[Back in the arena, the camera cuts to the announce table][/size]
Rachel Beckett:What the hell? No…it can’t be! It is!
[‘Fight Music’ by D12 pumps out over the PA system, the lights glowing red as a familiar figure emerges from the top of the ramp and a thunderous pop fills the arena.] [/size]
Wally Wilson: That’s a hell of a big pop alright, but not as loud as Venom got earlier. I think the crowd is still recovering
Rachel Beckett: Two returns in one night? Ambassador, with these Ferrero Rocher’s you are really spoiling us. But Ulster is here tonight! I never thought we would see his face in FHT/Elite again!
[The crowd is on its feet giving Ulster a loud ovation as his first FHT theme music continues to play as he makes his way to the ring. Ulster is well dressed, which makes a change. He wears a grey suit with a pink shirt, unbuttoned at the top. He grabs a mic from the announce table and stands in the ring] [/size]
Ulster: Wouldn’t you know it, Lbm asks me to come back for a few weeks and he ends up pissing on my parade the wee bastard with his special guest. Let me tell you, there isn’t anything that can happen in this company in the coming weeks that will possibly top that. I was all set to come out here and bathe in your adulation for a while…
[Chants of “Ulster! Ulster! Ulster! He grins in the ring] [/size]
Ulster: …You guys know when to come in right on cue! You know I’m not the sort of guy that is going to stand here and look for easy heat or a cheap pop, even if it is really good to be back here in New York city…
[Loud cheap pop from the fans. Ulster shrugs and grins] Rachel Beckett: [/size]
Love him or hate him Ulster knows how to work a crowd.
Ulster: ....as I was saying, I’m way too professional to look for such easy reactions from the crowd. To be honest really, I thought I was long past this crazy wrestling world too. It was great back in the day here in the FHT arena. Shadowwalker,
[pop] Trippy P,
Stone Cold,
[pop] The Joker,
Satan,
[pop] [/size] Cowboy,
[pop] David,
[pop] “Sick” Nick,
TPC,
[pop] . Hell there was a guy that stood in this ring earlier tonight you may remember. His name was Venom and he was….
Ulster: So you’ve heard of this guy then.
[He laughs] [/size] Back when he was on board, FHT was on fire and it was an amazing place to be. I remember being a rookie, pissing Trippy P off in my first week telling him people were bored of all his title reigns…
[he pauses] …well it wasn’t my smartest move I reckon. Let’s just say a few people backstage didn’t take too kindly to that. Frankly I had come from a company where a boss tried to hold me and others back and I came here and told it as I saw it, even if it wasn’t really the case. Nik and Dijon the shithawks set me up and they just loved it. They encouraged me to keep going with it even thought Trippy P and Straightcurve wanted me banned! Shit-stirring sons of a bitchs!
[Ulster laughs] I loved those days here, but I just loathed being around a couple of guys. There was no way of progressing without going through them, and they weren't going to give me the chance so I had few options. I left and thought that was it.
Then Lbm rang me up and told me about Elite and I came on board as an announcer and I was pretty magnificent…
[He shrugs and shakes his head] …Well technically, Lbm might tell you that all I did was sit there, making smutty comments and telling everyone that I were better than those guys in the ring. Just to shut me up I was put in a feud with Brian “The SexxxMaster” something or other. I can’t remember his name. They thought that if they showed me to be well past my best then I be could shut up! Little were they prepared for me coming to my best just as Elite exploded into life. It was just the other day I was tidying up my house and came across a box of Elite DVDs of old shows in the attic. I stuck one on and before I knew it hours had passed and I saw some of the greatest promos and matches I have ever seen in all the companies I’ve been with. Aaron Capone
[pop] , Dark Angel
[pop] , Killer,
[pop] Soul Reaper,
[pop] Blade
[pop] and even Terrell Odom
[no reaction from the crowd that Ulster loves][/size] Ha! I see you have forgotten him. The guy could cut a promo like no-one else but hell, he couldn’t wrestle for shit! Happy times backstage when he and TPC were going at it in the locker room that’s for sure.
