Post by Buster Gloves on Dec 1, 2022 16:50:09 GMT -5
![](https://i.ibb.co/CJRDPgD/previously-on.png)
James Raven wrote a list of 8 names on the back of a receipt and gave it to Buster Gloves a few months ago. He told him, “You beat these 8 guys and I’ll get you a World Championship match.” 3 of those names have been revealed already: Donny Mason, Xavier Lux, Peter Vaughn. Buster’s already lost a match to each of them. Maybe he misunderstood the assignment.
There WAS a win against Donny Mason back in July, so HIS name is crossed off, but Xavier Lux may never face Buster again. And Peter Vaughn may never lose another match in his career... to anybody.
Two weeks ago, Buster lost a triple threat match in the XWF to Peter Vaughn and Finn Kuhn. It’s left him feeling lost there, with no direction on where to go next. In the WGWF though, Buster’s not entirely without purpose. He hasn’t had that breakthrough performance that would propel his career into realm of elite class wrestlers, but he’s been booked in main event matches 2 of the last 3 shows. He still has a long way to go though. So he did the best thing he could think of, he asked the front office for a big singles match. And his reward is a final match with Peter Vaughn on WGWF BRAWL.
Buster isn’t a superhero. Far from it. He’s not a millionaire or a secret agent or a man on the run. He’s just William Bernard Glover. A world class athlete who grew up on a dairy farm in central Pennsylvania.
He’s just a guy. Same as you and me.
Emily Simms prepares a post-coital sandwich on the kitchen island in the apartment she now shares with Buster Gloves. He asked her to move in with him during the elevator ride up to the room and she said ‘yes’. She’s happy now, daydreaming about all the wonderful things in their future, but the daydream ends abruptly when a loud noise and a shout come from the far side of the apartment.
“EMILY!!! GET IN HERE!!!” shrieks a high-pitched voice from the direction of the apartment bathroom.
“What’s wrong?!” she answers from the hallway.
The sound of a razor and a body wash bottle crashing to the floor of the shower is heard from the outside of the door. “JUST GET IN HERE!”
A jiggle on the door handle. “The door’s locked! What’s the problem?”
“There’s a snake!”
Emily questions for a moment if she really just heard what she thinks she just heard. “What was that?”
“There’s a snake in the bathroom!”
Emily smirks, folds her arms, and rolls her eyes. “Why’s there a snake in the bathroom?”
“How’m I supposed to know?! Just get it.”
She jiggles the handle again, not sure what she expected to happen. “The door is still locked! Why did you lock the door?!”
“I was taking a dump! Give me a break!”
Emily removes her hand from the handle, not sure she wants to enter the room even if she could. “Ewww, gross.”
“Oh, stop. Don’t act like you’ve never pooped at my apartment.”
“First of all, it’s OUR apartment now. Second of all, no, I’ve never. I poop in the bathroom in the lobby. Like a lady’s supposed to!”
“Are you coming in here or not?”
She starts looking around the hallway for alternate entrances that don’t exist. “What do you want ME to do? Bust the DOOR down?”
“I think there’s a way you can unlock it from the outside. A pin hole in the handle or something.”
She takes a knee and checks it out. “Eureka! I see a hole! Let me see if I can find something to jam in there.” She takes off running before giving Buster a chance to respond.
Once in the kitchen, she rummages through the junk drawer, finds a paper clip and is just about to run back to the bathroom when she finds a handwritten note, pinned to the side of the fridge. How did she miss this before? She snatches it up, reads it quickly, and sprints back to the bathroom running on her tiptoes. “William, are you ok?”
“Do I sound OK?!”
She bends her improvised tool into a crude shape and prepares to crack the code to enter the hot zone. “Where’s the snake now?”
“It’s in front of the toilet.”
“Ok. What kind of snake is it?”
“I don’t KNOW! It’s a ‘nope’ snake. I didn’t stop to check it out. I would have tried to kill it, but I’m not fighting it naked.”
Emily stops, laughs out loud, and asks, “Wait, why are you naked?”
“I take off all my clothes before I poop. A lot of people do that. Now is not the time to judge me.”
She laughs so hard she pees a little. “Are you... a six-year-old?”
“Don’t be a butthole. Just help me.”
She gets back to the door and slows down. “Listen. I have good news AND bad news. Which do you want first?”.
“I don’t care!”
“The good news is that I found a paper clip. Bad news is that there’s more than one snake.”
“What?!”
“A note in the kitchen says there’s more snakes. Somebody must have broken into your place and left the note for you to find.”
“What note?! What does it say?!”
She maks her best attempt at reading the note without revealing how funny she thinks it is. “It says, Yo Dawg…” She has to close her eyes to keep the laughter in. “…I heard you like snakes. So, I put a snake in your house. Then I put six more snakes in your house. CCPE for life. Also, stay the F away from Emily. You don’t deserve her. And it’s signed by someone named ‘L’.”
