Karma has no deadline
May 26, 2016 17:36:42 GMT -5
Post by Johnny Karma on May 26, 2016 17:36:42 GMT -5
Having had a few days of rest and relaxation and reflection since his match with Mark Storm at the last episode of Vertigo, we find Johnny Karma and Cherry Baum in their natural habitat that is Sal’s Deli in the heart of Astoria, where Cherry is doing to a bowl of chili cheese fries what Genghis Khan did to central Asia – but on the opposite side of the table we see Johnny Karma has just a cup of black coffee in front of him which he has barely had two sips from, instead he is tapping his finger against the side of the cup that send ripples across the surface of his caffeinated beverage
Are you sure you don’t want something to eat?
Cherry’s offer seems to be genuine, so genuine in fact that she does the unthinkable – she actually offers her bowl in Karma’s direction
If you’re sure…
Carefully pulling the bowl back towards her, Cherry picks out another stick of chili cheesy goodness and raises it towards her mouth…then she pauses, calling over a waiter so she can order something
My friend’ll have a chicken Caesar salad.
Once the waiter notes this down and makes his way towards the serving hatch, Karma looks up and gives Cherry a quizzical look, wondering why she ordered for him – a look which Cherry understands without him having to say a word
Nobody ever said a cup of Joe was the lunch of champions.
Yeah, well my appetite’s not exactly stimulated right now.
A look of concern crosses Cherry’s face as she pushes her bowl aside
What’s wrong J-K?
At first Karma doesn’t respond, other than rapidly tapping his index and middle fingers against the tabletop one after the other – so Cherry resorts to desperate measures by taking the shortest- stubbiest, most burned-looking fry from the bowl and flicking it at Karma’s head, before it bounces off and lands perfectly in the saucer under his coffee cup
…the heck???
Just speeding up your thought process.
Taking the hint, Karma takes a sip of his cup of coffee, a cup so bitter than his eyes narrow as the caffeinated goodness massages his taste buds, causing him to put down the cup before he empties five packets of sugar into the cup and gives it a quick stir to get his coffee how he likes it, before taking a second sip as he feels like it’s time to maybe consider talking
Okay, here’s something that’s been on my mind for the past few days. So at the last show I was in the arena, those two ben zonas were in the arena…and for the first time in what feels like six months they didn’t schedule the now-traditional Johnny Karma beatdown.
That’s good…isn’t it?
Well that’s the thing, the moment I got back to my hotel room and stepped into the shower, I couldn’t help but wonder why. Is it because what Carmine wants to believe all that trash he was saying about thinking he’s moved on from me now that he’s proven he can lose to me in back-to-back Pride Championship matches? He does seem to keep missing that last little detail because it doesn’t fit into what he wants everyone to talk about, so it’s better for him and his new-found best friend to jump people from behind after losing their matches – and no doubt he’s unhappy that he can’t accuse anyone who brings that up of misogyny as Paul Feig will sue for gimmick infringement.
But then it dawned on me that, if Carmine believed that, he wouldn’t have been so determined to stop me getting in the ring during the GRR – because he knew I was looking to prevent him getting anywhere near the final four, let alone the final two, and I had a few footprint-shaped bruises to serve as motivation for that. So that can’t be the case, especially because I’m sure Cannon would be itching to jump somebody from behind to prove how manly he is – if he doesn’t need to helper monkey Quinn Goodrich to do the heavy lifting for him, anyway.
And that’s when it struck me…
Just when it seems Karma is about to reveal what it is that occurred to him, the waiter places the chicken Caesar salad that Cherry ordered on the table in front of him, and almost immediately Karma spears a large piece of chicken with his fork, and then with a couple more stabbing motions gets some greenery on his fork before he takes the whole thing down in one bite – and as he chews, he spots that Cherry is waiting for him to finish what he was about to say, so he finishes his mouthful and washes it down with his complimentary glass of water
What struck me was the realisation that the pair of them are starting to get cocky, and think that the pair of them failing to win the GRR has made them untouchable – and when people start to get cocky, they start to get sloppy, and when they get sloppy they start to get…well let’s just say they don’t look so smug anymore.
