The video begins and we find ourselves in darkness. It’s not complete darkness though; in fact it’s the kind of darkness that anyone who’s ever been to the theatre would recognise. It’s the darkness that occurs right before the show, when the houselights dim and just before the stage lights come on and illuminate the actors. As the camera focuses a little in the opening seconds we can just about make out the outline of the stage. There doesn’t seem to be a curtain, instead there’s just a large stage and in the darkness we can’t really see anything detail other than that. Then, after a few seconds, a spotlight shines down on the stage and in the middle of it we see a blonde figure. She looks up at the camera and we see that the figure in question is Zoe Sperling, better known throughout the wrestling world as Syren, and with the addition of the spotlight we can see that the stage is empty for all but her. It’s a large stage though, and the spotlight shining down on her doesn’t seem to be something just rigged up; it looks like it’s professionally done. From the atmosphere it would appear like this is being filmed in a concert hall or a theatre somewhere and Zoe seems dressed for the occasion, not in any signature t-shirts and jeans but rather in a long black dress that looks like it’s been taken right out of a Broadway play. “Hey everyone,” she says, projecting her voice a little as the camera zooms in on her. “Welcome to the show! You’re probably wondering what’s going on, right? I normally film these from hotel rooms in a bit of a rush but the last one was a graveyard and now I’m standing in a theatre? Well it’s all about imagery. And more importantly, it’s all about dreams.”

“For so long in my life I’ve wanted to stand right here, on a stage like this, with a spotlight shining down on me. For so long in my life this is what I thought I wanted more than anything in the world. I wanted to be up here on this stage, saying words written by other people, singing songs that others have sung before me, trying to pretend that they had meaning to me, trying to pretend that they’re the most important thing in the world in that moment. For so long in my life I wanted to be up on a stage like this and I wanted to act,” she says before stepping forward to the edge of the stage. “That, and I wanted to be up on a stage like this with a podium right here. I wanted to look out from here, blinded by the lights shining down on me a little perhaps, to a sea of famous faces – movie stars, television actors, heiresses, producers, you know, pretty much just a who’s who in terms of the people we spend every day of our lives appreciating the work of while we go about our lives. I wanted to look out from this point and be honoured by those people. I thought that that was what I needed. I thought that that was the only way I could find validation in the world, that I needed those people to respect my ability to stand in a spotlight like this, to stand in front of a camera, and pretend to be someone else. But then I met a girl named Yvonne Knight and she started training me to wrestle, and at first I thought it was a bit of fun, at first I thought it might help me make those fight scenes just a little more realistic, and then I discovered something I didn’t expect to discover. I discovered as I got better and better in the ring that I didn’t want to be up here so much. I discovered I didn’t want to pretend to be someone else in front of a camera; I wanted to go out in front of tens of thousands of people every week and be myself. I discovered that I didn’t want to say words or sing songs written by someone else, I wanted to stand in front of the world with a microphone in hand and tell the world how I really felt!”

She smiles as she looks around, almost like she’s reminiscing over old memories for a moment. “You guys really have no idea how much I thought this was my future. You guys really have no idea how much I thought that this is where I belonged, but it’s not. I mean don’t get me wrong, I do feel amazing in this dress, and with the spotlight shining down on me I do almost want to burst in to song, but that isn’t what I really want to do. That isn’t what I really want to be. And even as I stand up here tonight, thinking about the possibilities, the only place I know I really want to be is inside the middle of that ring. I’ve always wanted to perform, I’ve always wanted to stand inside the spotlight, but when I’m in that ring, when I’m fighting tooth and nail to try and get the win, when I’m giving every little bit of myself to try and be at my best, to try and defy the latest in a long line of impossible odds against me, to try and overcome the latest challenge I’ve somehow found myself up against, then I know that that’s where I need to be. Because for the longest time I thought I wanted to be an actress when I ‘grew up’ but I realise now that I am grown up, that I’m not a kid anymore, and that I don’t want to be an actress, I want to be a PROFESSIONAL WRESTLER,” she says proudly, taking a deep breath and smiling a little more. “It’s weird admitting that to the world as well, but it’s true. I don’t want to be pretend, I don’t want to be something fake, because for the last four and a half years I’ve stepped foot in the ring and I’ve fought every challenge imaginable, I’ve never backed down from a fight in all that time and when others have called me crazy for accepting the challenges I have – defending the World Tag Team Championships against former World Champions, booking myself in Fatal Fourway matches against three guys more than capable of snapping me like a twig, enclosing the ring in a steel surrounding that I know is going to be used to hurt me in so many ways – I’ve never thought of it as crazy because I know it’s not, I know it’s passion!”

