I would like to advise potential readers that this story has just been rewritten. The first story in this series was first written more than two years ago. Looking back at the series as a whole, I realised that it needed a lot of work to bring it up to standard, especially with regard to the grammar. Rewriting all of these stories is a considerable undertaking, which will take me some time. Thank you in advance for your patience.
The current status of the rewrite is as follows:
There's A First Time For Everything - Rewrite complete
Opposite Extremes (One shot which fits in after chapter 9 of There's A First Time For Everything) - Rewrite complete
Faces - Rewrite complete
My Fight - Rewrite complete
The New Order - Rewrite complete
Moving Up
Broken Arrow
Revolutionary
Time to Say Goodbye
A Night To Remember
Author's note:
There are original characters in this series which were created by my readers. I offered the chance to have a character feature in the story and selected the ones I liked the most from the submissions I received. I'll list the characters and their creators below so that everyone has the credit they deserve for creating them.
May Devany - created by Willow Edmond
Anna Hollenbeck - created by Debwood-1999
Alexis Styles - created by Shiki94
Sarita Lopez - created by Chaka1967
I thank all of the people named above for the use of their characters and the time they put into creating them.
Friday 19th January 2018
When the car pulled up outside of the factory building that I was visiting, I felt relief wash over me. My reason for feeling that way was that there was no one there waiting for me. That is, no one aside from the two guys wearing black business suits, who obviously worked at the place.
"You get me into some fucking situations, Willow," I complained to my agent, who was sitting beside me in the back of the car. "I mean, a girl changing her name to Ronda Rousey just to get to meet me? Are these fucking people smoking crack or something?"
"Stop whining, Ronda," Willow ordered me. There wasn't even a hint of sympathy in her voice. Willow was a good agent, and since I hired her we had made a real shit load of money for each other. Willow had gotten to know me, and she was often harsh with me when I started moaning about things. When I genuinely needed advice or support, she would give it, but if, like now, she thought that I was just complaining, she wouldn't hear a word of it. Sometimes that pissed me off, but overall we got on just great, which was hardly surprising considering that Willow had been a bit of a failure as far as her career was concerned, until I gave her a shot. Even I had considered firing her at one point, after the first movie that she got me involved in after I left WWE. What a steaming pile of shit that had been. It was a surprise that starring in that thing didn't bury me, but one thing I had learned to be good at was public relations. WWE had done the hard work and made the public love me, I just had to hold onto the ball and run with it. That was why I was about to take time out of my Friday morning to visit a factory which made Adidas products - my wristbands being one of them.
"But seriously though..." I attempted again, but Willow quickly cut me off.
"Enough. Out of the car. Smile. You know the drill."
Yes boss.
I opened the car's door and stepped out into the cold air. The two men who were waiting to greet me must have been freezing their balls off waiting outside, and there was no need for them to do it. As they approached me, I could see that, predictably, they were hyped to meet me. But at the same time, they were surprised to see me dressed in shorts and a muscle tee. Clearly they expected me to show up in a dress or a suit or some such crap. I avoided that kind of thing whenever possible because it didn't present the right kind of image for me. This was Ronda Rousey, not Stephanie McMahon.
Pretending to be as thrilled to meet people as they were to meet me was a talent that I had developed early on in my career with WWE. It was a simple thing to do, but did so much to make me look like the one who went the extra mile, helping me to help me stand out from all of the other wrestlers. How they all failed to see that was something that I found pathetic. I smiled at the two suits as I shook hands with both of them in turn. It was a method of greeting that was more formal than I liked, but I rolled with it. We walked into the building, through the reception area, along a hallway and into a meeting room as one of the guys droned on about what was about to happen and how it would all go down. I paid little attention to him, while trying to look like I was.
You're going to film me giving a personalised wristband to some nut job girl who is crazy enough to change her fucking name to Ronda Rousey for that specific reason. How much explaining do you need to do, really?
Despite however many of those wristbands had been sold over the past couple of years - I had no idea of the number - there was only one with Ronda Rousey personalised on it, until today at least. I knew that for sure, because the first edition wristbands, before Adidas took over production of them, were not available with personalisation. When Adidas decided to offer personalisation, I instructed them that if anyone attempted to request Ronda Rousey as the name, the confirm button would grey out and make processing the request impossible. The idea was for people to get their own names on the wristbands, not mine. Now this fruit loop, whoever she was, had decided to change her name to Ronda Rousey in the hope of getting the second such wristband in existence, and having the chance to meet me in the process. Someone, presumably Willow, had found out about it on Twitter or something, and here I was, about to hand over a wristband with Ronda Rousey on it to someone else. It pissed me off, honestly, but Willow was right, it was good publicity, and that was made us the big bucks.
A decorator doesn't refuse to work on a room if he doesn't like the colour of the paint he has to use, I guess.
There was a two man film crew already in the meeting room, and another few minutes dragged by as they bored me with information that I didn't need, relating to the video going up on the front page of Adidas's website.