If the pair of them are thinking that everything is coming up roses, or in their case everything coming up the stuff people put on roses to make them grow, and believe they’re so untouchable that they can ignore the possibility of a little bit of payback heading their way, then remind me to head to the nearest branch of FedEx Office to get a large sign reading “I TOLD YOU SO”…but then again, that’s not exactly a classy move, but then again it’s still classier than anything they’ve come up with so far.
Feeling glad to get that off his chest, Karma reaches for one of Cherry’s fries – only to have his hand slapped away with a shot so stiff it needs Japanese commentary
Sorry, force of habit. Go ahead.
Cherry offers her bowl to Karma, and he warily takes one of her chili cheese fries, rubbing the back of his hand as he takes a bite
Seriously, why haven’t you at least enquired about a spot in Lion’s Den?
With that, Karma goes back to spearing his salad with such intensity that you would think that it owed him money
KARMIC TV
Uh oh, you’re in trouble, Karma’s come along and he’ll burst your bubble
As has happened many, many times before we cut to the Karmic TV studio where we are greeted with Cherry Baum’s friendly and wildly enthusiastic wave to camera, while Johnny Karma is…not his usual cool, calm and collected self as he sits on his couch. In fact he seems to be somewhat agitated, as if there is something on his mind – something he has been looking to get off his chest for some time, a weight that feels as if that weight is starting to lift, but until it lifts he’s still got this weight to contend with – almost as if, since the two of them were at Sal’s Deli, a match pitting Karma against the New Kings has been announced and that match has opened some not-so-old wounds that had hardly healed
In spite of this, the show doesn’t merely need to go on it needs to go in the first place, which is why Cherry greets us in her customary manner even though she’s fully aware that Karma isn’t 100% karmic at this moment in time
Hi guys, welcome to another edition of Karmic TV, the show that doesn’t get passive aggressive about whether you use AdBlock Plus while watching us because even we know those unskippable ads are freakin’ irritating.
Now as you are all no doubt aware, a few weeks ago J-K invited Fujiko Mine to challenge him for the Pride Championship for one simple reason, namely to give ASSV an actual main event, rather than a train wreck in slow motion, then in reverse, and then it gets played through once again at normal speed just so you get an understanding of just how much of a train wreck that particular train wreck was. So this week we see J-to-the-K team up with Fujiko to face that two-headed snake that has been a pain in that place where pain is quite inconvenient as that’s the place you use for sitting, namely Tony Carmine and Johnny Cannon. So without further ado, what’re your thoughts on this match J-K?
Hmm…let me think about that for a moment…
As a serious expression crosses Karma’s brow, he taps his ring finger against the arm of his sofa a few times in rapid succession and he is noticeably tense
There’s one thing on my mind about this match, just one: after getting jumped from behind time and again for the last few shows, at last there’s a moment where I will be face-to-face with Cannon and Carmine and I will have the chance to exact some long-overdue revenge on the pair of them for the way they’ve been acting these past few weeks.
Ever since the day the pair of them first announced to the FWA Galaxy that they thought they might be a force to perhaps be reckoned with, they have gone out of their way to attack me, be it after I defeated carmine to regain the Pride Championship, to save Carmine from being defeated when I faced him in the rematch he couldn’t wait to demand, or during the Gold Rush Rumble to prevent me from being able to eject them from the ring to make sure those self-proclaimed kings wouldn’t even reach their coronation.
The thing is, it never seemed to occur to them that there would be some point where our paths would cross in the ring, or at the very least they were hoping there would be more time for them to do whatever they wanted to get away with before our schedules clashed – but that’s where they’re wrong, because the second this match was announced the one thing I was sure of was that it was time to let the pair of them know how it feels to be treated like little more than a stain on the canvas – while trying to make sure they look like little more than a stain on the canvas.
