Tournament of Fate, Round 2
Kevin Owens vs. Sunset Shimmer
"Ring the bell!" DING-DING!
Owens immediately runs into Sunset at full speed, crushing her in the corner with a big corner splash in a way akin to his NXT debut match against the eco-jobber CJ Parker, and has her collapsing down to the bottom turnbuckle, arms draped over opposing ropes at her sides.
"Oof! There we go!" Tazz exclaims. "Time to get this match goin'!"
"Well, we're off to a fast start!" Joey proclaims following the one-and-done corner smash.
Owens dashes back and, with little speed lost, goes in for the clothesline...
...only to hit nothing and smack his back into the turnbuckles, as Sunset gets the fuck outta dodge, rolling over the bottom rope and flopping to the floor to escape.
"Sunset evades!" says Styles.
"And that's what usually happens when you start too fast!" Tazz retorts on the previously-stated 'fast start'.
Owens rolls out of the turnbuckle off the failed cannonball, and stands up to glare daggers down at Sunset on the outside, as she stands at the apron, a bit slumped over as she grips onto the bottom rope, catching her breath for a moment after a wind-knocking start.
However, KO simply doesn't have the time to see to the match continuing in the ring, as he slides out and charges after her, enacting a brief chase sequence as runs around the ring, attempting to keep her distance with the Canadian prizefighter.
This momentary chase ends just as quickly as it starts, wrapping around from one side of the ring to its very opposite, where Kevin's devotion to pursuing the smaller opponent is halted...
...Halted very suddenly, in fact, by the shopping cart that was still hanging around at ringside since Sunset brought it in during the first round, still left to be used whenever, even after it was completely ignored in the Brock Lesnar vs. Star Butterfly fight just a few moments ago; had taken position behind it and has just stopped Owens by throwing it in between the two competitors
"He really needs to watch his surroundings!" JR considers the situation.
Running up to the apron, managing to leap up with enough height to grab the middle rope and help herself up, Sunset runs across, past the cart, and jumps at Owens...
...managing to catch him in the face with a running dropkick, forcing him back-first right into the barricade!
"And he also needs to watch where Shimmer's feet go!" Joey notes.
As Sunset takes a moment to get up, not getting the best cushioning off that dropkick and as a result, landing on the hard mat below, a somewhat obnoxious fan in the front row with a sign that says "Look, I'm on Twitch!" with the streaming site's logo noticeable on it waves said sign around at the camera, right in front of Kevin's face.
The Canadian wrestler's natural reaction is the swipe it out of that fan's hands, yelling at the poor guy for getting in his way.
Meanwhile, Sunset has just got up, and looks a bit displeased with Kevin's attitude, especially after he throws the sign at her just to solidify his jackassery, to barely any effect.
"You wanna defend this guy?!" Owens asked, annoyed that the front-row fan has managed to get someone to stand up for him against the Intercontinental Champion. Good thing one of the ringside cameras were close enough to capture his voice enough to be heard clearly.
"Y'know, I was an asshole like you," Sunset begins to respond, approaching him at a closer level. "There's a reason I stopped."
Handing off a brave slap to the wrestler, Sunset immediately gets a response in the form of a strong shove from Owens, causing her to bump into the weapon-loaded cart.
Owens runs in for some sort of tackle or whatever...
...only for Sunset to dodge him, and cause him to run right into the shopping cart! In turn, this results in him literally going through the cart, with the hatch on the front flipping up and causing him to ram himself face first into the various objects carried within the cart.
"And right through the shopping cart he goes!" Jim Ross proclaims, as the crowd cheers.
Joey adds, "Just shows that you probably shouldn't mess with Sunset Shimmer in the long run; if New Jack couldn't handle her, who can?"
"I dunno, Kevin's been through worse, and Sunset hasn't been through enough in her match and a half so far..." says Tazz.
"That was a rhetorical, Tazz, but who knows; the match is far from over..." Joey responds.
Meanwhile, back to ringside, where Sunset picks up the sign swiped from the front row, and hands it off to the dude that held it. Amusingly, the fan also wore a shirt emblazoned with the logo of the UWU brand, identical to the shirt she wore.
After that brief moment in which she and the fan compliment each other's shirts, Shimmer slides into the ring to soak in the positive atmosphere her carriage of momentum has brought in for the time being, even climbing up to the middle rope in one of the corners to elevate herself a little higher up for the fans to see and snap some choice pictures.
