Tag Team Implosion

 

Tag Team Implosion

By

Mangler

 

After a night of awesome wrestling, the crowd was hyped up for the next.  It was a tag team championship battle with the recently crowned champs taking on a smaller, less experienced team.  The champs had defeated the former champions only two weeks ago in an epic battle with a surprise ending.  Steel Vortex, a recently formed tag team composed of Myles and Wesly, was not expected to defeat the older, more experienced heels.  However, they had managed to pull it off to a thunderous ovation from the crowd, as they were one of the local favorites. 

Taking the mic after the win, Myles had proclaimed, “Henceforth, we shall be known as The Reign, as we shall be Champs for a very long time.”  He and Wesley had decided to change their name if they won, and they had.  Thus, The Reign was born.

For their inaugural defense, they employed the same strategy as the previous champions, selecting a smaller, less experienced team that was relatively unknown. They were confident that the same fate would not befall them as had the previous champions.  Talking with wrestlers from the challenger’s league, The Reign had the impression that they were good wrestlers but needed time and experience to become truly excellent and championship-quality wrestlers.

To refer to the Good Time Boys (Axel and Zack) as ‘smaller’ was technically true as The Reign (Myles and Wesley) were both 6’ and about 210 pounds each, while the Boys had a slight height difference at 5’11 and 5’10.  However, they both weighed in at 175 pounds.  The Reign were slightly bigger, but all four wrestlers appeared to be in good shape.  However, the Reign,  although a relatively new tag team, had much more individual experience wrestling, while the Boys had a longer time as a tag team.  Time would tell if any of these differences were significant.

The Good Time Boys wore matching red square-cut trunks with black knee pads and wrestling boots. The Reign were dressed in Royal Purple trunks, white knee pads, and black boots.  The ref quickly did a foreign body check on the challengers before repeating the check on the champs.

The ref bent over to inspect Myles's boots and knee pads when Axel jumped up and delivered a standing drop kick to the chest.  The force of the blow knocked him backward, where he slammed into the turnbuckle.  Axel immediately regained his feet.

Right before Axel delivered the dropkick, Zack drove the tip of his right boot up and into the balls of Wesley, eliciting a scream and forcing him to drop his hands to his crotch and bend forward.  Zack stepped to the side, grabbed the top of Wesley’s trunks with one hand, the back of his head with the other, and twisted Wesley in a circle, releasing him so that his head slammed into the tag team belt around Myles' waist.

Wesley dropped to his hands and knees after his head slammed into the belt.  Zack drove a knee into the side, forcing him to the mat before using his feet to roll him out of the ring, where he followed.  Axel charged into the corner and began raining forearms and fists down onto the head and chest of Myles as Zack exited the ring.

Inside the ring, the ref began screaming at Axel, who ignored him, while outside the ring, Zack forced Wesley to his feet, unhooked the championship belt, letting it drop to the floor, before lifting Wesley up and dropping him balls-first across the metal barrier separating the audience.  A loud scream was heard.  Before Wesley could fall off the barrier, Zack forced his head under his arm, face down, dragged him off the barrier, and dropped back in a DDT, ensuring that Wesley’s head impacted the tag team belt.

Pain exploded in Wesley’s head before drifting to near unconsciousness.  Zack leaped to his feet and climbed up onto the ring apron, just as the ref got between Myles and Axel, forcing Axel back toward the middle of the ring.  Zack unhooked the belt, allowing it to drop to the mat, as he wrapped the tag team rope around the opponent's neck and pulled backward.  Myles' struggles intensified as he attempted to pry the rope from his neck and breathe.

After getting Axel to the middle of the ring, the ref turned back toward Myles, where he saw Zack, after having unwound the tag rope from his neck, dropping to the floor and walking around to his corner.  Axel sidestepped the ref and charged into the corner, driving his shoulder into the exposed abs.  He repeated this several times before turning and snapmaring a groggy Myles into the middle of the ring. 

The ref started to admonish Axel about his actions before the bell had rung, when the bell rang, starting the match.  The ref turned, glared at the bell attendant, and did not see his hand slipping the 2 $100 bills into his pocket.  The match was definitely not starting the way the champs had hoped. 

Axel wasted no time before delivering a series of stomps into the pecs and abs of a still winded Myles.  He reached over, grabbed a handful of hair, and pulled Myles to his feet before tossing him into the ropes.  As he rebounded, Axel delivered a clothesline that actually flipped Myles in the air before he crashed down to the mat.  Axel immediately pulled him back to his feet with some difficulty before he threw him back first into his and Zack’s corner.  Zack had made sure to have his knee partially through the ropes, delivering a blow to the kidney.  Myles started to stagger out of the corner before being driven back into it with a Shoulder block into the abs.