Hearing how Karma is sounding an awful lot like somebody he isn’t, Cherry is quick to interject
Are you sure that you want to stoop to their level?
Although he hears what Cherry is saying, Karma doesn’t acknowledge it as he continues
Look back to the last show and you’ll see the sort of thing I’m talking about: anyone and everyone could see that Fuji had earned a hard-fought win over Johnny Cannon and she was on the verge of claiming victory, only for Cannon’s trained ringside monkey Quinn Goodrich to not just steal that away from her but actively cost her the match. Not only did he steal a win, he acted like he was entitled to it as he scurried away from ringside, smirking like the high school jock who just swiped a bottle of the good stuff from his parents’ liquor cabinet before heading out to Makeout Point to get drunk with his jock buddies while the girlfriend he doesn’t deserve sits in the car bored out of her mind. And that’s the problem with the pair of them managing to lose the GRR at the same time, the pair of them are starting to get smug, cocky, throwing their weight around a little bit because they’re thinking they’ll be on top of it all soon enough.
So it’s time for me to step in, time for Fuji to step in, and remind the pair of them that not only is everyone they attacked on the way up going to be waiting for them as they’re on the way back down – but we’re not going to wait for them to fall back down. That’s the point that’s eluded them this entire time: if they reach the top there’s going to be a long queue of people waiting to knock them off much sooner than they expect, and when they get knocked down they’re going to find plenty of people waiting to meet them with malice in their eyes and knowledge of which dishes are best served cold – and they’re all going to be waiting for them. Molly Reid, Mark Storm, they have plenty of reason to, and that’s just a couple off of the top of my head – and the point is they’re going about making their way in FWA the right way, because the difference between somebody who earns their way and somebody who steals their way is that the one who steals ahead may get their sooner, but they also get found out just in time for the person to work their way up to tap them on the shoulder.
But that’s something that’s off in the distant future, but if we bring it in to the more immediate future we have the match where I set foot in the ring with the pair of them, one at a time, with no surprise attack from behind or any of that. So what are they hoping for? Are they hoping that I’ll just assume the position, turn my back on them and wait for another beatdown? If that’s their plan, I guess I was a little more on the nose when I said they hadn’t planned too far in advance.
What they haven’t thought of is what my plan is for this match is, what Fuji’s plan for this match is, and at the risk of talking for somebody else I can tell you for a fact our plans both run on similar lines: we plan to expose the pair of you, to defeat you in that ring to remind you that you’re anything but untouchable – because the pair of us know you’re anything but untouchable, we’ve seen it, we’ve proved it, but now it’s time where we take away the one thing the pair of you rely on more than anything else: the ability to tell yourselves whatever fiction you want to believe. You’ve been telling yourselves that you’re “done” with me after I proved I am literally twice the wrestler Carmine is, you’ve been telling yourselves that all manner of people are below you – and it’s time that came to a stop, because it’s time you started making excuses for your failures.
At long last, Karma finally reclines on his couch as he stretches his arms over his head
It’s going to feel good to have the pair of you on a level, fair playing field for the first time, because there’s plenty of time and opportunity to let you know one fact that you could never disprove no matter how much time and effort you devoted to attacking me: neither of you are capable of saying you’re the better man than me, because we’re not even the same species.
So that’s what I have on my mind, Miss Baum, thoughts of removing that weight on my shoulders that got stomped there several times in a row, a weight that’s been dragging me down but all of a sudden looks like it’s going to ease off in the space of one night – and when that weight is off my shoulders, it’s going to feel good.
At first there’s a second or two of dead air as Cherry isn’t quite sure how to wrap things up
…so as you can see, J-K is extremely focused on the task in hand, namely the task of gaining some retribution on Tony Carmine and Johnny Cannon at the next show, something he’s been looking forward to for some time – possibly too much, all things considered.
Upon hearing what Cherry is saying, Karma glances towards Cherry as he picks up on the not-so-subtle message that he’s focusing on the wrong thing in this match
But until next time, thank you so much for tuning in to join us, and we hope to see you all soon. Bye!
