"'Cyberfights?' The fuck is that?" Jon Moxley thought, reading from the wrinkled paper and placing an unlit cigarette between his lips. He'd found a folded-up, typed letter in the locker room after practice, having heard it crumple underneath his shoe as he was leaving. In addition to natural curiosity taking over, he had a long-rooted habit of picking up nearly anything he found on the ground – a survival mechanism invented by a child who'd practically raised himself.
The letter contained frustratingly little information. Simply the address to a small recreation center in the next city over, a time and day just a week hence, a phone number, and the rather vague title that was buzzing about his brain.
In spite of his encyclopedic knowledge of professional wrestling, of both the biggest stages of them all and the myriad of indy circuits he'd been working for in the past few years, he'd never once heard of... this.
"Stupidest name I ever heard of," Jon mumbled to himself behind his cigarette. Still, he was at the point in his career that he would work for any wrestling company that would take him, for any match, any time, against anyone. He was hungry in a manner that could only be satisfied by bigger and bigger success in the industry he loved.
Folding up the letter and stuffing it into his back pocket, he absently strolled out of the locker room and into the alley behind the gym. A familiar young man in a paisley bandana, a tank top and black shorts was leaning against the brick wall and spitting into an empty soda bottle next to the door. His intense, dark gray eyes twitched towards the opening door and locked onto Jon.
"Hey Sami," Jon greeted, giving the shorter man's shoulder a firm nudge.
Sami returned the favor with a slightly too-hard chop to Jon's chest, and the two traded joking but still painful blows before Jon settled against the wall next to him moments later. The two had been competing together in a tag team for long enough to consider each other friends, and Jon would go as far as to say Sami was like a younger brother to him. There really weren't any taboo subjects between them, being young, male, and vulgar.
"Y'ever heard of somethin' called Cyberfights?" he asked while he worked on lighting the cigarette dangling from his mouth. Sami had a similar wealth of knowledge about wrestling, and the two tended to fill in the holes in each others' memory banks.
Sami's eyes bulged out of his head and he broke out into a choking guffaw. It took him a moment for the coughing to die down, and after spitting a considerable amount of tobacco-infused saliva into the bottle, Sami was able to snicker through his response.
"Where'd you hear about that shit?" His eyes were nearly sparkling with anticipation. Almost as if he were about to reveal some scandalous, filthy secret.
After taking a long drag and exhaling, Jon retrieved the letter from his pocket and unfolded it for Sami to read himself. "Found this in the locker room," he explained as Sami glanced over the document.
"Probably Jacobs dropped it," his friend guessed. "He's done it before, mentioned it when he was shitfaced once."
"Done what?"
"He worked it before, it's just a... wrestling company." Sami drew out the last two words as if there was some innuendo behind them.
Clearly he wasn't letting on as much as he knew, and it was putting an annoyed lump in the pit of Jon's stomach. He snatched the paper away and snapped, "Shit, if you're not gonna tell me about it, nevermind."
Sami burst into another fit of giggling before patting Jon on the shoulder. "Okay, okay. You're gonna fuckin' piss yourself here. This is great."
Jon smirked, smoke escaping from between his teeth. He was ready to laugh off the massive amounts of confusion this stupid little letter had caused him. "What, do you get lightsabers or some shit?" He was familiar with some of the more irreverent companies, ones that had a bit more fun with the story portion of wrestling. In fact he recalled watching a match once where the stipulation involved time travel.
"No, man, not even close. Listen up, all right, I'm gonna tell you all about... Cyberfights." He was starting to use his "New Horror" voice, the one he put on while filming his threatening, ultraviolent promos.
Jon got comfortable. This was sure to take a little while.
Hunched over, using slow and deliberate hand gestures, Sami began his tale. "One cannot research the company known as Cyberfights. Nothing on the vast and abyssal internet can give you any real information about what it well and truly is. And even among those in the know, it is discussed only in hushed and fearful tones, whispered between performers, revealed only to those who ask."
"... Okaaaay." Jon eyed his friend with a large measure of exasperation. After all this buildup he was still no closer to figuring out what the hell this company was about.
"Performed with no audience, only to two cameras and a referee, the style focuses mainly on submission holds. It is filmed and sold quietly from the standalone website, which reveals nothing unless you have a paid subscription."
"Sounds like a porn site," Jon laughed, starting to bore a bit of the story.
There was a pregnant pause. Sami was absolutely beaming with mischief in his eyes.
Things were starting to click together. "What? Is it porn?"
"Of sorts." Sami dropped the theatrics and pulled a tin of chewing tobacco out of his shorts pocket. "It's porn for people who get off to pro wrestling. Money's pretty good, from what I hear. Better than a lot of the shows we've worked. That's what Jacobs said, at least."
Somehow it didn't surprise Jon that their acquaintance and oftentimes opponent Jimmy Jacobs had been involved in it. Even those without that proclivity could agree that he was kinda pretty.
"Damn, Jacobs," Jon shook his head in disbelief. "Gettin' paid to fuck. Lucky bastard."
"That's the thing though." Sami stuffed a bit of chewing tobacco between his lower lip and teeth. "It's softcore. Nobody gets naked, nobody fucks. Most people could watch it and think it's just wrestling."
"How is it porn if nobody fucks?" Mox took the last drag on his now much smaller cigarette and let it fall to the asphalt. From what he'd seen, pornography usually involved people having sex with each other. Or themselves. Or one of those fancy machines.
"It's kinda fucked up, right? People buy it, though. Takes all kinds, I guess."
Though it was baffling him to his core, the idea was intriguing. Not just getting paid more to do what he already loves to do, but the idea of wrestling just for the purpose of sexual arousal. The adrenaline and pumping blood of the act of wrestling and performing for a crowd had given Jon Moxley some odd moments in the ring, which were rather difficult to hide if he forgot to wear a jock strap or compression shorts.
Notwithstanding, he could admit to himself that he could get off on causing pain every now and then. His job wasn't necessarily to hurt people, on paper. But the more extreme the company, the more likely it was that he needed to cause some measure of pain to achieve certain spots. Such as powerbombing Drake Younger through a table, or tossing Robert Anthony onto a pane of safety glass. He would easily find himself tingling whenever he pricked someone in the forehead with his trademark fork.
Plus, wrestling was already a lot of sweaty, shirtless men grabbing each other for extended periods of time.
He could see the appeal.
"Might call that number," Jon said, somewhat quietly and without thinking. "Sounds like easy money."
Sami snickered and gave the taller man a rough pat on his cheek. "With that ugly mug? I don't think you'd even be allowed in the building."
"Hey, shut the fuck up." Jon riposted with a slap to Sami's wrist. "You know I'm super sexy champion of the world material." He shrugged. "Maybe not as sexy as Jacobs, but I'd fuck me if I could."
Like it did far more often than normal, Jon and Sami got into one of those "fuck, marry, kill" conversations about various members of the locker room that dragged far too long and were far too well-thought out to be entirely joking. Some time later they said their goodbyes and proceeded to their respective homes.
Jon Moxley made a phone call as soon as he shut the door behind him that afternoon.