The video begins and we don’t see Zoe standing by herself, as we normally do. Instead we see what appears to be a smoke filled bar room. There is a table in the front of the picture with cigars and half-drunk pints of beer on it, and playing cards scattered all across it. Walking into the picture, dressed in a wife beater and baggy jeans while scratching at her crotch, is Kathryn Pearson. Behind her is Syren, dressed in an open neck shirt and pants. Both seem to be acting surprisingly ‘macho’. They sit down at the table and pick up the cards. “And then I was like ‘damn boy, you’s a hottie. How’s about you get down there and get me off’, ya know?” Syren says in a macho tone before rubbing her hand across her nose and snorting. “And you know he wanted it. Boy was gaggin’ for it, ya feel me?”

“Oh, I feel ya player,” Kath replies in an equally mockingly macho tone. “Ya know that one little man-slut I’ve been tweeting? Yeah, he wants it bad but I’m like ‘nah baby, nah, you gotta really want some’. I’m gonna bang him so hard he forgets his own name!”

“Oh, ma dog,” Syren says before high fiving her friend and taking a gulp of the drink in front of her before snorting again and spitting on the floor. “We gonna make them boys want some, and if they can’t handle us we’ll just slap ‘em down and be like ‘nah boy, that ain’t how I roll’.”

“Damn right. Dogs need to respect a bitch,” Kath replies, nodding her head before taking a giant gulp of her beer and slapping her chest. “I mean, five minutes with me and they’ll be thankful to be alive.”

We cut from that to Syren standing alone and just looking at the camera with a bemused look on her face. “Seriously, did anyone find that hot? Anyone at all? And yet that’s meant to be what we go crazy for? Arrogant asshats who brag about women like they’re objects to be discarded? And ok, so Kath and me maybe aren’t the greatest ‘men’ the world has ever seen, but then to be honest just five minutes of that was twice as much as I needed in an entire lifetime. You all get the point that I’m shooting for here though, right? Guys who act like that, guys who think that they’re ‘men’, are a dime a dozen in this business. Yet can you imagine how they’d react if that little skit was the other way around? Can you imagine how guys would react spending five minutes as a woman in this business? I’d genuinely love to see their reactions when they open their Twitter feeds to see tweets from guys threatening to find them and rape them. I’d love to see how they feel about guys berating them and telling them to take their clothes off, or how they feel to be the objects that are just meant to suck them off and then run along to the kitchen,” she says before rolling her eyes and letting out a sigh. “Now you guys were probably expecting this video to begin very differently. The truth is it was going to. See, I was going to start off this video talking about Rise to Greatness, talking about one of the biggest, greatest matches of my life, and thanking my opponents. That’s right, I was going to start off thanking Amy Chastaine and Regan Street.”

She smiles and shakes her head. “Now don’t get me wrong, that isn’t like a revelation that a few weeks of vacation with my favourite people in the world have changed anything I may have said in the past. Rise to Greatness didn’t change how I felt before it. Rise to Greatness didn’t change how I felt about Regan Street. I still hate that bitch. I always will. And I have no doubt that this week she’ll step to me and probably slap me across the face again, because that’s who she is, but this time if she does I won’t stand there and take it, I promise you that. Still I was going to start off by thanking her because between the three of us we created a moment in Milwaukee. We had a moment that none of us will ever forget. But as much as I want to thank them for that, I also want to remind the world that I did what I said I’d do at Miller Park. I walked in, I fought two of the best this business has EVER produced in a thirty-minute Iron Woman Match, and I walked out with a smile on my face, a song in my heart, and an opportunity ahead of me. But we’ll get to that,” she says before smiling proudly. “The reason I didn’t start off like that however was because I’ve been privy to my next opponent for a few weeks now, and it’s a man I have a ton of respect for as a professional, the former SCW World Champion, a guy who’s lived up to the potential that he’s had for so long over the last year, but a man who outside of that ring represents basically everything that I hate about men in this business. So I was talking to my friend and we were joking about what it would be like if we were them…”

She laughs and rolls her eyes again. “I know. It was terrible. It was meant to be. And yet every goddamn day I see guys like that and they’re proud of it. They’re proud of how ‘manly’ they are. And Ace Marshall could easily campaign to be their king. And it’s not a recent thing. Oh no. This goes way, way back. See as much as I have a ton of respect for him as a competitor, as much as I’ve watched his Television Title matches and even wanted to applaud, as much as I’ve found myself with a level of respect for him being the man in that division since it’s rebirth, the one guy who’s taken on more than anyone else and kept overcoming, so much so that he grabbed hold of an opportunity, beat Rachel Foxx and became a double-champion, I have the same level of disdain for him as a human being,” she admits before shrugging her shoulders unapologetically. “And I don’t think it’s even really his fault. Well, I mean, it kind of is. He was the one who hung around with Shawn Winters and Adam Allocco in their little boy’s club, right? And he’s the one who’s spent almost every day since his return to SCW on Twitter randomly hitting on every woman who tweets and telling most of them how lucky they’d be to get to see his penis. And I know there’s so much more to him than that, I know that isn’t the limit of all that is Ace Marshall… but honestly it’s the first thing I think about when I think about him, and it pisses me off. It pisses me off because what’s the first thing you guys think about when you think of me?”

