The first thing I realized as my mind slowly came back to consciousness that almost my entire body ached. The second thing that I realized that except for my wrestling shorts and boots, I was naked. In the next five seconds I wondered why I wasn't dead already.

The last thing that I remembered was that I was sitting in the locker room after the latest WWE show. I heard a door open behind me and I remembered calling out but the next thing that happened was that whoever the attacker was I had gotten nailed in the back of the head with a chair.

I slowly took a look around the room that I found myself in. Except for the two chairs and table, there was nothing out of the ordinary except for a small window that was shining sunlight through. At least now I knew that I had been out the entire night and that I had been left in a heap on the floor the entire night.

The door slammed opened and I groaned as my eyes tried to focus on whoever came in. Two guys, dressed entirely in black and wearing pistols at their sides, stepped into the room. One of the guys walked over, grabbed my arm and forced me to my feet and forcibly pushed me into one of the chairs and I almost fell out of the chair.

"What the hell is going on?" I muttered as I tried to get my head to focus somewhat on what was happening.

After a moment, I heard the voice of the guy who went by the name of Triple H in the ring outside, say, "I told you I would take care of this Nexus punk. Whatever they have planned, we'll figure it out. Trust me."

So that was it. Ever since the WWE programming had been invaded by a group of young wrestlers who had been shafted during their first supposedly 'open' competition, wrestlers were defecting and joining the part of the company that was calling itself the Nexus which I was a part of.

WWE, the largest media and entertainment company in the world, had gone through this once before with the rise of New World Order Wrestling which was still going strong. The WWE had tried to match the brutality of the other wrestling organization but realized that the only way that they would survive was to keep things more family oriented instead of the brutal fighting and wrestling that happened at the other organization.

Triple H walked into the room, wearing a traditional business suit, tried to smile which was obviously faked and sat down in the chair opposite me. He dropped a folder down on the table, leaned back slightly and breathed out. Of course, he was notorious for having bad breath and this was obvious now. He was a hack in the ring and was a hack out of the ring.

"What the fuck do you want?" I grumbled as my head finally started to clear and I understood what a bad situation I was in.

"I just want to talk," Triple H said as he opened the folder and started going through the pages. I could tell easily that he had my personnel file and that it would include everything that I had done in my lifetime from every speeding ticket to each of my results in and out of the ring.

"Talk. Right," I said. "That's bullshit and you know it. Why don't you let me go and I will forget this ever happened."

He shook his head in response and smiled like a wolf circling prey. "Can't do that," he said. "I need some answers and one way or another I'm going to get those answers."

"I thought that you and the other lapdogs knew everything that was going on," I said fully knowing that comment was going to get my face bashed in a couple of times by one of the goon squad members. Maybe I would be lucky and Triple H would do the honors.

"You don't want to piss me off," Triple H said. "I'm not in the mood and you're not helping me get into a better mood."

I looked at Triple H and laughed. "I'm the one dressed in my wrestling shorts and nothing else and you want me to get you into a better mood? Isn't that what your wife does? Oh wait… she was screwing Edge last time I checked," I said right before Triple H leaned forward and slammed his fist into my face.

Somehow I was able to stay in the chair but realized that I was going to have another appointment with the dentist shortly if this kept up. I knew provoking him was a bad idea especially with two guys who were carrying guns at the door but they didn't react at all. Perfectly trained goons of course.

I watched as Triple H calmed down slightly and said, "Let's try this again. You're part of Nexus and you know as well as I do that you guys have something big planned. I want to know what those plans are and you're going to help me figure them out."

I shook me head honestly. "Look," I said, "I don't know what the fuck you're talking about. Wrestlemania isn't for three months so I have no clue what is going to happen if anything."

"Wrong answer," Triple H said as the two security guards came over, grabbed my by the arms and stood me up. Hunter grabbed a set of brass knuckles out of his pocket and walked around the table and proceeded to punch me three times in the stomach.

I doubled over in pain and felt like I was going to cough up blood before I was thrown down unceramonially back in the chair. I tried to keep my head somewhere clear as the pain shot through my body and I hoped against hope that he would get tired of this intimidation technique because it should as hell would not work.

"Let's try this again," Triple H said as he started looking through my folder again. "You were always part of the Nexus correct? Ever since Barrett approached you and explained the entire situation and how we had supposedly rigged the competition against you."

"Supposedly is not the word I would use," I said with a glare. "We all know that you rigged it but nobody would admit the truth on your side."

Triple H ignored the comment and continued to flip through the pages. "You were one of the main people that got both CM Punk and John Cena over to your side," he said. "We didn't care about CM Punk leaving but John Cena… I always wanted to know how the hell you pulled that off."

I didn't want to tell him that Cena had been open to the Nexus since we first made ourselves known. And it wasn't all my doing when he finally accepted our offer and put on the armband that signified him as a member of Nexus.

"Easy," I said. "He got tired of eating the crumbs off your lap and decided that there had to be another way to do things."

"One more outburst like that and I'll make sure you don't walk for a long time," Triple H said as he motioned to one of the guards. The pistol came out of the holster and was ready to fire while aiming straight at my left knee.

"Shall we try this again?" Triple H asked. "I don't like taking no for an answer."

I looked at Triple H, frowned and wondered what I should say. Looking at the guy with the pistol aimed at my knee, I sighed and looked back at Triple H.