What she doesn't see is Kevin slowly emerging from within the front opening of the cart, holding something that seems to be well hidden within his hand, as he walks towards the apron and rolls in under the bottom rope.
As Sunset turns around towards where Owens has entered the ring...
...he bops her right square in the skull with whatever the weapon he brought in, knocking her right down, flat on her back on the ring mat.
With the crowd turned to boos towards Owens getting the one-up over Sunset for this moment, he opens his weapon-carrying hand, unveiling in clear view an open black stapler...
...and at the same time, the audience begins to recognize the damage done to Sunset's head, as when she begins to pick herself up, a nearby camera operator is in clear view of her head, showing a small but very noticeable line of gray metal, being the staple embedded in the center of her skull – it is this camera angle that ends up projected not only on the live broadcast overseas but also the titantron on the stage, allowing a bit of disgust to go around the crowd.
"Oh my god, just... take a look at that..." Jim Ross, mildly uncomfortable with the staple in the red-and-yellow-haired babe.
"That's the price you pay with this sort of match, even more when you suffer at the hands of something you brought!" Joey states.
"Looks like Kevin Owens might be able to handle this chick..." Tazz stands corrected on behalf of Joey for that statement from a moment ago.
The pain has struck down on Sunset's head like a boot to the head... and then Kevin kicks her back down with a boot to the head. Naturally.
After stopping her from getting up, Owens bounces off the ropes behind him, and jumps onto Sunset with a big running senton, putting his weight down on her with no intention of letting her brace for the impact.
"And that's just to add some more insult to injury!" Tazz proclaims. "Or just injury on top of more injury; whatever's worse..."
Sunset holds her stomach in pain, rolling to her side for a brief moment before Owens shoves her back over, keeping her flat on her back as he guns for a pin.
1! 2-! Kick out!
Tazz notes, "She's still got a lot of willpower in her to kick out of that..."
"She's got the heart to withstand some damage," Joey Styles mentions. "However, I don't know how much damage that one little staple in her head could do."
Jim Ross adds, "It all really depends on if she's dealt with sharp pain, from things like staples, getting embedded in her head before. Highly doubt it..."
In the ring, as commentary rolls on, the action seems to have slowed down, as Owens has Sunset wrapped around an arm in a headlock, bringing the match to a crawl and being a major asshole about it.
That 'major asshole' carries over to the Prizefighter's bragging, greedy proclamations, as he shouts in Sunset's face, "You think you get anything worth shit here?! How much do you think I get paid for this? I make a shit-ton; you oughta get nothin'!"
Joey says, "Kevin Owens, continuing the attitude that has gotten him as far as he's managed so far in the WWE!"
Interestingly eager, Tazz asks, "Eh, he does bring up a fair point; we know Kevin's gotta be getting paid for this tournament, what about people like Sunset?"
"You really think now's a good time to discuss that?" JR asks the Brooklyn-born commentator, feeling he's starting to miss the main point of the situation in the ring.
A minute passes before Sunset begins to manage some built-up power to help herself up to her feet while Kevin's arms continue to keep themselves around her neck. A thin string of dark red drips from where the lone staple is smashed into on her forehead, as she begins to elbow Owens in the gut to progress further through attempting to break the headlock.
Unfortunately, the gut bumps don't seem to build much to her freedom out of being wrapped in Kevin's grasp; however, the backup plan she has seems to be far from ingenious but effective, as she drops down to her knees...
...and wallops Owens right between the legs with a low blow!
"Oh! Right in the nuts!" Joey proclaims.
KO drops Sunset real quick as the usually-illegal blow does a number on him, forcing him away from the headlock as he holds himself below the belt, hoping to quickly recover.
Doesn't do a lot of help for him, as while he's bent over, Sunset runs at him from near the side, almost behind him as she jumps up, and catches him in the left temple with a single-leg dropkick!
"Firin' off like a goddamn rocket with that kick!" Tazz utters in excitement, as Owens slowly plops down on the canvas, just barely clinging onto the bottom rope.
Sliding back out to ringside, Sunset returns to her cart of plunder, taking a hold of a steel chair, one of several that were still yet to be used leading up to this bout.
As Owens finds himself hung up on the bottom rope, looking to find his right of way, Sunset runs with the black metal chair in her hands, jumps up with enough height and angling...
...and dropkicks it right into his face!