Cherry gives a friendly wave to camera, and Karma gives a remarkably half-hearted one – but in the split second before the video ends we see Cherry look towards Karma with an expression that says she’s concerned that he’s allowing the New Kings to get inside his head and affect his focus
Are you sure you don’t want something to eat?
Cherry’s offer seems to be genuine, so genuine in fact that she does the unthinkable – she actually offers her bowl in Karma’s direction
If you’re sure…
Carefully pulling the bowl back towards her, Cherry picks out another stick of chili cheesy goodness and raises it towards her mouth…then she pauses, calling over a waiter so she can order something
My friend’ll have a chicken Caesar salad.
Once the waiter notes this down and makes his way towards the serving hatch, Karma looks up and gives Cherry a quizzical look, wondering why she ordered for him – a look which Cherry understands without him having to say a word
Nobody ever said a cup of Joe was the lunch of champions.
Yeah, well my appetite’s not exactly stimulated right now.
A look of concern crosses Cherry’s face as she pushes her bowl aside
What’s wrong J-K?
At first Karma doesn’t respond, other than rapidly tapping his index and middle fingers against the tabletop one after the other – so Cherry resorts to desperate measures by taking the shortest- stubbiest, most burned-looking fry from the bowl and flicking it at Karma’s head, before it bounces off and lands perfectly in the saucer under his coffee cup
…the heck???
Just speeding up your thought process.
Taking the hint, Karma takes a sip of his cup of coffee, a cup so bitter than his eyes narrow as the caffeinated goodness massages his taste buds, causing him to put down the cup before he empties five packets of sugar into the cup and gives it a quick stir to get his coffee how he likes it, before taking a second sip as he feels like it’s time to maybe consider talking
Okay, here’s something that’s been on my mind for the past few days. So at the last show I was in the arena, those two ben zonas were in the arena…and for the first time in what feels like six months they didn’t schedule the now-traditional Johnny Karma beatdown.
That’s good…isn’t it?
Well that’s the thing, the moment I got back to my hotel room and stepped into the shower, I couldn’t help but wonder why. Is it because what Carmine wants to believe all that trash he was saying about thinking he’s moved on from me now that he’s proven he can lose to me in back-to-back Pride Championship matches? He does seem to keep missing that last little detail because it doesn’t fit into what he wants everyone to talk about, so it’s better for him and his new-found best friend to jump people from behind after losing their matches – and no doubt he’s unhappy that he can’t accuse anyone who brings that up of misogyny as Paul Feig will sue for gimmick infringement.
But then it dawned on me that, if Carmine believed that, he wouldn’t have been so determined to stop me getting in the ring during the GRR – because he knew I was looking to prevent him getting anywhere near the final four, let alone the final two, and I had a few footprint-shaped bruises to serve as motivation for that. So that can’t be the case, especially because I’m sure Cannon would be itching to jump somebody from behind to prove how manly he is – if he doesn’t need to helper monkey Quinn Goodrich to do the heavy lifting for him, anyway.
And that’s when it struck me…
Just when it seems Karma is about to reveal what it is that occurred to him, the waiter places the chicken Caesar salad that Cherry ordered on the table in front of him, and almost immediately Karma spears a large piece of chicken with his fork, and then with a couple more stabbing motions gets some greenery on his fork before he takes the whole thing down in one bite – and as he chews, he spots that Cherry is waiting for him to finish what he was about to say, so he finishes his mouthful and washes it down with his complimentary glass of water
What struck me was the realisation that the pair of them are starting to get cocky, and think that the pair of them failing to win the GRR has made them untouchable – and when people start to get cocky, they start to get sloppy, and when they get sloppy they start to get…well let’s just say they don’t look so smug anymore.