"Fine," I said with resignation in my voice. "Where do you want me to start?"

"The beginning," Triple H replied as he sat back in his chair. He looked at the two security guards and smiled. "See boys, a little intimidation go a long way in our field."

I looked at Triple H, sighed and shook my head. This was going to be a hell of a long day.

But if he asked me for things from the beginning, that's what I was going to give them.

I was born…

"Not that fucking far back!" Triple H yelled at me as I started to tell him my story from the very beginning. "Start when Barrett approached you…"

That was what I knew he wanted but it was much easier to see how far he could get pushed before he had one of the guards put a round in my knee.

Fine. That's what he wanted and that's what he was going to get.

SEVERAL MONTHS AGO AFTER NXT SEASON ONE ENDS

I threw my bag down onto the hotel bed and screamed at the top of my lungs. My mind was still going back over and over in my head and how the finale of NXT had gone down. I had been given my shot against Wade Barrett for a contract with the WWE and watched as the referee clearly screwed me out of the championship so Barrett could get the contract. It was as bad as the Montreal Screwjob but that landed up with having both wrestlers dead in a shoot out a few years later.

There was a knock on the door and I swore. "Go the fuck away!" I yelled. I honestly hoped that whoever was on the other side of the door wouldn't go away so I could beat the living crap out of him or her and feel somewhat better. Of course, alcohol would do that too and that was on my agenda as well.

The knock came again and I said, "Are you stupid? Leave me the fuck alone!"

"I ain't going to go away until you open this door!" Wade Barrett said from the other side of the door.

Really? This day was just getting worse and worse. He was truly stupid to think that I wasn't going to open that door and throw him out the window on the other side of my room.

I walked over to the door, took a deep breath, and opened the door. Barrett was standing there was though he was the one who got screwed and not me.

"I don't know what the hell you are doing here but I don't care," I began with and was immediately interrupted by Barrett walking into the room and motioning for me to close the door behind him.

"You are lucky that I don't kick your ass like I did in the ring tonight," I said as I closed the door and looked at Barrett wondering what the hell was going on. I just wanted to get drunk, get some sleep and wake up tomorrow morning realizing that my wrestling career was probably over with.

Barrett looked at me and nodded. "Trust me," he said, "I shouldn't be the one with that contract. It should be you."

That stopped me for a moment since he basically admitted that I had been screwed. I wondered if he in fact had known what was going to happen or that he was as surprised as the crowd or anybody associated with the WWE.

"Excuse me?" I asked. "Then what the hell happened?"

Barrett sighed as he sat down on the bed next to my bag and shook his head. "Simply put?" he replied. "We all got screwed. McMahon pulled me into his office right after the show went off the air. They had chosen me to win the competition long before it had started."

"Which means that none of us had a shot at winning," I replied. "So what happened to the rest of them: Young, Ryan... all part of the fix?"

Barrett nodded. "You would be correct," he said. "Ryan and Young got paid off for being attacked and removed from the competition. They got paid off by McMahon, mysteriously got injured and got pulled from the competition."

I looked at Barrett and sighed. "Again, that leads me back to the question of the day: What the hell are you doing here?" I asked my anger starting to rise. It would have been easier to take my chances over at New World Order Wrestling but Bischoff, Hogan and the rest of those in power were even worse than McMahon and everybody in the WWE.

"It's time something changes in the WWE," Barrett said. "And with the most of the wrestlers in the pocket of McMahon or one of the other guys in power, anybody who doesn't kiss ass won't get ahead."

I thought about the nWo and how they ran things, it might have been easier just to jump ship and try to get in there even though the process was even worse than in the WWE. Unless you were hand picked by one of the owners, there was no way that you were going to get your foot in the door unless you were damn lucky.

"What do you have in mind?" I asked. "Every time somebody tried something like that, they would land up being made an example of and get back in line. CM Punk tried to do it twice and now he does everything that McMahon and Triple H wants."

Barrett looked at me and frowned. "Not sure yet," he said. "But I think that if we all got together and talked this through maybe we can start moving things along. I still have the contract and I'm sure they'll use all of you as jobbers so that anybody who needs an easy match can do it without a problem."

"Count me in Wade," I replied. "But you better be sure about this. If I land up in some cell because of this…"

NOW

"And look at where you landed up," Triple H said laughing. "Like the little criminal you are. Vince doesn't like a break in ranks and thinking that you can do what you want in this business."

I looked at him and said, "Do you want me to continue or are you happy just sitting there talking to the wall?"

"Funny," Triple H replied. "Really funny. Fine. Go ahead. Talk some more and sooner or later we'll get some answers."

Author's Afterword:

Thanks for reading this far. This story deals with wrestling in a different light. I'm using wrestling as being real and effectively the number one sport in the United States. There are two main organizations dedicated to wrestling: The New World Order (which was once World Championship Wrestling) and the WWE. Within the WWE, there is a large faction of wrestlers who are members of a group called the Nexus who are trying to stand up to the power that those like Triple H and Mr. McMahon have.

I honestly don't know where this story will end up. I have laid the groundwork for the next couple of chapters. I hope you continue reading and enjoying it as much as I enjoy writing it.

Thanks and reviews are always appreciated. Honest criticism is great but just saying, "This sux!" isn't going to do anything or me.