The ref immediately pulled Axel back from the corner and got between him and Myles.  As soon as the ref’s back was turned, Zack locked on a sleeper hold to further incapacitate his opponent.  As the ref started to turn back to the action, Zach dropped the hold and stood to one side.  Axel walked over and tagged Zack into the ring.  After the tag, Axel delivered two stomps into Myles’s abs, causing him to drop to his ass in the corner.  He exited the ring as Zack leaped over the ropes to enter it.

Zack grabbed Myles by the head and forcibly pulled him to his feet.  He turned, grabbed the head over his right shoulder, and snapmared Myles into the middle of the ring, where he dropped a leg across the upper chest.  He dropped his ass down onto Myles’ face before he started delivering a series of open-handed blows into the abs.  He could feel the air escape from Myles’ mouth with each blow.  He then locked on abs claw and leaned forward, lifting his ass off Myles’ mouth but increasing the effect of the claw into his abs.

Tiring of these, he released the claw and began pulling a groggy Myles to his feet.  When he was on his knees, Myles blinding struck out, slamming a fist into Zack’s lower abdomen just above his groin.

“My balls, my balls,” Zack screamed as he stepped back and dropped his hands to his crotch.

“Watch the low blows,” the ref began admonishing Myles.

“I didn’t mean,” Myles managed to mumble.

“I don’t care what you meant, I only care about what you did,” the ref screamed.

In the meantime, Zack had stood upright, turned to the audience, and smiled as he pointed a finger at his skull.  The blow had not struck his junk, but was low enough that with his acting, the ref thought it had.  While the ref had Myles’ attention, Zack walked behind him, and quickly locked his head under his armpit and pulled back, trapping Myles in a dragon sleeper.  He forced Myles’s back to arch higher, and he pushed his head down more.

Myles started to struggle as his air was cut off, and his struggling began to decrease.  Zack released the hold just before Myles lost consciousness.  When the ref held the arm up, Myles, by instinct, kept it up, signaling he was still awake.  Zack drove two stomps down into the abs before pulling Myles to his shaky feet.

He reached out and tagged Axel, who leaped over the rope and into the ring while Zack lifted Myles in a cross-body hold.  Once in the ring, Axel dropped with one knee extended.  Zack heaved Myles into the air and dropped him down, abs first, over both his and Axel’s knees.  Myles felt like the knees penetrated through to his back.  He was rolled off the knees, and Zack drove stomps into the abs until the ref forced him from the ring.

Axel pulled Myles to his hands and knees and pointed him in the direction of his corner.

“Go get some help, boy,” he said in a derogatory manner.  Myles knew he needed to get to his corner, so he began crawling.  When he was close enough to his corner, he reached out his hand, but there was no hand there to tag.  He looked up and saw his corner was empty.

“Aaah, looks like your partner left you,” Axel said as he grabbed hold of Myles' head, pulled him forward, and slammed him headfirst into his and Wesley’s corner.  He did this four times before the ref forced a break.  He pulled Myles to his feet, picked him up, and inverted him before he deposited him into the corner and locked his legs under the top rope.  Myles was now in the tree of woe in his own corner. 

Axel drove a series of knee and stomps into the abs, ignoring the ref’s admonitions until the very last minute.  Finally, he stepped aside to let the ref try to unhook the ankles.  As the ref was struggling to do so, Axel hopped on the second ring rope, then transferred his foot into the vee between Myles’ leg before standing with his full weight on the balls and began bouncing.

Myles was quickly brought back to full attention by the pain and began screaming loudly.  Axel dropped back down to the mat, just as the ref hit the four count.  The ref pushed him away from the corner and then turned back to unhook the ankle.

Looking over the ropes, Axel saw that Wesley had gotten back to his hands and knees and was using the ring apron to pull himself up.  Just as Wesley’s head rose above the ring apron, it was impacted by Axel’s two feet. He had bounced off the opposing ropes and performed a baseball slide under the bottom rope and into his opponent's head.  Wesley flew back, slamming to the mats on his back and head, hard.  He saw stars again.

The ref saw none of this as he was freeing Myles’ ankles.  Myles dropped to the mat.  Axel struggled but finally managed to lift Myles to his feet, back him into the turnbuckle, and throw his arms over the top rope.  He drove several shoulders into the abs before he bounded across the ring and tagged Zack.  Zack hopped into the ring, Axel grabbed his wrist and threw him across the ring and into Myles, who was pancaked between him and the turnbuckle.