"Striking with a steel chair dropkick, intended for nothing but pain!" Joey announces.
Owens flips around from the resulting recoil of that face-smacking impact, keeping himself lying down on the bottom rope, staggered by another in a series of clock-cleaning kicks, as Sunset climbs up to the apron and then up to the top rope across from the right of where Kevin lies.
The audience looks up and stares in attention of the rebellious beaut on the top turnbuckle, raising her arms up as if to gather the positive energy of everyone watching.
"Sunset is leading the world right now, leading a new breed of rebels in this, the beginning of what Heyman considers a new era of his own!" Styles' extensive proclamation sounds off as Shimmer leaps off...
...and manages to nail Owens right in the chest with a crushing elbow drop!
"She connects with the elbow!" JR shouts.
"The high risk has been taken!" exclaims Joey. "The question now is, was the risk worth it?"
Dragging Kevin's heavy body out from the bottom left corner of the ring, Shimmer, her hair a bit of a mess from the wind off her dive, drapes herself over him for the cover.
1! 2! No!
"Kick-out!" says Joey, a tad surprised.
"I guess that risk wasn't enough to power her into the next round of this tournament!" JR understands.
Sunset takes her time getting off Owens and crawling away to keep her distance and rethink things, as she moves on from his shoulder-up to other things for now – for instance, that pesky staple in her head.
Putting a couple fingers on her head, pinching on the tiny metal bane to her healthiness, it takes quite a bit of force for her to yank it out from her head. Sure, it definitely helps you out with getting rid of the consistent dull pain that lasts until the extraction, following the initial sting, but the slight string of blood that has occasionally oozed out of her from the wound seems to slightly thicken, trickling down the side of her head, just past her cheek, as she continues to lay on her right side.
Tazz nods. "Good eye, Sunset; better to get it out right now than to leave it in for any longer."
She stares down at the canvas, her intention to let some drips of red plop down on the mat below – it's not like they won't get a clean mat if it gets too soaked; look at how the Orchid v. Ambrose match ended up!
The blood won't really bother her much in the later parts of this match, but she might as well get to the nearest medic backstage when she's done, but, as she sits on both knees, she brings her head back up from staring down-
SMACK!
And then she suddenly feels herself getting struck in the side of the head by the sole end of a boot, as Owens, somehow up before Sunset could get to her knees, lands a superkick that manages a direct hit!
"Whoa! Superkick!" Tazz yelps.
"Kevin's up and at 'em, and Sunset suffers for it!" JR utters.
Sunset spirals back down into a mostly laid-out position, sitting at the lower turnbuckle at the bottom right corner, as Owens leaves the ring, ending up right near where Sunset's cart of weaponry sits. He picks up the steel chair that was used for his face by his opponent just moments ago, and immediately heads back in...
"Owens must be thinking... well, creatively, for ideas to do with that chair..." says JR.
Stepping back to get some distance across the ring, KO wraps an arm around to hold the chair behind his back, and starts running...
...front-flipping towards Sunset, and slamming back-first into her with a chair-assisted cannonball!
Joey says, "Cannonball with the steel chair! That's probably almost as painful as a legitimate cannonball!"
"'Creatively' is the right word to describe that!" Tazz comments.
Joey interjects, "I'm not too keen on agreeing, but I might as well..."
Sunset is still hung up at the bottom of the corner, relatively less conscious than before due to the chair elevating the damage from Kevin rolling his body into her face. Due to this, he has to grab her and drag her out of the corner.
Placing her in a front-necklock position while drapping her left arm around his head, Owens lifts her up for a vertical suplex... and then lets go while shoving her by her chest down to the canvas!
"Now he's just... tossing her around and about, like a sandbag," says JR.
While Sunset is set in place on the slightly dirty canvas, Owens runs the ropes, and keeps her grounded by jumping on her and slamming himself back-first onto her comparatively small body with another big senton!
"Second senton of the match – he's just makin' her suffer at this point!" Tazz says.
"Not to mention he hasn't gone for a pin for quite some time..." Joey additionally notes.
Quickly getting back up, Owens runs the ropes again as Sunset begins to roll over, holding her belly in agony.
"And here we go again...!" Joey states...
KO jumps and falls back again...
...this time, the senton hits with Sunset face-down, spine-to-spine contact as he continues to demolish her!