If the pair of them are thinking that everything is coming up roses, or in their case everything coming up the stuff people put on roses to make them grow, and believe they’re so untouchable that they can ignore the possibility of a little bit of payback heading their way, then remind me to head to the nearest branch of FedEx Office to get a large sign reading “I TOLD YOU SO”…but then again, that’s not exactly a classy move, but then again it’s still classier than anything they’ve come up with so far.
Feeling glad to get that off his chest, Karma reaches for one of Cherry’s fries – only to have his hand slapped away with a shot so stiff it needs Japanese commentary
Sorry, force of habit. Go ahead.
Cherry offers her bowl to Karma, and he warily takes one of her chili cheese fries, rubbing the back of his hand as he takes a bite
Seriously, why haven’t you at least enquired about a spot in Lion’s Den?
With that, Karma goes back to spearing his salad with such intensity that you would think that it owed him money
KARMIC TV
Uh oh, you’re in trouble, Karma’s come along and he’ll burst your bubble
As has happened many, many times before we cut to the Karmic TV studio where we are greeted with Cherry Baum’s friendly and wildly enthusiastic wave to camera, while Johnny Karma is…not his usual cool, calm and collected self as he sits on his couch. In fact he seems to be somewhat agitated, as if there is something on his mind – something he has been looking to get off his chest for some time, a weight that feels as if that weight is starting to lift, but until it lifts he’s still got this weight to contend with – almost as if, since the two of them were at Sal’s Deli, a match pitting Karma against the New Kings has been announced and that match has opened some not-so-old wounds that had hardly healed
In spite of this, the show doesn’t merely need to go on it needs to go in the first place, which is why Cherry greets us in her customary manner even though she’s fully aware that Karma isn’t 100% karmic at this moment in time
Hi guys, welcome to another edition of Karmic TV, the show that doesn’t get passive aggressive about whether you use AdBlock Plus while watching us because even we know those unskippable ads are freakin’ irritating.
Now as you are all no doubt aware, a few weeks ago J-K invited Fujiko Mine to challenge him for the Pride Championship for one simple reason, namely to give ASSV an actual main event, rather than a train wreck in slow motion, then in reverse, and then it gets played through once again at normal speed just so you get an understanding of just how much of a train wreck that particular train wreck was. So this week we see J-to-the-K team up with Fujiko to face that two-headed snake that has been a pain in that place where pain is quite inconvenient as that’s the place you use for sitting, namely Tony Carmine and Johnny Cannon. So without further ado, what’re your thoughts on this match J-K?
Hmm…let me think about that for a moment…
As a serious expression crosses Karma’s brow, he taps his ring finger against the arm of his sofa a few times in rapid succession and he is noticeably tense
There’s one thing on my mind about this match, just one: after getting jumped from behind time and again for the last few shows, at last there’s a moment where I will be face-to-face with Cannon and Carmine and I will have the chance to exact some long-overdue revenge on the pair of them for the way they’ve been acting these past few weeks.
Ever since the day the pair of them first announced to the FWA Galaxy that they thought they might be a force to perhaps be reckoned with, they have gone out of their way to attack me, be it after I defeated carmine to regain the Pride Championship, to save Carmine from being defeated when I faced him in the rematch he couldn’t wait to demand, or during the Gold Rush Rumble to prevent me from being able to eject them from the ring to make sure those self-proclaimed kings wouldn’t even reach their coronation.
The thing is, it never seemed to occur to them that there would be some point where our paths would cross in the ring, or at the very least they were hoping there would be more time for them to do whatever they wanted to get away with before our schedules clashed – but that’s where they’re wrong, because the second this match was announced the one thing I was sure of was that it was time to let the pair of them know how it feels to be treated like little more than a stain on the canvas – while trying to make sure they look like little more than a stain on the canvas.
Hearing how Karma is sounding an awful lot like somebody he isn’t, Cherry is quick to interject
Are you sure that you want to stoop to their level?
