(FADE IN: Fade to a shot of a dingy locker room. Water drips from the center of a large brown spot on the ceiling, and the door to a bottom locker near the long wooden bench in the center of the room can’t decide if it wants to be open or shut, providing a soundtrack of clank, clank, clank to an otherwise soundless scene. A wisp of smoke catches the corner of the shot, and the camera immediately shifts to the left and focuses on NOVA, seated on the bench decked out in ring garb and pads with a cigarette poking from between two gloved fingers. Water glistens on his shaved head, and splayed across his lap, catching light from the overheads, is the PRIME Universal Championship. The Risen Star looks up, a weary grin creeping up the side of his face. These are rough days.)

NOVA: “I know, I know…it’s a total faux pas to show a foreign strap on company television, but something interesting happened to me the other day, something relevant to my mission here in the ‘Dub and the belt you see before you now.”

(NOVA snuffs the cigarette in a nearby ashtray and looks down at the belt.)

NOVA: “After the last televised PRIME show I sat down with some of the management and told them I’d be headed to Birmingham for PRIMETIME. They were appalled. They told me that right now, my stock is higher than its ever been…I’ve defended this strap up and down the block, I’m the ring general for a group of guys who generate hype like dirt under Pig Pen’s feet…they couldn’t believe that I would choose a moment like this to pursue a…a less attractive option like the CSWA. Those were their exact words, I think. And I started thinking about that, and I did come to the conclusion that PRIME is in many ways the exact opposite of the CSWA. It’s a juggernaut, rolling along – some would say coasting – on this massive hype that appears to regenerate automatically at the start of each new business day. By comparison, the CS-Dub is grasping brick-by-brick, pulling itself along a cobblestone path, arthritic knees dragging and bouncing painfully off each jagged rock poking up from the sh*t-stained street…if I may employ a little hyperbole for effect. ‘Career suicide,’ they said, ‘what if you get injured down there in Backwater? Do you really want to put that on the line?’”

(The Greensboro Greenhorn rubs a hand across his clean-shaven cheek, and takes a sip of water from a bottle on the bench. His eyes glitter as he looks back into the camera.)

NOVA: (Grinning) “I told them, ‘The kind of fans I’ll be seeing in Birmingham…they’d carry me to the hospital if anything happened.’”

(NOVA picks up the PRIME title and slides it back into his duffel bag.)

NOVA: “Look…maybe they were right. Maybe PRIMETIME was supposed to appear as the ‘less’ attractive option…but that can only mean that I must be wearing my ‘career goggles,’ because sitting down here in this disgusting piece of sh*t locker room, getting ready to fight for my right to challenge for the CSWA Unified Championship in the first non-televised appearance I’ve made in God knows how long…

“…there’s nowhere else I’d rather be.”

(FTB)