow. He looks down at himself quick and then back at the camera, shrugging his shoulders.]

Lazarus
Thanks, mom.

[Another sip of his coffee.]

Lazarus
Despite her shortcomings as both a parental unit and as an overall decent human being, I think I'll listen to her advice this time. Kyle Stevenson is, after all, a force to be reckoned with...PFFT!

[The PWA Hall of Famer bursts out in laughter, nearly spilling his coffee. He takes a deep breath, letting it out slowly, and then sighs as he shakes his head.]

Lazarus
Oh man, I'm sorry. I'm sorry to Deacon for even leading him on for a nanosecond that Stevenson is worth anything other than a pile of shit and vomit, I'm sorry to you fans at home for the same, and I'm even sorry to you, Kyle. I'm sorry that your time has come to return to the PWA, to have to take me on again, and that people STILL don't take you fucking seriously around here. What was I said a couple of years ago? Oh, right. You, sir, are Don Mega version two-point-oh. You'll talk big to the camera, mentioning your abilities and your few accomplishments and how, of course, you're not to be taken lightly. Then, Kyle, May thirtieth rolls around. We meet in the center of the ring in this building behind me. You choke - fail - and you leave the PWA to train even harder this time. Of course, you'll come back. You always have. You'll come back freakier than before, trying to convince people you're even more dangerous now than you used to be, but that's just it, man! You have to try to convince people that you are what you claim to be. Again, you always have. Nobody in this company, or maybe even this business as a whole, sees you as anything other than a piece of garbage sent out to the ring to be picked up and tossed into the barrel by men like myself and Frost. I've held the World Heavyweight title. I've been inducted into the Hall of Fame after my rookie year with this company. I've been involved in some of the greatest matches to have ever taken place, be it in the PWA or any other promotion. You? Heh...you're barely even worth mentioning. But alas, little boy, I'll play to your ego. I'll stroke it like you stroke yourself nightly before the threads with the CP dumps get four-oh-four'd.

[Corey takes another sip of his Seattle's Best, smacking his lips together after he pulls the cup away from his mouth.]

Lazarus
In your time as a professional wrestler you've amassed something of a reputation. Not just of being a punching bag, of course, but of a man who was willing to stand up and take a punch to the face, one who was willing to get thrown head-first to the concrete floor and get back to his feet, spitting his teeth out like they were bad Chiclets, and one who could take the most Hellacious beating on Earth and return weeks later, virtually unscathed by the mental anguish that constant defeat tries to bring upon him. Now you've got some stupid Hot Topic mask, or whatever it is, and you're trying to make a new name for yourself by getting your hand on the PWA World Tag Team titles. A championship that you've held before, albeit with the "great"...

[Again, his fingers make the quotation marks.]

Lazarus
...Jamie Flynn to carry you on to victory. While I'm not a major fan of spoilers, Kyle, I will say this: your partner this time, Ai Mei Montrose, is no Jamie Flynn. She's held her fair share of titles throughout the history of the various promotions affiliated with the AOWF, sure, but here and now, in the Pioneer Wrestling Association, she has amounted to jack fucking shit. I've faced her. I've beaten her. I've driven her skull into the canvas, I've put my boots to her face, and I've stretched her in ways that she only thought was possible with a Stretch Armstrong doll. She's not Flynn. You don't have much of a leg to stand on this time, so the odds of you walking out of Miami Gardens with one of the PWA World Tag Team title belts around your lanky waist? Slim to none. That is, of course, unless your partner can muster up the true wild child within her.

[A smirk. Not the trademark devilish one, but a smirk nonetheless.]

Lazarus
See what I did there? I called her a "wild child," her nickname is "Wild Chylde" with "child" spelled C-H-Y-L-D-E...yeah. Lame joke. But again, I digress. Ai Mei, I pity you. Not for returning to the wrestling ring after years of destroying your once perfect body to be little more than an ass carrying a dumb tourist deep into a canyon...well, I lied. That's precisely why I pity you. You've accomplished enough in your career to never have to return, at least not to a position where you have so little to gain and so much to lose, and yet here you are, randomly teaming with the eternal plucky underdog named Kyle Stevenson. That must break your little General Tso's-flavored heart, knowing that your odds of victory are so severely hampered by the man you'll have to tag in and out on that night due to his inability to get the job done when it actually means something.

[He shakes his head.]

Lazarus
Don't assume this is me taking you lightly, Montrose. Quite the contrary, as a matter of fact. I remember A Farewell To Arms. I remember how you took everything I threw at you, got back up, and pinned Malcolm's shoulders to the canvas. I remember how you held your own against all challengers, be they of greater size or greater experience than yourself. I don't see a little girl trying harder than anybody thought possible to prove herself in a land of men, especially since the bulk of the championship gold is held by those lacking the Y chromosome. What I do see, however, is a broken down piece of spare rib. You've fought your whole life to be accepted, to be heralded as one of the true greats, and you even were for a little while. But then, as it always does, something happens. You lose the fire inside of you. You begin doubting yourself routinely and without reason, second-guessing your talents to the point that you let a little ant defeat the grizzly bear that you were. It's happened to me, it's happened to Riona, and it's even happened to true legends like Cliff and Dustin. There is a remedy, though. You take some time off, a sabbatical, and you find that fire within you. You dig deep, you douse it in gasoline, and you let it burn every single last fucking one of your doubts away. I hope you can do that between now and Out of Control, Ai Mei. For your own sake. Of course...