Although he hears what Cherry is saying, Karma doesn’t acknowledge it as he continues
Look back to the last show and you’ll see the sort of thing I’m talking about: anyone and everyone could see that Fuji had earned a hard-fought win over Johnny Cannon and she was on the verge of claiming victory, only for Cannon’s trained ringside monkey Quinn Goodrich to not just steal that away from her but actively cost her the match. Not only did he steal a win, he acted like he was entitled to it as he scurried away from ringside, smirking like the high school jock who just swiped a bottle of the good stuff from his parents’ liquor cabinet before heading out to Makeout Point to get drunk with his jock buddies while the girlfriend he doesn’t deserve sits in the car bored out of her mind. And that’s the problem with the pair of them managing to lose the GRR at the same time, the pair of them are starting to get smug, cocky, throwing their weight around a little bit because they’re thinking they’ll be on top of it all soon enough.
So it’s time for me to step in, time for Fuji to step in, and remind the pair of them that not only is everyone they attacked on the way up going to be waiting for them as they’re on the way back down – but we’re not going to wait for them to fall back down. That’s the point that’s eluded them this entire time: if they reach the top there’s going to be a long queue of people waiting to knock them off much sooner than they expect, and when they get knocked down they’re going to find plenty of people waiting to meet them with malice in their eyes and knowledge of which dishes are best served cold – and they’re all going to be waiting for them. Molly Reid, Mark Storm, they have plenty of reason to, and that’s just a couple off of the top of my head – and the point is they’re going about making their way in FWA the right way, because the difference between somebody who earns their way and somebody who steals their way is that the one who steals ahead may get their sooner, but they also get found out just in time for the person to work their way up to tap them on the shoulder.
But that’s something that’s off in the distant future, but if we bring it in to the more immediate future we have the match where I set foot in the ring with the pair of them, one at a time, with no surprise attack from behind or any of that. So what are they hoping for? Are they hoping that I’ll just assume the position, turn my back on them and wait for another beatdown? If that’s their plan, I guess I was a little more on the nose when I said they hadn’t planned too far in advance.
What they haven’t thought of is what my plan is for this match is, what Fuji’s plan for this match is, and at the risk of talking for somebody else I can tell you for a fact our plans both run on similar lines: we plan to expose the pair of you, to defeat you in that ring to remind you that you’re anything but untouchable – because the pair of us know you’re anything but untouchable, we’ve seen it, we’ve proved it, but now it’s time where we take away the one thing the pair of you rely on more than anything else: the ability to tell yourselves whatever fiction you want to believe. You’ve been telling yourselves that you’re “done” with me after I proved I am literally twice the wrestler Carmine is, you’ve been telling yourselves that all manner of people are below you – and it’s time that came to a stop, because it’s time you started making excuses for your failures.
At long last, Karma finally reclines on his couch as he stretches his arms over his head
It’s going to feel good to have the pair of you on a level, fair playing field for the first time, because there’s plenty of time and opportunity to let you know one fact that you could never disprove no matter how much time and effort you devoted to attacking me: neither of you are capable of saying you’re the better man than me, because we’re not even the same species.
So that’s what I have on my mind, Miss Baum, thoughts of removing that weight on my shoulders that got stomped there several times in a row, a weight that’s been dragging me down but all of a sudden looks like it’s going to ease off in the space of one night – and when that weight is off my shoulders, it’s going to feel good.
At first there’s a second or two of dead air as Cherry isn’t quite sure how to wrap things up
…so as you can see, J-K is extremely focused on the task in hand, namely the task of gaining some retribution on Tony Carmine and Johnny Cannon at the next show, something he’s been looking forward to for some time – possibly too much, all things considered.
Upon hearing what Cherry is saying, Karma glances towards Cherry as he picks up on the not-so-subtle message that he’s focusing on the wrong thing in this match
But until next time, thank you so much for tuning in to join us, and we hope to see you all soon. Bye!
Cherry gives a friendly wave to camera, and Karma gives a remarkably half-hearted one – but in the split second before the video ends we see Cherry look towards Karma with an expression that says she’s concerned that he’s allowing the New Kings to get inside his head and affect his focus