When Zack stepped out, Myles fell like a tree to the mat.  Myles was being mauled in his own corner.  Zack threw his hands up into a victory pose and mugged for the fans who were booing and jeering.  When Zack turned back to Myles, he was surprised to see him standing against the turnbuckle. He was also surprised when Myles kicked out, landing his foot into Zack’s unprepared body.  Myles grunted and stepped toward Zack.

While the blow had staggered him backward, it in no way incapacitated him, so Zack charged into Myles and bullied him back against the turnbuckle.  He drove a series of knees into the abs before flinging Zack across the ring into the opposite turnbuckle, where he was, once again, met with a knee to the back.  The knee caused him to stagger forward, where a charging Zack met him, so again he found himself being slammed into his opponent’s turnbuckle.  Zack began driving kicks and knees into the abs of the trapped wrestler.  He finally obeyed the ref and stepped back, but not before tagging Axel.

While Axel was entering the ring, Zack pulled Myles from the corner, lifted him into a cross-body hold, before dropping him abs first into his partner’s stretched knee.  When Myles rolled to the mat, his arms wrapped around his abused abs.  Axel pulled him to his feet and locked on an abdominal stretch, trying to stretch him as hard as possible.

Tiring of this hold, he released it, grabbed Myles by the wrist, and threw him across the ring to slam back first into his own turnbuckle.  The Good Time Boys were intent on rubbing it into Myle’s brain that he wasn’t safe anywhere in the ring, even his own corner.

What Zack failed to realize was that Wesley had finally managed to crawl back up onto the ring apron.  Unfortunately, he was still a little disoriented, and when Myles slammed into the turnbuckle, his head flew back and connected with Wesley’s, causing him to fall off the ring apron.  As he fell, he threw his hand out in an attempt to steady himself, and his hand made contact with Myles’ shoulder.

After releasing Myles, Zach had immediately charged after him, so shortly after Myles hit the turnbuckle, and knocked Wesley off, Zach slammed his entire body into Myles, driving the breath from him again.

Zach stepped back and reached for Myles, but the ref stepped between the two and said, “he’s not the legal man.”

“What?” Zach inquired, looking confused.

“When he reached the corner, his partner tagged him, so he isn’t the legal man.”

“Whatever,” Zach replied as he reached around the ref, grabbed Myles, and threw him across the ring once again, where he slammed into the turnbuckle and sagged.  Zach dropped to the ring floor and rolled under the bottom rope.  Wesley was just getting his feet under him when he was met with a clothesline, knocking him to the ground.

“Get the action back into the ring, back into the ring,” the ref was screaming at the two wrestlers.

Across the ring, Axel was keeping close watch on the action as he entered the ring.  He pulled Myles out of the corner but kept him back first against the ropes as he mounted the second rope.  In a matter of seconds, he had his legs hooked under Myles’ armpits and his hands had grabbed the ankles.  Myles, although not the legal man in the ring, found himself locked into a very painful Tarantula hold.  And the ref was too occupied with Axel and Wesley to pay any attention.

Axel drove several kicks into the abs and sides of Wesley before dropping down and beginning to pound on his head.  He didn’t stop until he heard the ref reach a count of 7. Then, he stood, rolled under the bottom rope back into the ring, but then immediately rolled back out.  He had broken the count, and the ref was obligated to start over.

Outside the ring, Axel forced Wesley to his feet before he bounced his forehead off the ring post, followed by bouncing it off the ring apron.  He then delivered a suplex, further stunning his opponent.  Once again, he rolled into and out of the ring when the ref got close to a 10 count.  The ref had finally had enough, so he exited the ring and got in Axel's face, and began berating him for his tactics and ignoring his instructions.

“If you do not get back into the ring, I am going to disqualify your ass,” he screamed.

“I have until a 10 count,” Axel retorted.

“Don’t give a fuck what you think you have.  Back into the ring NOW!”

Axel rolled under the bottom rope and started to roll back out, but the ref put his hands out and stopped him.  “AND STAY THERE!”

“Fine, I’m in the damned ring.”

The ref turned to assist Wesley back to his feet and help him into the ring.  Due to Wesley's groggy state, this was not an easy thing to accomplish.  Seizing the opportunity, Axel crossed the ring and began delivering kicks and punches into Myles’ stretched-out abs.  Myles' moans and screams went unheard by the ref.