[Ulster smiles, and shakes his head whistfully] Anyway, I climbed the highest peak in the company and frankly, well, no offence to Lbm and the_j-man, they screwed me. You know you did.
[He rubs the stubble on his face] I’m not bitter about it, I just thought I deserved a bit more credit for putting Elite on the map. Yeah, you made me a head honcho in the booking with you two and I did that task well. But when it was suggested I should pass the torch and title to someone else, well I couldn’t bear it. Yeah, yeah, so I’m breaking kayfabe here. Big whoop. Wanna fight about it?
[He laughs to himself, almost forgetting where he is.] [/size] Well someone will get that reference! You know, they can argue whatever the hell they want, but Elite would have been nothing without me. Is that egotistical?
[He shrugs] Probably, but I really was that damn good there.
[He gesticulates with his index finger] So why pass the torch? Why pass something that I hadn’t even held long enough for my hands to get sweaty? So what do I do?
[He shrugs again] I just thought “Fuck it” and buggered off. Later on I shot a video where I threw that video off a bridge, kinda like the Smokin Skulls belt. So technically I am still Elite Heavyweight Champion. Or maybe the River Bann is, or a big ass water rat that found the belt, who knows.
When FHT and Elite joined forces I thought that they would be unstoppable, but it just didn’t play out that way. Maybe too many guys had lost the passion...
[Ulster hits his chest three times with his fist] ...for coming out here week after week. I saw it the last time I was here. Me and “Sick” Nick tore this place apart for a few weeks.
[He slashes the air with his left hand, the hand not holding the mic] Damnit, we were pretty damn awesome in that feud. FHT/Elite was really kicking. Then I got my shot at Stone Cold, but he had lost that passion I was talking about. In another time I would come out here and trash him, but really, I get why he had lost that passion. Whenever he left then I quietly made my exit. I could have got another feud with someone, but I was burnt one too many times, and to be honest, the guys I once wanted to face off against I thought...
[He points at himself] ...had seen better days.
Yeah, I know that I’ve left here and Elite a few times, but let’s face it, in this type of industry everyone does, just like Stone Cold, Virus the Klown, RDJ and Dark Angel. They say “I’ve had enough of the politics, the BS” and they go, but find out that they just miss the guys and this place in general. So they come back on fire, not literally, though with “Sick” Nick you never know. That crazy SOB might just do anything!
[He allows himself a rye smile] Then the months go by and they get pissed off and the cycle starts again. I’m ok with people saying I’m unfulfilled talent. I’m ok with guys here who think I’m a quitter. Hell, I’m ok with whatever anyone wants to say about me. Maybe at one time I couldn’t take the politics and self-congratulatory backslapping amongst a clique, but now I’m just too long in the tooth to care. But you know what?
[Again he starts to gesticulate with his forefinger] There is one thing I am not ok with. There is one thing...
[He uses his finger to symbolise this] ... that I cannot tolerate and one thing I cannot accept. This is where I wind up this kinda-shoot-but-not-really-a-shoot bit. There is no point in accusations and recriminations. Maybe that’s why we are where we are now, two dead feds, burnt out wrestlers and Killer facing wrestlers from Japan and God knows where else. I mean, I’m not a huge mark anymore- I haven’t a clue who he is facing every week!
[He laughs and continues] [/size]
But hell, at least you get to actually see a match every show so it can’t be bad. But anyway, I digress. Apart from the fact that this place is closing, there is another reason why I’m back. You know, I am just not ok with people that say that Lbm vs Ulster was the greatest feud that either of these companies have seen. You see, I like praise. I like a bit of backslapping and congratulations as much as the next guy. But this praise really pisses me off. Why? Because it says to me why bother?
[Again, he shrugs] Why bother continuing on in this industry when the best you’ve done is already behind you.
