chapter 262
December 4th, 2020
Christmas, Stephanie thinks, looking at her calendar with a wistful smile. They're officially into December, which means the biggest holiday of the season is upon them, as well as the new year. She taps her finger against her lips and mulls it over, amazed that the year is finally almost over. It's been a struggle, but she's accomplished it. Held Team Work together despite everything, and even helped WWE in the same regards as much as she could.
She leans back against the couch and sighs, a small smile flickering across her face. Now's not the time for self-congratulations, however. There's still a show to be booked, so she leans forward and hovers over her laptop, getting to it.
The night kicks off with Lana taking on Natalya, and ultimately defeating her. King Corbin wins against AJ Styles, and SLAPJACK finds success against Tracey Williams. Jordynne Grace and Jazz brawl for a lengthy, hardhitting contest, and ultimately Grace walks out victorious.
Leon Ruff squares off against Damien Priest, their history clearly fresh on his mind as he fights with everything he has, eventually rolling out of the way of him diving down from the top and snagging ahold of him, sneaking a win against him with a schoolboy pin. He then stumbles out of the ring and up the ramp in a hurry, leaving his former friend to gape after him in shock and annoyance.
Orange Cassidy defeats Rey Mysterio, and Cameron Grimes finds himself tagging with Cedric Alexander against Cody and Darby Allin. Cody and Darby don't gel all that well, and Grimes and Cedric have a couple of hiccups early on, but it all pans out to their favor when Cedric hits the Lumbar Check on Darby and Grimes leans way in, snagging the tag and getting put in, scrambling over to pin Darby. It works, see, because Cedric is right there, and he instinctively puts a stop to Cody interfering even as he glares at Grimes for stealing his pin, his point in this cycle. All Grimes can do is laugh and chatter to himself as he makes his way back up the ramp.
Alex Shelley gets the win in a triple threat match over Big E and Chris Sabin. Asuka defeats Britt Baker, and Dana Brook gets a shocking victory over Shotzi Blackhart. Jake Atlas similarly gets one over on MJF, who all but has a temper tantrum in the ring afterwards, and James Drake is successful against Willie Mack. Immediately afterwards, there's triple threat action that ends with Zack Gibson walking out victorious over Jeff Hardy and Daniel Bryan, a pleased sneer on his face. Chase Parker reluctantly partners with Curt Stallion in a winning effort over Rohit Raju and Matt Martel.
In the main event, Kenny Omega squares off with Chris Jericho. The two men know each other quite well by now, having competed a few times in the past, and they quickly move past the warming up stages of the match to get down and dirty. Elbows, open handed palm strikes, knees, sometimes more innovative offense like suplexes or attempts at piledrivers, anything to move this thing closer to being finished. Jericho isn't adverse to playing dirty, neither is Kenny, and whenever the ref is distracted, or perhaps in a bad angle to view what's going on, they take advantage of it- eye pokes, pulling each other around by their hair, whatever they think they can get away with the quickest.
Jericho gets caught one time too many, however, and he's growing frustrated when the referee moves like he's about to throw the match out, Jericho yelling at him not to, when Omega comes up from behind, clearly moving for the one winged angel, when Jericho senses him and whips back, landing a Judas Affect right on the bridge of Omega's nose. He staggers, then drops, and Jericho dives for the pin. Thinks he has it, digs his heels in, but then- then, Kenny kicks out. Jericho gapes from where he's still laying sprawled out awkwardly atop him, and shakes his head in disbelief.
The rest of the match is something of a blur- Jericho tries to hit another Judas Affect, or twist Omega up into the Walls of Jericho, but adrenaline seems to be pushing Omega now, and it's only a matter of moments before Jericho feels gravity swooping and then... he hits the mat after a One Winged Angel, and there's no fight left in him. He can only blink blankly at the ceiling as the bell rings and the referee declares Omega the victor.
The last thing he hears before rolling out of the ring is Omega's proud, smug laugh as the referee lifts his arm to show off the successor.