The Highwayman is dead – but you aren’t safe from darkness
Sept 22, 2016 16:22:27 GMT -5
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Post by Jack on Sept 22, 2016 16:22:27 GMT -5
The GCW arena screen flickers with a shot of Jack Rodgers sitting on an old wooden chair in a pitch black room. His long hair is slick and falls across a face that is half covered by his trademark mask. He wears a long overcoat and a top hat as he sits silently in the shadows.
On a table next to Jack is an old, antique record player that looks like it could be from the Victorian era.
Jack reaches over and lifts the needle up and places it back down onto the record.
Jack reaches over and lifts the needle up and places it back down onto the record.
The sound of Jack’s eerie Victorian theme music plays out as Jack sits back in his chair...
Jack: Doesn’t it sound beautiful ladies and gentlemen? That warm crackle as the music spills out from the speaker. That haunting Victorian music making us all thing back to an era we never knew and a period we can never influence.
Ladies and gentlemen when I first came to GCW I wanted to reinvigorate your fear or what lurks in the darkness and to do that I tried to take you all back to the time of Penny Dreadfuls and danger lurking around every corner. But I was mistaken to look back so longingly to the past. I was a fool to try and make you fear the pages of history.
Jack takes off his top hat and rests it by his feet as he flicks his hair back behind his head and leans further forward.
Jack: Everything I’ve talked to you about has been with one eye on the past. Even when I won the GCW Television Championship I was picturing it as the prize I had taken from an unsuspecting gentleman riding by in a horse drawn cart. I was a man out of time.
Last week when Kidd West beat me for that belt he knew I was not living life in the present day. The Jack Rodgers of old was a mere throwback to the past and Kidd West made good on his promise to deliver the same fate that all highwaymen eventually succumb to.
I remember reading once that “in the sunset of dissolution, everything is illuminated by the aura of nostalgia, even the guillotine.” I looked back on the history of the highwaymen and I felt that nostalgia – even for the guillotine that The Executioner promised me.
When I lost my GCW Television Championship I became just another Highwaymen who lived a brief career of success before falling on his sword.
Jack Rodgers reaches over and grabs the needle of the gramophone and scratches it all across the record causing the eerie music to be punctuated by loud scratches and scrapes. He then stands and lifts the record player from the table before smashing it down to the ground.
Jack: Kidd West, last week you destroyed the nostalgia. You lifted my head from the pages of history and back into present day. From this day forward, Jack Rodgers will not simply be a black and white throwback to a forgotten time…
Jack grabs the camera and covers it with his hand.
When he moves his hands away the shot is now in full colour as opposed to black and white.
When he moves his hands away the shot is now in full colour as opposed to black and white.
Jack: I am not the Vaudeville tribute artist that you all might have thought. I am not the laughing stock you made me out to be when Kidd West pinned me for the GCW Television Championship.
The darkness might’ve been a scary place back in Victorian times but I will now prove to you just how dangerous it can be in 2016. I am back in GCW ladies and gentlemen and I am more dangerous than ever before.
Let me be clear to the entire GCW roster – it doesn’t matter if you are good or bad, big or small, champion or new guy – it doesn’t matter a single bit because I have no allegiances to anybody here.
The Highwayman is dead – but you aren’t safe from the darkness.
I can't pretend to be a valiant knight any longer.
I am the lone wolf in the shadows and the bloodhound latching onto the scent of fear.
I am a natural born predator and you will all be hunted down.
As Jack Rodgers aggressive new entrance music plays out over the PA system he leans in to the camera and whispers…
“Kidd West, I have you in my sights...”
…before the camera cuts to total darkness.