The video begins and we see Zoe Sperling, better known to the wrestling world as Syren, sitting behind a desk with a pen in her hand. She’s twirling the pen around and around in her fingers, double-clicking it each time it falls into a writing position to both extend it and then retract it again, while obviously looking down at whatever is in front of her. Then she lets out a sigh. “Last week on Breakdown some… some terrible things happened,” she says calmly, still looking down at whatever is in front of her. “What I have in front of me right now is a reaction to those things. What I have in front of me right now was not written by me. It’s a statement, written by professionals who write these sorts of things. It addresses what happened to the timekeeper last week. And before you say it yah, I know he has a name. Fact is I know him. I’ve known him for a long time. We used to joke around before the shows. Hell, we were still joking around before the shows even as recently as January. That’s where things changed and lines were crossed and… and it all set us on a path that led to last week. That led to him being piledriven on the outside of the ring. Which led to him being injured in Mexico City, of all places, where a move like the piledriver is REVERED! And make no mistake about it, Ravyn Taylor and CHBK knew what they were doing last week. I know they did. I was also NOT involved in it, even though I know most of you are going to blame me anyway. And that’s basically what this statement says. The lawyers have asked me to sign it. It says that I’m sickened and appalled by the actions of Ravyn and CHBK last week. The truth is I’m disgusted by those responsible for what happened last week. I’m disgusted with YOU, Oleksa.”

She looks up into the camera now, an angry look in her eyes, and double-clicks the pen again as she keeps twirling it. “You see, you can say whatever you want about Ravyn and Alex last week. They crossed a line. They sure as fuck did. But this statement that’s in front of me right now, this statement that I’m being pressurised to sign, is a lie. It says that THEY’RE the ones responsible for what happened to Gord last week, and they’re not. No. There’s only one individual responsible for what happened last week, and it’s neither CHBK nor Ravyn Taylor. It’s the man who put them in that situation. It’s the man who pushed them to do what they did. It’s the man whose decision making has pushed us all this way to the situation we’re in now. It’s you, Oleksa. It’s you who’s got blood on your hands right now, not me. But that’s not the way you want things to be seen, is it?” she asks, shaking her head slowly. “No. You’d rather it be them. You’d rather this be seen as an act of cowardice, rather than what it was. It was a reaction. And what did you THINK was going to happen, Oleksa? Did you think you could just push, and push, and push, and push, and PUSH, and that there would be no push back the other way? Did you think that you could wander back in here, to a locker room that long ago lost ALL respect for you, and try to make some kind of statement that you’re the one who’s suddenly in control around here? No. YOU are the one responsible for last week, Oleksa. YOU are the one who pushed us here. YOU are the reason that he’s lying in a hospital bed with his family around him right now. And I hope to god you feel guilty about it.”

She sighs. “Now you’re probably watching this and thinking that I should feel my share of guilt for it as well. I mean, in your logic this is all about me as much as anything, right? But no. This wasn’t about me. This was about justice. This was about equality. And the fact that BOTH of those things are non-existent in SCW, where you run the ship as a goddamn dictatorship, and what YOU say goes without question, no matter how biased or one-sided it is, is how we got to where we are. And this didn’t start in April. This didn’t start with you, or David, or whoever else calls the shots around here, denying me what I should rightfully have. This started long before that. Hell, you want to go back for a history lesson? This started long before fall 2014. Do you remember what was happening then, Oleksa? Let me remind you. Chaos. Injuries. A group in the locker room completely out of control and hurting everyone and everything in front of them because they could, and for no other reason than that. A group YOU couldn’t control. And let me ask you this, Oleksa, when THEY hurt people at ringside, what did you do about that? When they broke EVERY RULE IN FRONT OF THEM, what did you do? Were there suspensions? Were there firings? Was there discipline, or denial of opportunities? No. No, you weren’t able to stand up to them. You weren’t able to do a damn thing about any of them. Do you remember who did?” she asks calmly before looking down at herself and back up again at the camera. “Oh yah, that’s right, it was me. I’m the one who stepped up. I’m the one who took the fight to them. I’m the one who did what you couldn’t. No, what you WOULDN’T!”