“Say what you want about the rest of the roster, I know that there are some incredibly passionate people in this company, but I also know that there is nobody more passionate about this business than me,” Zoe says with a certainty to the tone of her voice. “There are so many here who’ll look for the easy route, who’ll try to find the way to make the challenge ahead of them as small as possible for them to overcome, but not me. I don’t shy away from the big challenges. You want to book an eight-person elimination tournament to find a contender? Seven of those people complain that it’s not fair and they should just be given the prize at the end and I’m the one who stands in the ring and tells them to bring on the challenge. You want to team me with Brittany Lohan or Jake Starr, people I don’t like, people I can’t stand, people I’ll never see eye to eye with, and tell me that I have to find a way to make it work and if I want to claim the prize at the end then I’m going to find a way to make it work and claim the prize at the end not because the prize at the end is the only thing that matters but because it means I can stand here tonight, in this spotlight, in front of all the people watching this and I can scream to the world that I OVERCAME EVERYTHING THEY THREW AT ME! I don’t try to make the challenge ahead of me small so I can overcome it easier, I try to make the challenge ahead of me as big as it can be so that I know I can stand right here and I can say without a shadow of a doubt that tonight at Retribution I’m not fighting for a championship, I’m not fighting for a prize, I have absolutely nothing to gain from this match tonight and I could lose my career or my LIFE inside the Thunderdome tonight but yet here I am, standing here on Sunday morning in the spotlight in front of the world and telling you all that tonight, at Retribution, inside the most barbaric structure ever conceived in this business, I’m not just going to fight one of the most sadistic, relentless, demonic women in the history of this company, I’m going to beat her and I’m going to STEAL THE FUCKING SHOW as I do it!”

“All week long people have been asking me if I’m really ready for this, and all week long I’ve been giving them the same answer, but I want to stop right here and tell you that answer. I want to stop right here and tell you that I’m in the best shape of my life. I’ve worked so hard to get myself in to this condition, I’ve spent so many hours training, running, swimming, climbing, lifting and rowing. I’ve spent so many hours toughening up, making sure that when Rachel Frost comes at me and hurls me in to the side of the cage tonight – and I know she’s going to, I know she’s going to find every sadistic way she can to turn that cage in to a weapon to use against me – that I can get back on my feet quicker than I ever have and come at her all over again. I’ve spent so many hours readying myself for the fight ahead and knowing that she’s going to find new and innovative ways to try and put me down, that she’s going to try and choke me out, that she’s going to do everything in her power to break me tonight and when she does I have to be ready to get back to my feet no matter what she does, to force myself back up and to tell her to keep coming, to tell her that I’m not finished, to tell her that no matter how many dolls she’s ripped the heads off of to send messages to me that I am NOT a doll, that I am NOT a piece of plastic, and that when she tries to do that very same thing to me tonight inside the Thunderdome, when she tries to rip my head right off my shoulders I’m not going to lay there motionlessly and let her do it, when she puts her hands on me tonight inside the Thunderdome I’m going to put my hands right back on her and slap the taste out of her mouth in the process,” she promises before smiling at the camera. “You see I’ve heard all the threats, I’ve seen all the messages, I’ve watched her playing with a thousand dolls but tonight inside the Thunderdome, as I said before, PLAYTIME IS OVER!”