“L? Who could that be?”
Emily develops a theory. “It could be Lexi, she likes snakes. Or… wait… I got something in the mail from someone named L a couple weeks ago. It could be related to that.”
Buster ignores her garbage conspiracy theories and substitutes his own. Larry Tact? Level Up Wrestling? Lissie Hope? That horseface Latin Submission Machine? They’re all people who don’t get along with Buster, but do any of them care enough about him to do something like this? Maybe someone just wants Buster to TAKE another L. “Xavier Lux did this. It was Lux!”
She has no idea who that is. “Who?”
“Prison Lips Lux. That f*ckboy from CCPE. He’s one of the names on the hit list. He beat me in a match at the XWF and is dodging me for the rematch. I’m not a smart man, but I know typical CCPE bullcrap when I see it.”
Emily knows about the list. Most of Buster’s fans do by now, but nobody else seems to care. Maybe people will take notice when it’s almost done. Emily is about to dismiss Buster’s theory when, in a moment of great personal pride for her, something inside the door handle releases and it finally opens. So, like a firefighter, she bursts into the bathroom, broom and bucket in hand, ready to save her naked boyfriend from what turns out to be a relatively small, completely harmless, common garter snake. “You’re afraid of that little guy?”
“Screw you! I don’t like snakes. You know that.”
She does know that, but she still doesn’t understand why. In fact, she kind of likes snakes. Even had one as a pet when she was younger. But HE doesn’t know that. Never will. She gently places the bucket over the snake and Buster finally steps out of the shower. “You know, you’re really cute when you’re vulnerable.”
“Now’s not the time. Where’s the note?”
Emily pulls it out of her hoodie pocket, takes another look at the handwriting, and hands it to him with a smile.
Buster studies it and panics.
Emily just sits down on the closed toilet lid and admires her naked boyfriend. “So, what do you want to do now?”
Buster places the note on the bathroom counter and puts up his boxer briefs. “I’m going down to the lobby. Come if you want to.”
A little disappointed and extremely entertained, Emily follows up. “Then what?”
“Someone else can sweep the house and check for snakes, cause I’m not doing it.”
“You don’t want me to look for them myself? I don’t mind.”
“We’re getting a professional! I can’t sleep in this place thinking there’s snakes under the bed.”
Emily can’t contain her laughter any longer.
“It’s not funny. I’m serious.”
She folds one leg over the other and pouts out her bottom lip. “Always so serious. You and I both know THAT snake is way more afraid of you than you are of it.”
“Well, even if that one isn’t dangerous, the rest might be!”
Emily’s amusement wanes. “Such a drama queen. Get dressed, Sally. Let’s call an exterminator and grab a bite to eat. Everything will be fine.”
“Everything WON’T be fine until I get my hands on Lux and put his ass to sleep.”
Emily winks and welcomes the bonk stick. “You can put my ass to sleep if you want.”
“I’m leaving. It would be nice if you came with me.”
Emily crouches down and taps on the inverted bucket. “It’ll be ok little guy. He’s just working through some personal issues.”
Let me just set the record straight about some things. I’ve made a lot of mistakes this year. Hurt some people I love. And I hate myself for it. I hate whatever mental illness I have and I’m trying to control it. I’m sorry that everything has been such a mess.
My supporters have been patient. They put up with my temper and my mood swings when it would just be easier to walk away. But I think they do it because they recognize that I’m trying to use what I HAVE, to make it up to them when I can. Emily Simms is my before-anyone-else and my Dad has been my rock. They help me take care of myself and help me raise my two teenage sons in Florida, while I’m pursuing a dream. I hope they see what I’m doing and they’re proud of me.
Being PROactive instead of Reactive has saved me a lot of trouble. Most of the time, I can keep things together by managing risk and staying positive. But not all clouds have silver linings. Sometimes, when I’ve been pushed too far, my temper gets the best of me, and I do things that I end up regretting later. That’s what happened in my triple threat match versus Peter Vaughn and Finn Kuhn in the XWF a couple weeks ago. I had the match won and I let it get away from me.
After the match, I wrote a letter to Peter Vaughn. I called him some colorful names and wished some oddly specific things to happen to him. When I finished it, I just tossed it in a fire pit and let the words become ash. For all the things that Peter Vaughn has done to me, for all the accusations I’ve made, he’s taught me some valuable lessons that I’ll remember for a lifetime. Whether or not he’s a good man isn’t for me to decide.
All I CAN control is ME. And no matter how many times I fail, how many L’s I take, or how much I embarrass myself, I keep pushing forward. I keep failing my way upwards until I make it. People like Vaughn are starting to get tired of seeing me hang around. I’m a relentless nuisance that just won’t go away. Like the Terminator with a fatal attraction. If I try enough times, take enough bullets, I’ll eventually beat anybody.