"And again!" Tazz proclaims, still attempting to sound optimistic even when he doesn't fully like what he sees in the ring. "Think that one hurt worse than the last!"
Whatever sort of momentum Sunset had before getting utterly shut down seems to be falling from her grasp. She is faltering in this match with the sentons crashing down on her from a man more than twice her size.
And even then, despite doing enough damage to warrant a pinfall attempt just to see if the free-spirited babe of red and yellow has had enough, Kevin doesn't seem to take up on the offer – mercy is something he does not want to show, especially not in a tournament known as the Tournament of Fate.
As he kicks her while she's down, and exits the ring, he wants to be sure that the fate of Sunset is guaranteed to be a loss in this match and an ejection from this tournament as a result.
"What's Owens looking for here?" JR wonders, as Owens throws upwards the cloth hanging down from the apron.
Looking under the apron, it takes a moment before the fans discover what he has found, as he slowly ejects a wooden table from underneath the ring.
"It looks like he's going back to strats he planned on doing in his previous match..." Joey assumes.
"Well, last time he tried using a table, he ended up putting himself through it," Tazz recalls. "Usually, that sort of stuff would come back to haunt him, but it doesn't look like it."
Kevin sets up the table to stand on both legs, with it standing somewhat vertical towards the apron, one long end towards it and the other end just barely touching the barricade.
After getting the table ready for putting someone through, Kevin turns around and looks at the shopping cart that still sits, still filled to the brim of objects that could harm.
"The compilation of objects turned into brutal weapons in that shopping cart can prove to be a gateway to creative ideas in this tournament," JR details. "Lord knows what Kevin's going to put together."
In the ring, Sunset is busy making some sort of recovery, clinging onto the ropes for elevation as she struggles to get back on her feet. Owens does not seem to notice, as he scrapes through the miscellaneous objects in the cart, from 2x4s to more chairs (one of which is just a weird little stool with wheels and such).
Sunset sees the table set up just near where Kevin is, and looks a bit intrigued with the situation before her.
"Well, Sunset's back up, but... now what?" Joey asks.
Forward thinking isn't an essential skill for a match like this, and for Sunset Shimmer, she needs to think quickly to find a way to stop Kevin Owens' planning-ahead dead in its tracks.
And so she does, as she jumps over the top rope...
...and smashes the table with a big double stomp.
"Whoa! The hell?" Joey shouts, perplexed by Sunset's interesting game-plan.
"Oh! Well... alright! That works!" Tazz proclaims right as Sunset personally breaks the table under her feet. "Might as well satisfy the demographic in Dudleyville – you know they love their tables!"
Hearing the sound of crushed wood behind him, Kevin springs around and sees Sunset sitting in the rubble of the now-smashed table. Some scattered laughter is heard around the arena as the big Canadian looks none too pleased.
Looking up to Owens with a casual smile, Shimmer taunts him with an equally-casual flip of the double-bird, throwing up both middle fingers for a brief second, before running away. Owens naturally begins to chase after her, engaging in another chase akin to one of the first sequences of this bout.
"Oh boy! Cue the Benny Hill!" Tazz quips as the firey red/yellow-head starts making a lap around the ring.
However, after Sunset sprints over the stairs at the top right corner of the ring, Kevin halts himself, getting a bit of an idea while his opponent continues to run around.
Turning around, he prepares to catch the sneaky snake of a gal, and as Sunset makes a full lap around, just passing by her shopping cart of pillaged hardcore goodies, she's but a second too late to notice Kevin just about to catch her, almost running full-speed into him...
...only to be tossed up and then caught with her legs on his shoulder...!
"Uh-oh!" Joey alerts.
JR announces, "The pop-up!"
"Oh shit! She's in trouble!" Tazz realizes.
Running in the direction of the shopping cart with much force being built up, Owens holds Sunset in the powerbombing position...
...and then throws her into the cart, smashing her against her own inventory of painful loot!
"Powerbomb into the cart!" Joey shouts. "And that is far from a soft landing for her!"
"A lot of uneven surfaces in that thing," Tazz mentions. "Probably would be a bad idea to gun for a pin on that."
Supporting Tazz's belief, Kevin Owens doesn't seem to be looking for a pin; instead, after a moment of thought to himself, looking around at the crowd of which mildly disapproves him, he walks over to the back end of the cart...
…he grabs the handle... and he starts to wheel the cart around the ringside area, with Sunset still lying, still relatively conscious enough to feel herself being carried around.