“You choked me out Rachel. You choked me out and you tried to leave me for dead. You thought you could hurt me. You thought you could break me. You thought you could decimate me in that ring and then walk away and take my spot away. You thought you could get rid of me just like you and your friends have gotten rid of everyone else who’s gotten in your way. But I’m not everyone else. I still remember how it felt to have that noose around my neck. I still remember how it felt when you pulled it so tight that I couldn’t breathe. I still remember how helpless I felt, how scared I was... and I remember waking up and tasting my own blood in my mouth as the medical staff checked me over. And I remember being told what happened, I remember being told all about how Jake Starr of all people came out to try to get even with you and ‘saved’ me from you using that Plexiglas to cut my face to pieces. And I know you would have. You wouldn’t have even given it a second thought, would you? Just like you wouldn’t have given a second thought to cutting pieces off of Thomas Valentine and David Helms at War of the Roses if I hadn’t come out that night and stopped you then. And just like you’ve been thinking for so many weeks that when we step inside that Thunderdome and I’m locked inside that cage with you that you have free reign to cut every piece you want out of me,” she says before actually beginning to laugh. “Tell me Rachel, what bit do you want to cut the most? Is it my face? Do you want to leave me looking at scars in the mirror every single morning when I wake up? Is it my hair? I know you have a thing against blondes; do you want to rip it out of my head chunk by chunk? Is it my breasts? You don’t like ‘plastic’ and I’m not ashamed to say that they’re not completely natural. Do you want to cut the plastic out of me in that cage tonight?”

She laughs again, nodding her head slowly. “You do, don’t you? I know you do. I know you do because you’ve got this obsession with Barbie, you’ve got this obsession with what you consider to be ‘fake’ because you don’t think girls like me live in the real world. Look at my fingers. I get manicures, of course I do. And you want to see my toes? I get pedicures as well. I get spa treatments. I get haircuts that cost more than the average person probably makes in a day. Do I feel bad about that? A little, I mean they are really expensive haircuts! But do I feel like that puts me in a fantasy land? No. You see I live in the real world Rachel. I work really hard to make the money I do, I’ve put years of effort in to getting the paycheque I get now and I’m not ashamed of that. My dad may be rich, he may have given me some money when I turned twenty one, but I don’t live off his credit cards. I don’t run to him when I need money. I work DAMN hard for my money and I’m responsible with it so every now and again I like going shopping and I like buying expensive clothes and I’m not ashamed of that for a moment. And my car? I LOVE my car. It’s pink. It’s a convertible. Maybe it IS a Barbie car, but you know what? I don’t care because I love it. I love all those things about my life and I know there are thousands of girls out there who dream that one day they’ll grow up and they’ll be able to buy all of those things for themselves as well and you know what? I hope they do. I hope they find as much happiness in an amazing pair of shoes as I have,” she says before nodding down to her feet. “Jimmy Choos, by the way. Way expensive. Super amazing! But in your eyes these shoes, those haircuts, my manicures and everything else about me makes me ‘fake’, right? Because to you the only thing that’s REAL is pain and blood and fire and suffering and all that bullshit!”

“That world you live in Rachel? That world isn’t the real world. That isn’t even the Underground. Because you think I’m a prisoner of all the bullshit, right? You think I send kids the wrong message, that I’m too fake, and what was it you said? That I’m supposed to represent Americana, and you think that’s so wrong and disgusting? No, bitch. You want to know what I represent? I represent the American Dream! My father started out his life with nothing and he got himself on some of the rich lists in the country. Ok, he’s not a billionaire, he’s never going to get close to being that, but he worked damn hard to get to where he was and he didn’t hand me money and turn me in to Paris Hilton, he taught me responsibility and he turned me in to what I am today, a professional, a grown up, a mature adult woman who knows what she wants and isn’t afraid to take it. But you, what are you supposed to be? You think your world is real? No. You want the world to believe that life is suffering, that the world is fire and pain, but your world is fire and pain because you make it that way. Nobody’s forcing that on you. You’re just sick and twisted enough to turn your back on everything you used to be, to turn your back on everything you WERE when you first came in, because you’ve felt a little pain and you’ve decided the entire fucking world has to suffer because of it. Well it’s time to grow the fuck up, bitch. You think I don’t know pain? At the Elimination Chamber I had a monster hurl me in to a chunk of metal. Last year I had two former World Champions trying to break me in to pieces inside the Thunderdome. I know pain. And I know heartbreak as well; I’ve experienced so much of it. I’ve not just lost big matches, I’ve lost championships that meant the world to me and I’ve known when I did that there would be nobody there to hold out a rematch for me to seize on to but I didn’t spend weeks and weeks fucking CRYING about it, I got back in to the ring and I told the world that I was going to get it all back the hard way.  So I know heartbreak. Losing at Rise to Greatness? Heartbreak! Watching my boyfriend, the man I loved more than anyone else, cheat on me and want to leave me for another woman...?”