"I think we're ready, guys," Willow interjected gently. She was able to read me like a book, and had clearly seen a sign of me getting impatient. At least her intervention got things moving more quickly. Another guy appeared from somewhere with a black presentation case which he handed to me. Inside was the wristband that I needed to give to the crazy fan.
The filming began and one of the suits did a quick piece for the camera, explaining what was going on. He asked me how I felt about it, and I smiled and gave some standard bullshit about being honored that someone would go to this kind of extent just to meet me, an ordinary girl from Riverside, California. People loved that kind of humble shit.
The next few minutes, which I spent talking to the girl who was now also called Ronda Rousey, were very awkward for me, but I managed not to let it show. The worst thing was that she looked like she was going to start crying when she walked into the room. I really hated it when that happened. Even so, I chatted to her for a few minutes, and we posed for some pictures with our matching wristbands. Without letting it be noticeable, I glanced around, hoping to make eye contact with Willow. She would know that I meant for her to call and end to it and get me out of there. That was the routine that we had established; when I was doing something like this, Willow would always be nearby, as would a couple of security meatheads if it was a more public event, and one of them would step in and tell me that it was time for me to go. I would then smile, shrug, apologise to whoever I was with, say that there was nothing that I could do, and get the hell out of there. On this occasion though, Willow seemed to be more interested in standing in the corner of the room, mumbling into her phone.
What are you fucking around at? For God's sake, get over here.
Eventually, we finished the filming and Ronda Rousey Two left the room, with her life now made. One of the suits went with her. Willow walked slowly over to me, but she was still on the phone. I listened to her half of the conversation, impatiently at first, but after only a few words it grabbed my attention.
"As I said, if you can convince her, it's definitely possible. We'll obviously need to tie it in with Wasteland too, but you guys are good with that kind of thing."
"Yes."
"We can talk about that."
"What? Sunday? Why don't you give us a bit of notice, huh?"
I smiled as I carried on listening. Not many people did sarcasm like Willow.
"I see."
"Yeah."
"Right. I can put her on now."
"Sure."
Willow moved her phone away from her head and whispered something to me that I definitely hadn't expected to hear. "Hunter Helmsley. WWE."
I hardly needed to be told the name of the company. I smiled as I took Willow's phone. There was only one possible reason that Hunter would be calling for me. I was surprised that it had taken this long, honestly. Very surprised. "Hey, Hunter. What's up?" I greeted him, making sure that my tone conveyed that we were speaking as equals. The guy wasn't my boss any more. That time was a long way in the past. I liked the guy, but he needed to know where we both stood.
"Hi, Ronda. How are you?" He sounded cheerful enough.
"Right now? Interested, let's say. So, what's the idea?"
"Huh?" Hunter asked.
I had already decided not to fuck around with the guy. He was coming to me, not the other way around. Whether I liked him or not, that meant that I was on the front foot with this thing from the off, and that was how I wanted it to be. "I figure you're not calling to invite me over to dinner," I replied evenly. "You want me back at WWE. You've just been talking about it with Willow, and she hasn't blown you off, which means you're offering enough money. I don't honestly care how much. She does my negotiating. The creative idea is what'll decide if this happens or not. So, what is it?"
"Uh, right," Hunter hesitated for a moment, which made me grin. My abruptness had surprised him. "Well, I'll be honest, we had Rock lined up for this thing, but I just found out that he busted an ankle yesterday while filming something for his latest movie."
"You're telling me I'm your second choice?" I asked, not faking the irritation.
"Yeah," he responded flatly.
Nothing like the truth, I suppose. He's trying to send a message with that comment. Ignore the bait.
"Fine," I said with a shrug. "What's the idea?"
Over the next couple of minutes, Hunter proceeded to detail what he had in mind for my return to WWE, if I agreed to do it, and I had to admit to myself that he had me on the hook. The idea was a really good one, and it would make the fans lose their shit, which was the main thing for both Hunter and myself. That kind of thing meant money for WWE, and for me. WWE would also work in a bunch of references to my latest movie, Wasteland, which had just had it's cinema release and was doing insane numbers at the box office, a fact that was actually a bit of a surprise to all involved, including me.
"Alright, I'm up for that," I told Hunter. "I'll pass you back to Willow. She'll work everything else out with you."
"Great," Hunter said, a smile evident in his voice. The guy loved to make money for WWE, and there was definitely nothing wrong with that. He knew that he had just made himself a lot of it, too, even with whatever he was going to have to pay me.
When I handed the phone back to Willow, she surprised me by telling Hunter that she would call him back later. I wasn't really focused on her anyway, or the guy from Adidas who I was saying goodbye to. The only thing that matter to me was that in just two days I would be back at WWE. That would be interesting. It would be interesting a long time before the Royal Rumble event actually got started. I was already looking forward to seeing several people backstage, and not all of them would be looking forward to seeing me, that was for sure.