“He’s close to getting this one’s worthless partner back into the ring, “ Axel said as he delivered a final punt-style kick into the balls.  Spittle flew from Myles’ mouth.  Zach dropped the Tarantula hold and leaped down to the arena floor.  He reached under the bottom rope, grabbed Myles’ ankles, and used them to pull him out of the ring.

Axel turned and realized that Wesley was almost through the ropes, so he charged over, locked him head under his pit and dropped backward, pulling him the rest of the way into the ring and slamming his forehead into the mat.

“Hey, hey,” the ref began as he entered between the ropes.

“Just trying to help you out,” Axel said with pure innocence in his voice.  But he stepped back so that he wasn’t touching Wesley before he dropped down to the mat, sat Wesley up, and locked on a combination full nelson and leg scissors.  He squeezed for all he was worth with both holds.  Wesley’s chin was driven into his chest, and the scissors reduced his lung capacity. He wasn’t getting enough oxygen.

Outside the ring, Zach was sitting on Myles’ face while he was driving fist after fist into the almost destroyed abs.  He was getting the shit beat out of him.  Zach thought he heard pleas of submission, but with his ass in the way, he couldn’t be sure.  But it didn’t matter either way; he wasn’t the legal man in the match, so a submission didn’t count for anything. 

The ref glanced over at the Reign’s corner and noticed that Myles wasn’t there.  He looked across the ring and noticed that Zach was also missing.  Sensing something was up, he wandered over to the ropes and saw Zach pulling Myles to his feet.

“Hey, leave him alone,” he screamed.

“Just helping him back to his side of the ring,” Zach said as he began marching him around the ring.  He suddenly grabbed a wrist and whipped him abs-first into the apron edge.  Myles grunted and stumbled back.  Zach wrapped his arms around the waist and lifted him back onto the ring apron in his corner.  Myles instinctively grabbed the rope to hold himself up.

“Back to your side of the ring,” the ref demanded, watching him closely.

“I’m going, I’m going.  Jeez, try to do a good deed and get yelled at.”

“Good deed, my ass,” the ref responded as he watched until Zach was back in his corner.

While the ref had been busy with Zach and Myles,  Axle had taken the opportunity to slam his heel into Wesley’s balls several times.  “Did you get that all sorted out?” Axle added as he drove his heel into the balls a final time.

“Break the hold,” the ref demanded.

“Why?” was the innocent reply.

“That was a low blow, that’s why.”

“Whoops, my bad,” Axle laughed as he released both holds and stood up.  Wesley curled on his side, cradling his balls.  Axel reached down and grabbed a double handful of hair to pull him to his feet.  He placed his hand behind the head and charged him into his corner, slamming his forehead into the top turnbuckle.  He then grabbed the left hand and slammed it down onto Myles’ which was still holding the rope.

“I believe that was a tag,” he laughed as he reached across the rope and grabbed Myles by both ears.  He pulled him down the apron until he was halfway to the next corner.  He dropped back to the mat, making sure that Myles’ throat landed on the top rope.  Myles gurgled as the rope snapped back, tossing him off the ring apron, where he landed on his back and the back of his head.

Seeing Axel hit the ring floor, Wesley started in his direction, preparing to stomp him.  The ref stopped him.

“Out of the ring,” was the demanded.

“What? Why?” Wesley asked.

“Because you tagged out,” was the answer.

“What?  I didn’t tag out,” Wesley yelled.

“Well, Axel tagged you out.”

“That’s bullshit,” Wesley argued.

“Maybe, but a tag was made so out of the ring,” the ref continued as he forced Wesley back to his corner.

When Axel regained his feet, he looked over and saw the ref and Wesley occupied, so he grabbed the top rope and used it to propel himself over the ropes, where he landed feet first into Myles’s abs, causing him to double up.  Zach had come around the corner at the same time, so the two partners pulled Myles to his feet, then hefted him into the air before dropping him abs first across the metal barrier between the fans and the crowd.  Axel slid back under the ring ropes, while Zach drug Myles back to the ring and forced him under the bottom rope.

When the ref turned back into the ring, he saw Axel dragging Myles toward his corner.  Once close to it, Axel sat on Myles’ back and locked on a Boston Crab with Axel facing into his corner.

“These two haven’t acted much like champions tonight,” he casually said to his partner.

“That’s because they aren’t real champions,” Zach replied.  “They got lucky two weeks ago and managed to pin the champs, so they got the belt.  But just winning a match doesn’t necessarily make you a champ,” Zach continued.