She lets out a laugh. “And I didn’t do it alone. Ravyn stood at my side. She put her differences with you behind her. She turned over a new leaf. She became a better person. And how did you reward any of that? Oh, right, when I got screwed over by Kennedy Street and her army of helpers you just let it go. When Ravyn got robbed at Rise to Greatness you were quick to strip her of something that was rightfully hers. And what was their punishment for doing what they did to her, exactly? Right, chances at what should have been HERS already,” she says before applauding slowly and sarcastically. “Oleksa Drachewych, ladies and gentlemen. That’s how he runs shit around here. He punishes the victims. He rewards the victimisers. And nobody blinks an eye. Nobody tells him he can’t do that. Nobody stands up for what is actually right. Because Oleksa has installed himself in a position of power. Because this is HIS world, HIS ship, and nobody can question the way it’s run because they’re automatically wrong, right? Just like me. I’m automatically wrong. I’m automatically wrong because our dictator says so. I don’t deserve equality because I’m not equal in his eyes, right? My loss was somehow different to everyone else’s, right? And when we complained, when we spoke out, when we rebelled against a broken system, Oleksa tried to silence us with threats. Yet again nobody said a thing. He wants to force one retired man to fight a retired woman for his entertainment, and we’re meant to applaud that and tell him what a good job he’s doing.”

She shakes her head again and looks angry. “Look, did Gord DESERVE what happened to him last week? No. He was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. But it had to be SOMEONE. It had to be SOMEONE, or you wouldn’t be listening to me right now. It had to be something drastic, something to get your attention, or you’d sweep away our objections to everything going on like none of it really mattered. Well I for one am tired of being ignored. And I won’t be. Not anymore. But I’m also not signing this document,” she says, flicking the pen away before lifting up the piece of paper in front of her and slowly tearing it into many small pieces by ripping it down the middle and putting the pieces together and continuing to do so until the statement is little more than misshaped confetti that she tosses into the air. “Now, for the official record, I’m sorry Gord. I don’t know what difference that makes, but I am. You were a sacrifice. Now maybe I’d feel worse about that if you weren’t like so many of the others around here, so many who turned your backs on me, so many who dubbed me as ‘evil’ for looking out for MYSELF when this company has REPEATEDLY proven that there isn’t a single person in management or elsewhere who’ll look out for me. And what other choice do I have, huh? What other choice do I have but to look out for myself, when nobody else around here is doing it for me? And I have no regrets. I can feel sympathy for poor Gord’s neck pains while also not REGRETTING anything that happened.”

She laughs. “But you know what? You want to blame me for what happened? You want to hold me responsible? You want to add it to the list of reasons you have for me being so very ‘wrong’ and that I deserve to be where I am, and continue to believe that a protected bitch wearing my title deserves to be in my spot, then that’s your choice. I can’t stop you being wrong. But I can warn you that you push us, Oleksa, and we push BACK. I warned you before. I TOLD you that something terrible would happen if you didn’t listen to me. You ignored me. Something terrible happened. You continue to ignore me now? It’ll be on your hands next time as well. Oh, by the way, Ravyn says she’ll see you in… ooh, that’s got to be about twenty-four days by the time you watch this, right? That is unless you want to do something before that… or if she does. See, she’s kinda tired of playing by your rules here, Oleksa, so I can’t promise that she WON’T show up on Breakdown. But I can promise that all these problems you’ve created for yourself can easily go away, if you’d only start listening to the three of us. I mean, is that really so hard, or must you maintain this illusion of power you think you have at all times so much so that you can’t lower it even for a moment to consider the idea that you could be wrong?” she asks before rolling her eyes. “Oh, and that statement I just ripped up? Yah, if you’re planning on doing something stupid, like I know you probably are, then the same lawyers who looked over that for me are the same ones who looked over that other document I signed this week. You know the one I’m talking about, right?”

She looks around, pretending not to know where it is before effortlessly pulling it out and showing it to the camera. It’s another written document, this one with both the SCW and RTG logos on it, and she smirks as she holds it up. “For those of you with any doubt this would be MY copy of the match contract for Rise to Greatness. You know, the one you had me sign last week. The match that I shouldn’t even be in, by the way. You’re making me fight for something that should already BE mine? You’re making me fight for something that everyone else just gets handed for free? You’re making me sign one contract while violating another that specifically guarantees me a rematch. But that’s just the way you roll, right Oleksa? Because it’s your way or nothing, isn’t it?” she says before rolling her eyes again. “So, err… do your worst for me not signing your little propaganda piece against my wife and manager. This contract says I’m going to be at Rise to Greatness, but hey, you want to give me a few weeks off before then then I’m fine with that. You think I actually give a damn about the tag team match this week? I don’t. You think I want to team with a miserable little thief? I don’t. I don’t give a damn what she wants. I don’t give a damn what she thinks she’s entitled to. She fell of a goddamn production line of entitled bitches and I’m meant to care about the latest one? Nah. Seen it all before. Bored now. I don’t care about her, and if you don’t like what I’ve got to say I’ll HAPPILY sit at home and watch her get what’s coming to her. Happily.”