I’m here, in Las Vegas because I have an important job to do. But I just keep getting in my own way. A part of me feels like if I become too successful as a wrestler, I’ll spoil my chances of ever becoming a good father. So, I need my sons to be proud of the work I’ve done before I leave this business and become the father they need me to be. When they become men, they need to know that I took my shot at greatness while I had it. And when their time comes, they need to know that it’s ok to take their shot too.
To distract himself from the snakes in his closet, Buster decides to bury the hatchet with a well-known adversary. With great hesitation, he sends an SMS text message to XWF wrestler Finn Kuhn. Emily Simms doesn’t even notice because she’s too focused on the show at the Ring Rust Café - Dinner and Tournament.
“You suck [clap, clap]! You suck [clap clap]!” jeers the California Kitten to the performers in the ring (between the sips of her Pepsi Cola).
Just in case you were wondering, The Ring Rust Café is Las Vegas’ premiere dinner and wrestling theater. Four nights a week, it hosts wrestling events featuring world-class sports entertainers. They’re actually just local enhancement talent trying to catch their big break, but they’re fun to watch. It truly IS a dining experience unlike any you’ve ever had before. And it’s on the ground level of the Velvet Rabbit Hotel & Casino.
“These guys are the drizzling shits, Em.”
“Oh relax. Not everybody can be a grappling MASTER like the Bull of the North. So, they come out here, they work an angled match for the fans, and maybe they get signed to a major deal.”
“But it’s fake wrestling. All of it’s preplanned. I’m not stupid. I’m no mark.”
Gloves looks again at his phone, the message he just sent showing as read, but still no answer.
“Oh, relax. Sports Entertainment is THEATRE. I love the stories and the athleticism. It makes my heart feel happy.”“Hey Finn. You ok? How’s the neck? I have a job for you if you’re interested. I could use your help with something. Can you be in Vegas on Monday night?”
“Every match is the same predictable crap. The good guy gets the piss beat out of him and wins at the end so the crowd goes home happy.”
“On a large enough timeline, the good guy always wins.”
“Maybe, you’re right. But the part before that is brutal and humiliating.”
“You’re just paranoid. You think everyone is out to get you.”
“Maybe they are.”
“Well, I happen to like you very much. And I’m sure that other people will too once they get to know you.”
Maybe Finn Kuhn can be a friend now that he knows Buster. If only the guy would just return a text message.
Emily cheers as the baby face jumps off the top turnbuckle and hits a splash for the pinfall. “I told you the good guy would win.”
Bury Peter Vaughn. That’s the impossible assignment I’ve been handed for being a nail in a hammer factory. Conventional wisdom says there’s no way to bury Vaughn. He’s the undead. In fact, it would take a miracle to do it. A Christmas miracle.
Peter- Peter wrestling-cheater, what a fantastic life you lead.
In an alternate dimension where the truth is a disease
Good is bad and bad is good, You do just as you please
And there’s no limit to the games you’ll play if someone makes you bleed.
Seriously, the mental gymnastics you have to do on a daily basis to justify the body count behind you is staggering. You’ve hoarded titles and giggle-farted yourself to stardom on a throne of bloody mops. Forget being the greatest of all time. We’re bordering on God-like status now. And your brainless band of cultists, worshipping at your feet, stands at the ready, edging on spontaneous orgasm, ready to purge the unclean for you. I know all about it because I used to be one of them.
But things change. According to a popular theory on 4chan, you aren’t the man you portray yourself to be. Are you a blue-collar custodian or a secret Russian double agent? Are you the God-Emperor of pro-wrestling or a complete fraud? To be absolutely honest, I don’t care anymore. I’m tired of hearing all the stories about you. There’s no way they’re all true. There’s no way they’re all false.
So, what kind of Christmas surprise do you give the man who already has everything? I think it would surprise a lot of folks if I beat you clean in the ring. It would surprise some others if I joined you in this little faction war you’ve got brewing. But we should save the surprise for the match. It’s either gonna touch your heart or break it, Mr. Vaughn. You’ll have to just wait and witness it with the rest of us. That’s the beauty of miracles.
I learned a valuable lesson the last time I saw you. What I learned is that I can’t blame YOU for my own shortcomings. You freed me from my chains. Had it not been for you, I’d still be sitting in Level Up, polishing a worthless belt, thinking that my work was making a difference. You showed me that if I want to rise, I need to get outside of my comfort zone and get my hands dirty. Nobody else is responsible for my position but me. Eventually I’ll prove to you and the rest of the wrestling world that Buster Gloves can hang with the elite.
I don’t need to be better than anybody on any given night. I just need to be perfect for 3 seconds. No sweeps, no plunges, and no bullshit...
I won’t forget you, Peter.
And I won’t forgive you.
Because I’m becoming you.
![](https://i.ibb.co/87K5V18/buster-skyline.png)
1-time Secondary Champion in a mid-level fed
2-time MMA Light Heavyweight Champion
Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu Black Belt
Retired US Army Bronze Star Recipient
Doesn’t fuck with snakes