“That is so true,” Axel replied as he bounced up and down to increase the pressure on the abs.  Sensing that Myles might be reaching his limit, he reached out and tagged Zach, who leaped over the rope, got in front of Axel, and drove the toe of his wrestling shoe into the stretched abs of Myles.

“Out of the ring,” the ref was telling Axel.

“I got a five count,” Axel replied as he dropped the crab, stood, drove a foot into Myles' lower back, and exited the ring.

Zach grabbed Myles by the ankles and rotated him so that he was facing Axel.  Zach sat on Myles's back, pulled his arms over his knees, grabbed the chin with both hands, and pulled back in the perfect Camel Clutch.

“As I was saying, they got lucky and won the belts, but that doesn’t make them champions.  Tag Team Champions know how to work together, isolate their opponent, and work them over.”

“All legal, of course,” Axel said as he and Zach carried on a conversation as if sitting in the living room.

“But of course, who would do anything else?”

The ref kept asking if Myles wanted to submit, but he kept shaking his head no.

“Come on, Myles, you can do this, you can get out of that hold,” Wesley shouted from his corner, although he was beginning to have doubts.

Without warning, Zach dropped the hold, and Myles's head slammed into the mat.  He stood, pulled Myles to his shaky feet, and locked on an abdominal stretch.  He positioned himself so that he was close to his corner.  As a further torture, he made sure that Myles was just out of reach of the rope.  Whenever he had a chance, Zach would grab Axel by the hand to increase the pressure.

“Come on, ref, their cheating,” Wesley kept whining, but every time the ref checked, everything was legal.  Wesley started to enter the ring, but saw the ref looking at him and knew that he would only cause more problems for his partner if he entered and distracted the ref.

Myles' denials became less convincing, but he kept saying no when asked if he submitted.

Wesley started to enter the ring.  The ref started in that direction, but Wesley yelled, “Enough, Enough, we conceded.  That’s it.  We concede.”

The ref signaled for the bell, and as soon as it rang, Zach dropped the hold and Myles dropped to the ring floor and curled forward to relieve the pressure on his abs.  Wesley bent over to check on his partner. Out of nowhere, Wesley felt his head being jerked around and locked between Zach’s thighs.  Zach grabbed him around the waist and lifted him up.  Axel came off the top rope and pushed downward as Zach dropped to the mat.  A super pile driver had the desired effect, and Wesley was out cold.

The ref pushed the two winners away from their opponents and signaled for the tag team belts.  He handed them to the winners and went to lift their hands in the air.  Both wrestlers jerked away from the ref and lifted the belts over their heads.  The ref went to the wrestlers lying in the ring.   

The newly formed tag team had imploded in spectacular fashion.  They had gotten almost no offense at all.  And now Myles and Wesley were laid out in the ring, not moving, and the ref administering to them, Axel signaled for the mic.  The crowd was still booing.

“I’m afraid The Reign has become The Frozen.  They were frozen out of their championship and humiliated in the process.  Of course, they should never have had the belts anyway.  There wasn’t much to like about them.”

The booing and yelled insults from the crowd became louder.  Both wrestlers just smiled.

“However, we did take one of their actions to heart.  We are changing our name.  Henceforth, we will be known as,” he paused, then he and his partner screamed at the top of their voices, “the Dominion of Destruction!”

Wesley took the mic and said, “And anyone opposing us should ask God for Mercy, because they will not get it from us.”  He tossed the microphone back to the announcer as he and Axel turned to where the Reign were starting to stir.

They walked over and began delivering a series of stomps to the abs and pecs of their opponents. Their last blow was directed at the balls of each wrestler, eliciting a satisfactory scream from them.  The Dominion then proceeded to remove their opponents' trunks, stripping them of their last ounce of dignity and leaving them clad only in jockstraps.

The ref had been trying to get them to stop and was grateful when they did.  However, his gratitude didn’t last long as Axel scooped him up in an army press and paraded him around the room, showing him off to the crowd.  He then tossed him over the top rope.  Instead of hitting the floor, he landed abs first across Zach’s outstretched knee.  The loud exhale of air could be heard throughout the arena. 

He was struggling to get a good breath, and Zach pulled the gasping ref to his feet, hefted him over his shoulder, and waited for Axel to join him.  He exited the ring, twirling his opponent's trunks around his finger as he joined Wesley and the ref, and headed up the ramp. 

Unfortunately, the Dominion was forced to leave the ref at the exit and not take him into the locker rooms with them. By happenstance, the three met up at the local watering hole later that evening.  But that is a story for another time.