She shakes her head and sighs, reaching down and holding up a photograph from a few years ago of her and Regan Street competing in a bra and panties match. There’s a very unamused look on her face before she tosses it away behind her. “Yah, you know that’s true. ‘Oh Syren, show us your boobs’ after every show. Insults like ‘slut’, ‘whore’ and ‘part of harem’ thrown around every goddamn day, and encouraged by shallow, empty women who think that they’re so far above all of it. The double standard in this business is incredible, where guys like Shawn Winters and Ace Marshall are praised for being ‘players’ and I’m insulted every goddamn day for being a ‘whore’, and seriously do you know how many girls they’ve been with? I mean I don’t know personally but I’ve heard the stories, and quite frankly I’m happy that Ace has found someone new but I’m kind of shocked he’s able to ‘perform’ at all considering if even half the stories are true I’m shocked his dick hasn’t fallen off,” she says before shaking her head again. “Yet this week, for the first time ever, it’s Syren versus Ace Marshall competing at the highest level. And we know that there’s nothing implicitly on the line in this match, but yet we also know how much this match represents to the both of us, don’t we? I had the match of my life at Rise to Greatness. I left that event feeling on top of the world. While Ace… well, he didn’t, and I’m not about to rub that in his face – ew, bad choice of words, horrible image in my head right now – because I’ve been there.”

Her unamused, almost angry demeanour fades a little. “You know if anyone understands where he’s at right now it’s me. He put on the fight of his life in Milwaukee and nobody can ever take that away from him, but in the end it wasn’t enough. In the end he lost on the biggest stage there is in this business… and that’s something I know about. And he lost while refusing to give it up, while refusing to roll over and die, while refusing to give up what he’d worked a lifetime for… and I know that feeling as well. For me it wasn’t James Evans who did that to me, although the name was similar. For me it was Thirteen – James Marsh-Asher – who did it. And I remember that night. It was my first time holding that belt. I’ll never forget it. The pride I felt, the determination I felt… it was unlike anything I’d ever felt in the world before then. I wouldn’t have given it up for anything in the world. And Thirteen locked me in his hold and just like you Ace I reached for those ropes, I did everything I could to try to keep fighting… but I couldn’t. I don’t remember losing the SCW World Championship because I’d passed out in that ring before the bell rung. And when I came round… well, I imagine it was exactly how you felt,” she says before taking a deep breath. “It’s a hollow feeling at the core of your being, isn’t it? You feel sick to your stomach and you just can’t shake it. And there’s nothing in the world – no singular thing in the entire of the universe – you want more than to get back in that ring and get a second chance to get back what you lost. Do you feel that right now, Ace?”

She nods slowly. “Yah, I get that. Like I said, nobody in the world who understands it more than me. When Thirteen made me pass out I had that feeling. When Shilo dethroned me at Rise to Greatness I had that feeling. When Kennedy Street and her band of bitches took the title from me I had that feeling and a fiery vengeance burning inside of me that I wanted so badly to extract. And a few months ago, when Rachel Foxx took that title from me in the middle of the ring, when she had her moment in the spotlight, I had that feeling again. But it wasn’t me who got that chance against her… it was you,” she says before smiling a little. “So, once again, I know how you feel right now. I know how hungry you are to get another chance. And I can only imagine how you feel to be opposite me this week on Breakdown. What’s going through your head, Ace? If you beat me, after I beat two former World Champions at Rise to Greatness, then not only do you have your hope for a rematch but then you’ve shown you deserve it? Is that what’s happening? Are you thinking that all you’ve got to do is defeat me in that ring and SCW management won’t have a choice but to give you either a shot at the title before or a shot at the winner? Or are you thinking that Regan Street walked out to that ring, rained on the parade of both Amy Chastaine and me, demanded her title match and a few weeks later she was fighting for the title, so goddamn, why couldn’t the same thing happen to you? Because I get that too. I really do. I mean, it’s only fair, right?”