[He points over his back with his thumb] When I feuded with “Sick” Nick I said, almost in pleading, that it was my best ever feud. The opinions of everyone else was “It’s good, but it wasn’t as good as with Lbm”.
[He clenches his jaw, then fakes a smile]I watched on television and in the arenas thanks to some pretty nice VIP seats curtesy of LBM as NIN and he almost ripped each other limb from limb in an outstanding feud with brilliant matches. I thought that the Little Big Man would be able to put him vs Ulster in the past for me. I leaned across to the_j-man in the box who said “It wasn’t as good as you and Dijon.”
[He smiles] Now there is a fair chance that he was high at the time, but the sentiment was there. When I go to signings, when I do interviews all I get asked about is that feud with Lbm. It is like Bret Hart, not that I would compare myself to him in the ring. That guy is one of the best ever but when people sum up his career it will be done so in two words- ‘Montreal Screwjob’, well if Screwjob is one word. I mean should there be a hyphen in there? Does that make it two words or one? But anyway, when people sum up my career they will say ‘Ulster vs Lbm’. Now I should be proud of that feud, and the big match at Supershow 5, but I am left unsatisfied. Maybe it is a problem with my physiology, I don’t know.
[Another shrug] Maybe because Lbm built both these companies and has been here so long that he is not lumbered with his albatross around his neck. I have done much in career. Hell, it may have been short but I won a lot of titles, here, GWL and the IWF. But with those places gone I am remembered there for so much more than one moment. Keith Williams said when I was on my last run he didn’t know why I had never been FHT champion. Well here is the answer. Name me a great Ulster match? Anyone?
[He opens his arms to camera as if to invite suggestions] There is the problem. I bust my ass wherever I go, and damnit if I was not one of the best on the mic and in the ring that either Elite or FHT have ever seen. But name my great feuds or matches and you come up with one- Lbm vs Ulster.
[He turns and looks right down the lens of the camera] [/size]
So Lbm,…Dijon, you said you wanted one big challenge before this place shut its doors? Well partner you have it.
[He goes back to addressing the crowd] I am going to kick your ass at the last ever FHT PPV so bad that you will wish you actually did retire one of the 156 times you threatened to.
[Ulster smiles slyly] But this won’t be your average feud. I have no need and no desire to battle each other for the next few weeks. I have no wish to do the whole heel vs. face thing and battle each other week after week in some pseudo physiological mumbo-jumbo. We have done that so many times now that it would be money for old rope. For the next few weeks I say to you and I say to the FHT and Elite fans...
[He spins round in the ring pointing at the fans] ... that we are going to tear this place down. I say that Lbm and Ulster will blow the roof off this place before they lock the doors and entomb our careers with it. For just one moment, one brief moment in this place, let friends be friends and enjoy one last run as a team, as mates before kicking each others ass all over this ring. If we have to sit there and do inside jokes every week, let’s do it. If we need to slag off Keith William’s mom, let’s do it. If we need to go out drinking with midgets again in Las Vegas, well, let’s not do that. It was weird the first time and I hate getting drunk under the table by a midget dressed as Dark Angel.
[He shudders] It’s just plain weird. But if we need to face every last soul in this place and beat them down to prove a point, then hell, we are gonna do it. But come that last show Lbm, rest assured, it will be time little man for you to become….
Just… [the crowd chants along][/size]
…another…victim! [“Fight Music” blasts over the PA system again as Ulster salutes the fans on all sides of the ring before clambering out of the ring.] [/size]
Rachel Beckett: Ulster has laid out a huge personal challenge to Lbm. Will the newly crowned champion accept?
Wally Wilson: He never got his rematch with Ulster, and that defeat really was a blot on his copybook. Rachel, with Venom reappearing tonight, and Keith Williams on his way it really is almost like the good old days. What on earth will happen next in one of the most eventful nights in FHT and Elite’s history. [/b]