Joey Styles begins to realize that, with Owens bringing the cart around and up the ramp, something bad might begin to go down "Oh no – this doesn't look good for Sunset..."
"She's gettin' carted away into the sunset, it looks like," Tazz attempts to quip about with odd wordplay, as Owens brings her, along with the cart, up to the top of the ramp.
"Kevin's bringing this up to the stage; ladies, gentlemen, anyone watching, this may not end well, but I assure you, this is the price one can pay if they don't think fast enough to escape out of this..." Jim Ross extensively assures the viewers watching.
Shimmer has barely budged within the cart as it has been brought up to one side of the stage. Kevin Owens looks down past where the elevated flooring ends, seeing what looks like a nine, maybe ten-foot fall ahead.
Good enough for him.
He grabs the cart by its sides, beginning to lift it off the ground with a light bit of struggle occurring as he shows some of what his strength can do...!
"Ohshit - uhhhh... Kevin?" Tazz sputters a bit, a bit like 'what-the-fuck-is-he-doing?' as Kevin puts his upper-body strength to the test here.
"He's lifting her up and... and I think he might throw her off!" Joey alerts. "This is—this is definitely far from the standards that wrestling put together, and even farther as a fan-satisfier if you want to deal with your opponent!"
"To him, it certainly looks like it'll satisfy him," Tazz replies, "but... I don't know if Kevin's gonna be able to get a clean toss with all that shit in there!"
He did.
With a strong roar, Kevin tosses the cart off the stage, getting a bit of distance going as it heads off the stage with just Sunset barely separating from it, flailing about in the air for a brief moment...
...before she lands hard on the cold flooring, with the cart, and everything in it, following suit, landing on her especially and almost burying her in her own painful trash heap!
The crowd groans from the absolute crash-and-burn of Shimmer and her now-trashed shopping cart, but at the same time, while there was much venomous hatred towards Owens, those who were more welcoming of the extreme couldn't help but cheer.
Ultimately, the thousands off their seats on on their feet engaged in a split chant-off, with the moderately-satisfied chanting 'HO-LY SHIT!', while those who just wanted to focus on Owens on that moment alone shouted 'YOU SICK FUCK!'
"The fans are going insane, in more ways than one!" Joey addresses the audience, as Owens climbs down the stage onto the floor, passing by a somewhat worried Earl Hebner, who has been looking over Sunset in the past half-minute since that brutal crash.
Shoving Hebner off of Sunset and piling himself over her instead, he shouts at Earl to "Count it!"
The referee reluctantly complied.
1!
2!
3!
The bell rings as Owens immediately gets off of Sunset, bumping past Hebner as he climbs back up to the stage, to the beat of his theme.
("Fight" - CFO$)
"The winner of this match... Kevin Owens!"
Owens brings his arms up, shouting "What's why I'm the champ!" as the commentators went at their own pace.
"Jeez... just when you thought Zack Ryder in a wheelchair was the most unworthy of getting chucked off that stage..." Tazz references a previous incident to further the point of this insane ending to a quite intense competition.
"Kevin Owens advances to the next round and... well, for the second match in a row, we might be looking at someone having gotten really hurt thanks to the winner." Joey details the outcome.
As a replay came across the top screen on the stage of the far-from-graceful landing Sunset just took, getting chucked off the stage along with her cart, Sunset was being attended to by the medical staff. Owens looks to be heading backstage, after being handed his Intercontinental Championship belt along the way, as the commentators went on.
"Sunset Shimmer may be looking to join her friend Star Butterfly backstage among the medical facilities, but on the other hand, Kevin will meet several others in the semi-finals of the Tournament of Fate," JR mentions, "and I just got confirmation that Owens will meet Daniel Bryan in the third and penultimate round of the Tournament of Fate – Brock Lesnar's opponent, on the other hand, will be determined in the next match, the last of the these four second-round matchups, and the final match of Day 1, in what has been proven as quite the showcase of violent combat!"
Joey continues off of JR's words, "I'm sure Paul Heyman must be satisfied with the second round so far, given his track record for extreme moments, but will it all amp up any further as we reach the end of the first day of the Tournament of Fate? We'll find out soon!"
The last image before a fade to the UWU logo for a break between matches, is a somewhat far-away shot of a slightly bloodied Sunset Shimmer being helped up by Earl Hebner and the unnamed medics...