(THE SCENE: The STRUGGLE home office, located in the old Blockbuster next to the Vito Genovese Memorial Bingo Complex and Auction Barn. STRUGGLE acting president NATE RUGGLE is going over a big stack of invoices and other business-type documents with announcer/interviewer/office lackey MURRAY STADANKOWICZ, executive VP of talent relations/wrestler PAM FROM HUMAN RESOURCES, as well as wrestler BUSINESS CLOWN, who is there on account of how he’s good at business and all. Strangely and unexpectedly, the news seems to be mostly good.)
BUSINESS CLOWN: …So the county fair people taking the concessions hurt, but we sold a shitload of t-shirts and Gummo’s idea of selling shots of whiskey alongside the t-shirts really paid off.
NATE: …Which was illegal.
CLOWN: Most good business is. And it made enough to pay off the cops and still turn a profit. And it was like 15 degrees, those idiots had to stay warm somehow.
NATE: (shaking his head) So what are we looking at here? Did we break even?
CLOWN: Break even? Hell, between War Party and that free $15 large that Vanzetti gave us to not fight (does finger quotes in the air) “Skull Mayday”-
MURRAY: May he rest in peace. (MURRAY begins just furiously winking at everyone, until it goes from endearingly dumb to kind of disconcerting)
CLOWN: …Anyway, looks like you got enough here in the black to say you’re kinda doing… Good?
NATE: W-wait, what!?
CLOWN: Yeah, I dunno man, in spite of all the bumbling incompetence and general cursedness of this whole affair, looks like you’re gonna be pretty solidly ahead for July.
NATE: Really!?
PAM: And that’s not even taking into account the positive reaction the big show got, hon. Why, I even got a call from a very nice man at channel 73, telling us “keep up the good work.”
NATE: My god… it’s happening. It’s really happening. We could get back on TV… Fix this building up… We could finally crown a world champion again… And I could finally shove it back in my mother’s stupid face. That’s right! I’m the good son! Not Stevie! (pounds his fist on the table) IT’S MEEEE!
(everyone stops and stares at NATE and it is extremely uncomfortable for all involved)
CLOWN: So anyway…
NATE: Right, right. But we shouldn’t get ahead of ourselves here. First, we need to call the belt guy and see how much a new world title belt would cost, and then-
(Head booker UNCLE ABDUL bursts from his office, aka the mop closet, stomping around and cursing, like someone who has received much worse news than everyone else has)
UNCLE: GODDAMMIT! MOTHERFUCKIN’ ASSHOLE PIECES OF SHIT! FUCK!
NATE: Abdul! Calm down! Look, if this is about the Coke Brothers again, don’t worry, it’s not like the tag titles are gone, they’re just… Somewhere else.
ABDUL: No, goddammit, this isn’t about that! They fucked us, Nate! We’re fuckin’ done!
NATE: What are you talking about? We’re actually turning a profit!
ABDUL: We’re being sued, boss.
NATE: What? By who? For how much?
ABDUL: Some dipshit motherfucker slipped on a patch of ice at the big War Party show and fucked their hip up. And they didn’t give us a number, but you know damn well it’s for more than we’ve got.
NATE: But it was the county’s venue, and their event! They’re responsible for things like that.
ABDUL: Not when you’re as crooked as everyone in this godforsaken place is. The mayor’s up for reelection, and he needed the county fair to go off without a hitch, especially after that gifted kids’ orphanage got tear gassed last year. So when shit got fucked, they put the blame on us.
NATE: They can’t do that!
ABDUL: Yeah, and he wasn’t supposed to spend half the local school district budget on strippers and blow in Vegas, but he got away with that too.
MURRAY: Don’t we have insurance for things like this?
(A collective sucking of wind through teeth goes up across the room)
PAM: Sssss… Oooooh… Aw jeez, hon, you ever see those daytime TV commercials with the computer-animated mouse telling Chumlee from Pawn Stars about car insurance?
MURRAY: I love that mouse!
PAM: Yyyyeah, well, we have something like that, and dontcha know, it’s an awful lot like not having insurance.
MURRAY: So the mouse lies…
(MURRAY looks as though his entire worldview has been shattered)
NATE: Okay, so… Let’s not panic yet. We might be screwed-
ABDUL: More of a “probably” than a “might.”
NATE: We MIGHT be screwed, but we don’t know it yet. We’ll just have to be in Crisis Mode for a while.
ABDUL: We already were in Crisis Mode, boss.
NATE: Okay, then Super Crisis Mode.. We need to cut some costs, maybe find some new revenue streams somehow, and see if we can ride this out.
MURRAY: Well, we do have a lot of new merch coming out, so that’s something.
ABDUL: …Except for that goddamn Coke Brothers shirt I already had to mark down.
NATE: Well, it’s still something. We’ll sell a few at the clearance price, then throw the rest on eBay with a huge markup as a “rare collectible.” Anybody got anything else?
CLOWN: Eh. I’ll tell you the same thing I tell everyone else: Only sound investments right now are shotgun shells and bolt cutters. ‘Cause I’ve been in the belly of the beast, and the whole goddamn thing is gonna collapse any day now.
NATE: I don’t see what this has to do with-
CLOWN: Yeah, but they’ll tell you you’re crazy if you say that too loud. Say you’re “not upper management material.” So where did that get you, Mr. Haverchuck!? Dead, that’s where! Who’s “not upper management material” now, ya congestive heart failure-having cocksucker!?
NATE: Soooo anyway…
ABDUL: Okay, I hate to say this, but we’re gonna have to make some tough choices with the roster. Gonna have to cut loose some dead weight, and maybe lose some weight that ain’t all that dead yet.
NATE: Right. Easy first step is to tell the freelancers working without contracts that they’re actual freelancers now. We can’t afford to keep half the wrestlers in the Tri-State Area exclusive anymore. And there’s no way we can keep all of Hoss’s dojo trainees.
ABDUL: Right. We’ll let Puño Dorado and Tony Unity – that motherfucker – know ahead of time, so they’ll get the first shot at these people. Keep ’em local in case we miraculously get out from under this shit, and keep the friendly promotions friendly. I would say tell the MOSES people over in Japan, too, but I heard they’re dealing with their own stuff right now. Also, Dorado’s got this hare-brained notion of reforming the TSWA, so circulating folks like that will make him happy.
NATE: I still get a bad feeling that this isn’t going to be enough.
MURRAY: We could have a telethon!
NATE: Can’t have a telethon without TV. That’s the “tele-” part.
MURRAY: Maybe just a “thon,” then?
NATE: (stares straight ahead, eye twitches a little)
ABDUL: I hate to say this, but I think there’s one thing that’ll get us through this, and we all know what that is.
CLOWN: I dunno where we’ll find that much heroin, but I can make a few calls.
NATE: (to ABDUL, completely ignoring what BUSINESS CLOWN just said) No way. If we do that, we could lose control of the whole promotion, and we were just starting to get this thing turned around.
ABDUL: Look, our backs are against the wall the here. We have no other choice, best I can tell.
NATE: The answer is still no. No, no, no.
ABDUL: It’s either this or shut down as soon as this case gets settled.
NATE: No. Don’t say it.
ABDUL: We need to find…
NATE: DON’T SAY IT.
ABDUL: …A money mark.