TAKEOVER: Exorcism
Savannah Civic Center
Sami Callihan vs Eddie Kingston (Taipei Deathmatch)
As per traditional rules, the competitors' hands were taped up to allow for stronger punches, but the general manager Jimmy Havoc did the honours or dipping their hands in glue and subsequently in a bucket of glass shards.
"No tapping. No pins. Knock your opponent out or the match restarts. I have got all night." Havoc pulled both of them close to speak and then moved away and out of the ring, watching them for a moment, biting his lower lip before heading to his spot at the timekeeper's table.
Slightly confused, but ready for the carnage, Callihan and Kingston started the match as violently as a match of this kind required. The referee was wearing protective gloves and glasses, kneepads and long sleeve, but neither of the competitors was prepared for the kind of punishment they were to endure during this match.
Each blow, every punch, every hold hurt a million times more, the chops to the chest sent blood flying in every direction, but neither of them seemed scared of all the blood stains that were slowly tinting the canvas.
Finally, despite the size advantage, it was Callihan who took the victory, jumping on Kingston with both hands under his chin, pulling him back in a simple hold. He kept him there even when Kingston tapped out, following the GM's instructions "I've got all night," but Sami didn't have all night, he was losing blood fast and if he wanted this to end, Kingston would have to be down.
Callihan moved away from Kingston's body, the referee counting to ten.
"Count to twenty!" yelled Havoc from his seat, chewing on his nails with excitement. Callihan could only pray that Kingston would stay down for the added count, and he did.
After the referee raised his hand, the GM clapped, on his feet, letting Sami safely collapse onto the canvas from blood loss, with doctors rushing to help both the victor and the loser.
Jenny Blake vs Jinny (Straightjacket Match)
Jenny Blake entered the ring and while her music and entrance were as positive sounding as always, there was a new determination showing on her face.
Jinny came out to the ring right after decked out in all black and looking as menacing as she was, a threatening smile on her face.
The fashionista went to work on the blonde before the bell even ring. She put the dynamite girl through hell and back, dominating the match for several minutes. She forced the blonde struggling to the mat, punching her about the head and dazing her enough to get one arm into the straight jacket.
In a flash, gaining energy from some unknown source, Jenny Blake rallied. She slipped like lightning from Jinny's grasp, screaming once, wordless and furious and kicked the self-proclaimed queen in the head, then the shoulder, then didn't seem to stop, stomping her into the canvas.
Jinny wouldn't go down either and the two had a knockout drag out fight. Jinny's brutality and Jenny matching it head on when she wasn't flinging her across the ring.
Jinny escaped to the outside and without hesitation, Blake took hold of the straight jacket, ran for the ropes bounced off them, jumped onto the top rope and flung herself out onto member of deathmatch royalty. The two of them laid out on the concrete for a long moment, each fighting to get to their feet but Jenny got the momentum needed just in enough time to grip Jinny by the hair and bang her head repeatedly into the metal of the turnbuckle from the outside until she fell unconscious in a heap.
The crowd was in a complete uproar as Jenny dragged Jinny to the centre of the ring and without any remaining resistance, tied her in the straightjacket, strapping her tight and pushing her up to the corner for display, ending her losing streak in a brutal display.
Hania vs Baron Corbin (Boiler Room Brawl)
Hania and Baron were strapped to chairs, each on one side of the crowded and steaming boiler room. When the arena started watching through the titantron, both wrestlers were just waking up, obviously not there by their own free will, still wearing street clothes and with Baron wearing only one of his boots.
They were rudely wakened up with the sound of the door to the boiler room slamming shut, and soon after a timer started on the single, lone boiler in the room. They had eight minutes to leave the room before the steam build up got too high, they had eight minutes before the doctors rushed in and got them forcefully out. Probably unconscious.
Hania didn't waste time biting through the duct tape keeping her on the chair and jumped right to attack Baron Corbin, who'd just ripped his own bindings.
She jumped on him and started beating him with whatever she could find, making a run for the door, but got caught by Corbin, who pulled her back and gave her as good of a beating as he'd gotten, breaking the wooden chair he was sitting on over Hania's back and threatening to push her face against the hot surface of the boiler.
The fight continued until the timer reached a minute, and Hania managed to push Corbin's back against the boiler, both blinded and exhausted from the horrible heat in the room.
She barely escaped before the room filled up with steam, the whistling of the boiler alerting the doctors and the experts waiting outside the door that it was time to get the other competitor out of there.
Corbin's fingers were on the door when he passed out, and he was dragged outside to the fresh air and seen to, as was Hania, who won the match, but was still struggling to breathe.
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INTERMISSION
Right after the titantron ended with Hania escaping the Boiler Room victorious, a song familiar to almost every person in the building began and everyone chanted "Ghostbusters!" together as Griffin West slid onto the ramp in a black and white striped suit, one fist in the air in time with "I ain't afraid of no ghost."
He danced his way up to the ring, the crowd clapping and he shimmied under the second rope and clapped his hands together.
"Does anyone have some Bactine?"
Laughter rippled through the audience and he shrugged his shoulder.
"Take a minute to breathe everyone. Maybe clean off, if you're in the front row maybe buy a poncho. This is officially your intermission. Take this reprieve from the madness folks."
With his piece said he danced his way back to the ropes and shimmied out and away.