[He shrugs his shoulders.]

Lazarus
...it's just a damn shame that you're with Kyle Stevenson, and that your loss is a foregone conclusion. As foregone as it is that we'll see new PWA World Tag Team champions coming into the next Rampage, since I doubt the Straders will be able to maintain their grip on the belts.

[Lazarus tilts his head to the side.]

Lazarus
Oh, Tamika, Meghan, did you really think that the L-A-Z forgot about the two of you? Of course I didn't. That would be a crime against humanity to just assume that an odd Street Fighter pairing like Dan and Chun Li would be the only possible competition when there's a pair of beautiful women who were trained in the finer arts of hand-to-hand combat by the great Scott Nash Strader.

[A nod.]

Lazarus
Yes, girls, I just called your father "great." I'm sorry, I won't let that slip out again any time soon. But, to make things easier, I'll address each of you individually. First up is going to be the youngest since the word around the water cooler is that she can deep throat a foot-long kielbasa. Given your heredity, Tamika, I'm going to assume that you were still wondering - until I said your name, of course - just which of the two of you I was talking about.

[He snickers.]

Lazarus
While that beautifully kempt blonde hair and those cute chubby cheeks may lead to thoughts considered "carnal" to various men across the lands, they lead to me asking one sole question: do I have it in me to ruin your beautiful face? And Meghan, oh sweet little Meghan, with your perfectly managed eyebrows and glorious high cheekbones, I oftentimes wonder why beautiful women like the two of you ever think twice about stepping foot into the center of the ring, a menagerie of thin mats and steel and wood where injuries are the norm and blood flows like fountains. While the sex appeal of one Riona Langly was never in question, her attractiveness comes not from her sultry bedroom eyes or her positively gorgeous lips but rather from her willingness and inate ability to drive her boot firmly into the anal cavity of all who would doubt her. Guys like a girl that can kick their ass. While I won't deny that this business is in your blood, given who your father is and how long he's been involved with the sport of professional wrestling, and I won't pretend as though you've yet to make a name for yourself, given that you and your sister are the current, reigning, and defending PWA World Tag Team champions, having defeated a pair of redneck inbred wifebeaters back at RPM to gain those belts. And, since winning the titles, you've successfully defended them against the Order of Chaos, albeit the version consisting of Kalis and that perennial fool Lucious Starr, as well as holding your own against an amazing talent on the rise in Masakaz the Great and my fellow resident in the PWA Hall of Fame Matthew Engel just this past week. Of course, some idiot named La Reina interfered and cost the match altogether, revealing herself to be Ai Mei, but that's enough of a history lesson, Tamika. That's enough of me talking down to you, Meghan.

[He scratches his cheek, shaking his head.]

Lazarus
The fact of the matter is that there's no real way of knowing what the outcome of our match is going to be. That all depends on what stipulation the fans vote on in the next few days and that, naturally, is beyond our control. They could vote on a Three-Way Dance, wherein a pinfall or a submission on one member of a team results in that team being eliminated, leaving just two of us. Well, four of us individually, but two teams. Who would that favor? None of us, per se. The odds would be just as they were heading in, given that it's a standard match that sees eliminations occur rather than it being one fall to a finish. Or they could vote on a Scramble Cage, which I've never been involved in. One would see this stipulation as favoring the more high-flying members of the match, which leaves out solely Deacon Frost, so it would appear that the Scramble Cage doesn't exactly favor us too much. And then there's the Boiler Room Brawl, with its emphasis being on pure toughness and an ability to adapt to the environment, using everything that you can get your hands on as a weapon. Now, given my history of ultraviolence and in-ring sadism, as well as Frost being a monster in man's clothing, you would think that the Boiler Room would favor the two of us, but, well, it's just not my bag. A small room with a few other people and a bunch of rusty, leaky pipes? That seems less like a match and more like something out of an old horror movie. It's a relic of the past, when stipulations for matches like this were more about being outlandish than about leading to an exciting contest of athletic prowess.

[He sips his coffee and then clears his throat.]

Lazarus
You see, this sport continues to move forward, continues to evolve, and that next step sees the Hollywood Kid coming one step closer to claiming the prized moniker of "Grand Slam champion." The only championships that I've yet to hold in this company are the Tag Team and Television titles. While I'll be perfectly honest and say that it's the World Heavyweight title that I'm always going to be gunning for, that doesn't take away what the other belts mean. I've been known my entire career as a man who has very dangerous affiliations, who runs with crowds that would make the Hell's Angels look like the Peace Corps, and only once in my entire career have I ever tasted gold with somebody else at my side. That changes on May the thirtieth HERE in Miami Gardens. Three men and three women enter the ring, all looking to walk away with fifteen pounds of gold around their waists, and only two men are going to walk out with it: Deacon Frost and Corey FUCKING Lazarus. But hey, that's life. Deal with it. Rock n' roll, munecas.

[Corey takes another sip of his coffee before winking at the camera, swallowing the strong caffeinated beverage moments prior to whispering into the camera's microphone.]

Lazarus