Post by Eden on Jul 8, 2023 20:25:10 GMT -5
LOCATION & ARENA
Syrene, California
The Elysium Arena
ROLEPLAY DEADLINES
Sunday, July 16th, 2023 at 9 PM PDT, 10 PM MDT, 11 PM CDT, Midnight EDT
Monday, July 17th, 2023 at 5 AM BST
SEGMENTS
Open to Anyone!
Reward: 1 bonus point added to your total rp score. To qualify for the bonus point, you need to RSVP your seg in this card's Signup Thread, then submit it no longer than 24 hours after Roleplay Deadlines.
MAIN EVENT
At Ascension I, Jamie Austin and Jacob Striker both won shots at the top prize of the company in the first megashow back. But week after week, as they faced top competitors through the rest of the roster to cement their positions, a phantom has been haunting their every step. Zolton seems to not be willing to part with the prize he's had in his possession for two years before the return of the company. Jamie's track record has put her squarely as the underdog, while Striker has utterly dominated at every turn. Will Striker be able to upset the reigning king, who hasn't been tested since the resurfacing of WWH? Or will Jamie prove that the higher odds of a dark horse reaps the largest windfall?
SEMI-MAIN
In a card stacked deep with matches revolving around titles, one might expect the Semi-Main to be revolving around this. But instead, this spot has been awarded to two women whose personal history and heat has been off the charts, who actively made themselves a center of attention and engaged with each other at every turn. Sin launched her comeback with thunderous impact at Ascension III, as Christy Winters faced Abby Evans; it was her first singles loss since the return of the company after beating a World contender just the show before, and Christy's loss at the hands of Niles after made it feel like Draven was her personal bad luck charm. Sin in turn took out Sarah Lynn, the Underground contender, on her only match back thus far, which is nothing to spit at. Eden brought the legal future of Christy having broken into Sanatorium's garage into it and offered two prizes on top of that: if Winters wins, she gets the property she's been after in the facility, but if she loses Sin gets the monetary equivalent of it. Winters one-upped it with a host of stipulations: that the match take place in Sanatorium's building, no holds barred, adding a conjugal visit to the facility on her end and doubling the cash prize if the victory goes to Draven. And appparently, Eden and Sin agreed to these. Two of the female Sanatorium inmates will return to the facility, but only one might leave if the heat stays as high as it's been thus far!
MATCH FIVE
While there's no clear way to predict who'll come out on top in the World Championship match at the end of the night, another chess piece has already been shifted in the longer term plans. If Zolton should lose, he'll still obviously have an automatic rematch clause in his pocket, but management has decided to add another ingredient to the World Title scene stew. Nakita had a shot at a contendership on Ascension I, but couldn't sustain... but she was also facing Jacob Striker, the only person who came back on reopening that still hasn't taken a loss. Despite management seeing something in her, her on-paper track record since has been shaky-- last show she finally scored a victory against Christy Winters, who'd herself beaten contender Jamie Austin, hinting that she might have a place in the scene after all if she keeps climbing. Meanwhile, Devin Copeland made his impossible-to-miss debut the second Ascension and declared his intent to complete his belt history and take the World Championship, before facing Striker-- he unfortunately didn't have much more success against WWH's unsinkable man. Still, he makes every second he's onscreen a moment that WWH's fans and dirtsheets always contend as the moment of the night. As the winner can't yet predict who they'll be facing eventually, on this night they'll likely be focused solely on each other in this rematch from Ascension III.
MATCH FOUR
Chris Matthews returned to WWH under the clause that he'll only be here until he loses his International Championship. While it might be bad news for management and the WWH faithful, management didn't dilly-dally at finding him his first contender-- the very first show back established contenders for all titles, and the winner of the opening battle royale of Skylar Carsons selected the International over the Underground and put herself squarely in the Legend of Thunder's crosshairs. Their match bookings may have been light, but Matthews hasn't been quiet in his perspective on the shows, and both will be going into Mankind Divided fresh with no excuses for whatever outcome may arise.
MATCH THREE
Aaron Jones has been an absolute barb in the side of WWH management since before a comeback was even planned for the company, embezzling a massive amount of money via the internet; when the rest of Sanatorium's inmates largely walked free, he'd lined up new charges for himself along with a literal debt. All those Sanatorium competitors who returned have done so with real salaries except for him, locked into defending his title by the justice system with his full salary just going directly towards restitution mandated by his conviction. So it's an intensely unhappy camper that Sarah Lynn finds herself opposite, and right in a moment when she just lost a big high-money bet with Kirsty Mascara and took her first singles loss. Sarah's Diamond Brand Mafia being less any kind of mafia at all and more a group of bounty hunters, though, means she's as geared towards Aaron for his crimes as she is the belt he saw fit to completely physically dismantle in mockery. Sarah's stepping into a more metaphorical bet, and it's all-or-nothing in whether her career continues to lose altitude or whether she rights the ship and ascends even higher. But Eden, former Sanatorium Warden, upped the stakes even higher in insisting the return of the hardcore stipulations of the Underground be upheld. Will the lack of disqualifications appeal to Jones' hatred for professional wrestling by allowing him to engage in throwdown brawling? Or will Sarah Lynn's law-abiding nature adapt to the expanded rules by turning the third match of the evening into The Purge?
MATCH TWO
The thinness of the tag ranks still has not led to the Shinigami Foundation wavering for even a moment in their personal dedication to teamwork and hunger for gold. WWH management came together to organize the return of a company legend and teamed him with another infamous monster whose career predated the company in order to try to give them a full and proper challege as a team, and Phantom and Taranis simply found themselves unable to stand as giants against the death demons of the Foundation in the end. Gothic Nightmare individually might've had no kind of luck at all in their singles matches, and some might've written them off after Ace falling to Thomas Bane last show... but what they might create between them when properly united is a giant unknown of potential, so Bane and Gibson might not want to get too comfortable or too distracted with their friend Striker's main event later in the night. And perhaps the return of the championships officially could bring more teams to the scene in the future? Stay tuned! And with this being the only carded match with the possibility of two promos, there is no response-promo penalty. Strategize accordingly!
MATCH ONE
And in our opening bout of the evening, two familiar faces from Sanatorium find themselves opposite each other. While neither seem to have found themselves a concrete spot in the larger narrative yet, there are rumors abounding around the dirtsheets on what might come to the winner of this match. Abby's track record and skill level seem to have taken a strong level since we last saw her, but perhaps so have Kirsty's-- with Mascara coming out of rumored homelessness after winning her bet with Sarah Lynn on who would lose first in singles. With Sarah's bookings being ligher on singles than Kirsty's were, she beat odds stacked against her once recently, so the now-metaphorical hunger might still be running through her veins enough to overcome Chucky Ross likely being at ringside to add to Abby's fiery unpredictability.