Just as the intermission was ending, the lights dimmed again and but only those at the top of the ramp went out completely at first.
"I haven't forgotten."
An eerie voice spoke over the intercom heard everywhere through the arena even in the lobby, in the bathrooms. An eerie and uncomfortable laugh echoed off the walls.
"Only one of you could stand against your fear... do you think the monsters cease to hunt because one stands against them?"
Pavor's voice continued, an out of tune music box playing dimly, muted behind him.
"There are no others among you without secrets. Not. One."
His voice went softer instead of harder and a small laugh that was not his own backed his words.
"Keep your fingers and toes beneath your sheets, salt the windows and the doors, hide yourself from the darkness but know... The Boogeyman is coming and he doesn't care who you are."
Pavor Nox's voice faded out completely and the lights came back up abruptly.
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Zack Sabre Jr vs Priscilla Kelly (Coffin Match)
After the light mood of the intermission and the eerie message from Fear itself, the audience didn't even notice an elegant coffin had been brought into the arena and placed right at ringside, its threatening presence enough to put the audience, the commentators and the competitors on edge.
Except for Priscilla Kelly, who ran a hand over the top of the coffin when she reached it, licking her lips and turning to look at Jimmy before getting inside the ring, waiting for Zack to join her at the centre of the canvas.
Zack reached the ring, staying away from the coffin as much as he could. Jimmy looked slightly uncomfortable in his seat, and adjusted his tie once, looking on at the two competitors, Priscilla leaning in close to Zack, the words "... Play a game?" visible enough for everyone to read on her lips.
When the bell was rung, Zack started the attack, unbound like driven by sheer fear, looking at the coffin and shoving Priscilla on it, but just letting her slam over the cover of it, laughing at the gasping Zack.
She jumped from the coffin onto the third rope and onto Sabre, knocking him out momentarily with both knees and trying to drag him to the coffin. She opened the lid, set him inside, but a long leg stopped the top from closing.
Zack got out of the ring, visibly shaken, grabbing Priscilla by the hair and pulling her down from the third rope and into the coffin along with him, choking her as she laughed.
He got out of the threatening resting place, leaving a coughing Priscilla on the open coffin before taking a risky move and jumping from the ring into the coffin with a suicide dive, closing the lid immediately after, sitting on it as long as it could, until he couldn't hear the screaming or hear the banging, or feel how the coffin shook with Priscilla inside it.
Joey Ryan vs Flash Morgan Webster (All-Weight Championship no DQ match)
Joey had seen what Flash could do in previous matches, but this time Flash was decided to get gold around his waist. For however long it was, he was ready to become All-Weight champion, to finally wear around his waist what he knew he'd earned from the start while keeping his six points intact.
With the no disqualifications stipulation, the young Brit was able to give it not only his best but his most violent for this encounter. Joey Ryan lacked the comedy he always displayed, and it helped with the intensity of their brutal match.
Joey tried to tangle Webster on the ropes, and managed it for a couple of seconds, kicking and chopping him until his pale skin started to split. But once he was untangled, everything broke loose. He attacked relentlessly, violently and without a glimpse of mercy, as if just this night he'd decided to let his inner demons do the work for him.
After repeatedly slamming Ryan on the canvas and landing on him with a double stomp, Flash Morgan Webster crowned himself the New All-Weight Champion, ending Joey's reign and bowing to keep it longer than any other reigning champion.
By any means necessary.
Allysin Kay vs Taeler Hendrix (Dog Collar Match)
They'd set the stipulation for the match, but the week that Allysin Kay had been having didn't make it any easier to be strapped to the woman who'd been haunting her every step of the way. While they were being collared, Taeler blew a kiss at Allysin, and the champion twitched, not nervous, but shaken from the paranoia that had preceded this night.
Taeler had many reasons to resent Allysin, the butchering and incineration of her babies, the fear in their voices, their sap splattered on the greenhouse walls, how they shuffled to get away, the heat consuming them completely as they screamed for help that never came...
And the fact that her daughter watched, that too.
The rules for winning were simple, they had to touch the four corners of the ring all in a row without being stopped by their opponent.
The problem was getting to even the first corner without your opponent, at a very short distance from you, beating you to keep you from touching it. Problem which Allysin quickly found when she tried it just after kicking Taeler.
Taeler tried it later, after choking Allysin with the chain that bound them together.
They forgot about the corners for a moment, trying to keep their opponents down and distracted for as long as they could before they could finish the task at hand. Despite, or maybe due to, Taeler's mind games, Allysin's panic had made her far more violent and unpredictable.
She screamed as she kicked Taeler, holding the redhead's mouth closed with her hand so she didn't have to listen to her laughter.
By the end of the match, they had received their fair amount of chain hits, and Allysin's head was split open, while Hendrix' mouth kept bleeding.
After wrapping Taeler's neck with the chain, and dragging her around the ring, kicking her from time to time, Allysin touched the four corners, winning the match, but the Women's champion wasn't quite done with her yet.
With a kiss of death, Taeler wrapped Allysin the same way the other had done it to her, and effortlessly dragged her through the corners again, slamming AK's head on each corner. "You want to win? Let's see how much you're willing to lose for it."
After she did it a couple of times, and AK had gone unconscious, the referee stopped the match, calling for backup that never came, proving true that Havoc had locked everyone in the arena.