She laughs and shakes her head. “Sorry sweetie, not the way it works. You see I’ve been where you are. I know how it feels. I know how angry you are. I know how much you long for another chance. But now I’m where YOU were, I have the momentum, I have the determination, I have the opportunity in front of me and tell me Ace, would YOU have given up that chance for me or anyone else if we’d wanted it, or even if we’d beaten you? No, you wouldn’t. We both know you wouldn’t. Now maybe six months ago I would have said something along the lines of ‘you know, if you beat me this week you’ll really show that you deserve another chance’ but it’s six months later and I’m not the same girl anymore. Fact is that I’m done being that girl. I’m not Regan Street, I’m not about to turn on all my friends and tell them how worthless they are to me because, you know, I’m not a conceited, self-absorbed bitch, but I’m not that ‘everyone deserves a chance’ happy go lucky Syren anymore either. I’ve been where you are, Ace. I know how it feels. But now you’re where I WAS. So, here’s the challenge that’s ahead of you sweetie. You can be like so many others, you can hold your hand out, stamp your foot, shout at the top of your lungs about how you DESERVE a chance, you DESERVE a rematch, you DESERVE another chance at James Evans, or you can do what I did, you can step into that ring EVERY SINGLE NIGHT and you can PROVE it! That’s what I did. That’s what I’ve done. I’m a four time SCW World Champion, and I’ve WON my chance every single time!”

She nods her head determinedly. “So this is it for you, sweetie. This is the moment that separates the good ones from the GREAT ones, and when I faced that moment, when I faced that challenge of having to go all the way back to the bottom and do it all over again, I proved that I was GREAT. Now it’s up to you to do the same thing. Fight for it, Ace. Fight for it. Win it. Prove yourself. Bring the best you’ve got every night. And start with Breakdown. Start with this match. Start with Ace Marshall against Syren, because there will be fans in that arena on Wednesday in Seattle who’ll tell you that this is a dream match for them, that this is former World Champion versus former World Champion, but for me? For me this isn’t a dream match. For me this isn’t a match I’ve spent sleepless nights imagining. I’m sorry sweetie, I would say it is but I’d be lying, but for me this match is MORE than that right now. For me this match is my chance to show that Rise to Greatness wasn’t a fluke. For me this match is my chance to show that for me Rise to Greatness wasn’t an ‘upset’. For me this is my chance to show that even with five more minutes, ten more minutes, thirty more minutes or the entire goddamn night I STILL would have left Miller Park with the victory, and I get to show that by taking on the former SCW World Champion and beating me in the middle of the ring,” she says before nodding her head and smiling proudly. “And that’s what I need to do. Because as much as we’ve got in common, Ace, it’s the differences between us that stand out the most.”

“Guys like you, you’re not just ‘players’,” she says in her macho voice from earlier, “but you’re… well, you’re that other breed, aren’t you? You’re god’s gift to women. You’re Macho Ace Marshall. Women swoon over you. Men wish they could be more like you. You think you can have any woman you want. Most would probably agree. But people like me? We’re not like that. You know how EASY this business is. I know how HARD it is. You get opportunities thrown your way because of who’s pants you got into and the career boost that gave you. God, do you have any idea how nauseous that thought makes me? You got a career boost by getting in the pants of the woman who took hers off to get her own career boost! Seriously, that ACTUALLY happened. And a few months ago I’d have been like ‘oh, that’s cool, I still respect you’ but right now I’ll tell you the truth – I want to kick your ass. I want to drop you on your face in the middle of that ring. I want to pin your shoulders to the mat one-two-three NOT because you beat Rachel Foxx, NOT because you’re the ex-World Champion, NOT because of your fucking HORRIBLE taste in women, but because I’m the BEST FEMALE WRESTLER IN THE WORLD and I just love proving that. For you, Ace, this match is about a chance to get back in the hunt, a chance to get your name talked about far and wide, a chance that SCW management and the Board of Directors will be looking at Apocalypse and wondering ‘what if…’ but for me this match is about momentum, this match is about proving myself against a ‘manly man’, and about showing the entire world that you might knock me down a thousand times but I keep coming back because you can mock it all you want, but I’ve proven time and time again that I am UNSTOPPABLE!”

She smiles proudly and confidently before a smirk slowly spreads across her face. “What was it Kath said? ‘Dogs needs to respect a bitch’? Yah, terrible line… but this Wednesday, one will. See you then, sweetie.”

She kisses her hand and blows the kiss at the camera before stepping out of shot. The picture fades out slowly before cutting to black as the video ends and the replay button flashes up on the screen.