She pauses for a moment, her bottom lip quivering a little. “I know all about heartbreak,” she says, trying to recompose herself. “I know all about pain. I know all about suffering. And I didn’t let it turn me in to a demonic whore who burns children’s toys and thinks it makes her look tough. You’re right about what you said. Aiken’s right about what he said. I could have just walked away after December. I could have put my tail between my legs and slinked away. You beat me then, and I wish I could say it’s because you cheated but you didn’t. You choked me out and you busted me open. You set the challenge, I accepted, and you beat me in your world. And every time you’ve stepped in to MY world, whether it was Tactical Warfare, the Elimination Chamber or a tag team match on Breakdown, I’ve beaten you! You’re not invincible Tatum. And you’re not better than me. You’re tough. You’re strong. You’ve got a bad attitude and you love to cause pain. I know all those things about you are so much more than true. But I’m tough too. I’m strong too. And I’m not the ‘Devourer of Worlds’ but I am without doubt the BEST FEMALE WRESTLER IN THE WORLD! You didn’t take that away from me in December. You won’t take that away from me tonight. Win or lose, I leave the ring tonight knowing that. But if you have your way tonight, I’m not leaving the ring under my own power, am I? What was it you said, that the Thunderdome tonight becomes my steel coffin? Very scary! You’re going to take a pound of my flesh and a quart of my blood and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, right? Yah, all very intimidating! There won’t be any ‘yay’s’ tonight? Sweetie, I think you’re confusing me with another blonde. I can see why you get mixed up, but I’m an adult not a child. And I better say my prayers... also wrong religion, but I’ll give you credit for trying to scare me. You said a lot of scary things. Now it’s my turn.”

“Now I’m not expecting you to quiver in fear because I’m not trying to put the fear of god in to you Rachel, I’m just going to tell you how it really is. Tonight, when the Thunderdome gets lowered down around that ring and you and I are locked inside there together I’m not locked in there with you, you’re locked in there with me,” she says with another smile. “And I’m not a monster, I’m not a demon, I’m not going to try and rip your flesh off your bones, barbeque it and eat it in front of you or whatever other scary threats you’ve got to come at me this week, I’m going to stand in the middle of that ring and I’m going to wrestle you and I’m going to beat you. You see the thing about me going in to this match is I’m not looking to main you sweetie, I’m not planning to end your career. I know you’ve got this incredible chance to do that to me, and I’m happy to have provided that for you. A ‘thank you’ would be nice, but whatever, you’re ungrateful, I get that. I know you want to hurt me sweetie and I want to hurt you right back, but my intention isn’t to drive you from SCW, my intention isn’t even to take that title off your shoulder, my intention is just to BEAT YOU in the middle of the ring because THAT is going to cause you more pain than all the lacerations and broken bones you could hope to give me. Tonight, inside the Thunderdome, I’m going to end this and I’m going to beat you, and if you want a rematch after this, if you want to go at it one more time, then I wouldn’t object to Syren versus Rachel Frost Three because as I said before sweetie I don’t run from fights, and you’ve done nothing but run since the moment you left the ring at Perfect Destruction. So tonight’s the night. Tonight’s the night the talking stops and the running ends. One day, if you have that kid you talked about and if it turns out to be a girl, then if you're tidying up her stuff and you pick up a Barbie then after tonight you won't be able to look at that doll without thinking of Retribution. And you won't be thinking how you destroyed Americana. You won't be mocking her figure and asking if that's how society wants the girls to be. You'll just look at that doll and you'll remember the night inside the Thunderdome when Syren kicked your ass! Tonight it ends. Tonight I beat you. And after tonight, sweetie, when this is all over, don’t run your mouth about what could have been, JUST BE JEALOUS!”

She kisses her finger tips and blows the kiss at the camera, waving at the camera before twirling around in the spotlight once again. The spotlight flicks off and we return to the darkness that started the video and we get the feeling that Syren is waiting now for the spotlight to come back on again at Retribution. And with that the video ends and the replay button flashes up on the screen.