She smiles jovially at that thought. “Then again you think I give a fuck about my opponents either? On one side we’ve got a man who cashed in a contract for anything he wanted to deny me what I deserved so he could try his luck and fail miserably. And… was that any surprise? I mean, I’m not alone in thinking he did that shit PURPOSEFULLY so that you could protect Kennedy all the way into Rise to Greatness, am I? None of us ACTUALLY thought he’d win, right? And if you did… well, you’re probably stupider than he looks,” she says before letting out a sigh. “So, you think I have something to prove against him now? No. I beat him before. And, unlike him and his whole crew, I actually STEPPED UP when HE challenged ME. Because that’s the kind of girl I am. Some arrogant bitch walks into my yard and wants to fight, I put them in their place. Funny how that’s one-sided, isn’t it? It’s just ME who’s willing to put herself on the line, huh? It’s just ME who had something to prove by DEFENDING the World Championship against challengers, huh? Yah, that’s what I thought. And yet I’m meant to care about him this week? No. And then there’s Thirteen and… well, I don’t care much about him, either. I mean, of the three of them he’s probably the one I care about the most but… you know, I still don’t think my level of interest is high enough to quantify as even half a ‘fuck’ that I give. I mean, if you’re rounding up maybe a quarter? But honestly, in today’s world what’s a quarter of a fuck really worth?”

“Now come Rise to Greatness THEN I’ll give a fuck. When you put these three across the ring from me on the grand stage and you give them the opportunity to steal something else from me, THEN I’ll care. At Rise to Greatness I’ll do whatever I need to do to walk out with what I deserve to have already, but on Breakdown? On Breakdown I’m in a situation where I’m meant to hype up YOUR event, aren’t I Oleksa? On Breakdown you expect me to be a dancing monkey, put on the stage to perform for you so that you can get all the people interested in paying to see the act again. But what’s in it for me? Why should I care? What do I get out of this? Knowledge that I’m better than Donovan Kayl or Thirteen? Yah, totally already have that. Knowledge that I can work with a thief and a liar? Don’t think I need that. Proof that I probably can’t TRUST that thief and liar? DEFINITELY don’t need that. I already don’t trust her. And hell, with the way her egotistical mind works you suspend me and I may not be the only one not showing up for this match, eh? Wouldn’t shock me, and yet what would you do about that? Oh, right, the same thing you always do. Nothing,” she says before laughing again. “But you think you need this match to hype Rise to Greatness? You don’t. You can do that very easily. Just tell them what you’ve done. Tell them the situation we’re in. Tell them that the greatest wrestler in her generation, a first ballot future Hall of Famer, a record breaker in EVERY sense of the word, is being forced to compete against three people she despises for a chance she should already have been given. Tell them that. Tell them that and watch them flock to see it.”

She laughs and shakes her head. “Or not. I don’t give a fuck. You cost yourself that, as well. You cost yourself my caring, Oleksa. You cost yourself my desire to promote your events. You cost yourself my willingness to be a team player when you treated me like garbage and flicked me aside. So, you think I give a fuck about helping you now? No… but I’ll tell you what I will do for you. Maybe this will help you out on Breakdown, ok? You let me say what I’ve got to say. You let me tell the truth as I see it. You smile, you nod, and you don’t spew your bullshit at me and try to keep me quiet, and come Breakdown I’ll do my job. I’ll show up in your match. I’ll tolerate Sienna Swann for as long as I need to. I’ll remind everyone why I am one half of the longest reigning World Tag Team Champions in SCW history, the longest reigning World Champion in SCW history, a SIX-TIME World Champion on the verge of making that SEVEN, and I’ll send all of those fans home talking about Rise to Greatness and if any one of those three can deny me what I deserve. How’s about that? Seem fair? Oh, but you might have another problem to deal with by the time Breakdown is over, and this one is entirely your own making as well…” she says before letting out a sigh. “See, by the time that Breakdown is over you’re probably going to get visited by Donovan Kayl, Thirteen and probably Sienna Swann as well, and they’ll all want to complain, and they’ll all have demands, and they’ll all want what they want, and that’s something you’ll have to deal with, just as you have to deal with each and every person who comes your way whining for a second chance after I’m done doing what I do best, because by the time they come to you then you know what’s happened, don’t you?”

She smirks. “BE JEALOUS.”

She stands up from behind the table and walks away. The camera continues rolling for a moment on the empty seat before fading out as the video cuts to black and ends and the replay button flashes up on the screen.