Victory Conditions: Match starts as a simple tag team match with traditional rules. After a participant is pinned, however, they have to leave the ring and head backstage. From there, the match becomes a 2 on 1 handicap tornado tag match with the remaining tag member against the team that won the first fall.
***
Theo continued to stare at the match card, as he had been doing for the past few minutes since it was given to him by one of the stagehands. He’d come in for tonight’s episode of LAW, told management would finally have a match for them, and he was over the moon about that…at first. Right up until the moment he was told exactly who he’d be facing and what sort of match it would be.
Nha and Sha, in a tag team elimination bout. Holy shit.
Having done his homework on many of the teams in LAW, he’d stumbled across those names more than once. A pair of twins with a penchant for handicap matches, well known for leaving their opponents a stupified, slobbering mess. He’d seen their match with Origa Xenia, saw how they’d dismantled the giant woman. Even though it was two-on-one, it was still an impressive display, and one that he had no interest in recreating. He’d asked management to give them someone fair in their debut, someone they could put on a clean match with, and he’d thought they were on the same page. Apparently not.
He was in the guerrilla section, trying to make some sense of it before their match began, when Willy came walking through his way, guitar slung on his shoulder and his usual goofy stride. Late, as always. He was supposed to have come in earlier so they could talk strategy before the match, but now that they knew what they were up against, he wasn’t sure there were any real good gameplans.
”Hey, dude,” Willy threw a quick wave and gave Theo a light punch on the shoulder. ”You all right? What’s the deal, you look like something’s bugging you.”
”Because something is.” He waved the match card at him. ”Look at his.”
Theo handed the card over to Willy, who proceeded to analyze it for all of one second, before he chucked and flicked it back. ”Heh, sweet. They actually listened to me for once.”
A second passed, then two, then three, reaching an uncomfortable amount of time where Theo simply stood stockstill and stared at his tag partner. The gears started to turn, and after a few blinks, he was able to put together a coherent sentence. ”What…” He shook his head. ”What are you talking about?”
Willy just shrugged, as if he’d been asked the dumbest question in history. ”I asked for the match. Duh.” He sat down on one of the equipment cases, brought his guitar up, and started to tune it, not the least bit fazed by the dumbfounded expression on Theo’s face. ”They were looking for a male tag team to take them on, so I threw our name in. They were all like ‘fuck no’, but I got them going, just needed some convincing.” He smirked and bounced his eyebrows. “Put on the old charm.”
Theo opened his mouth to speak, then closed it again as he brought his hands up to his temples. Deep breaths. In and out. Count to three. One, two- ”Dude, what the fuck? What the actual fuck?”
Willy threw up his hand and jumped back at the outburst, almost falling off the case. ”Hey, whoa, slow your roll. You’ve been trying to get us a match on the main for weeks, I made it happen, what’s the problem?”
”The problem is we’re not ready for them, we don’t have the experience as a tag team yet. I wanted us to start small, and you just threw us in with the sharks. Without a cage! This isn't like with Artistry, these two have a long history of messing up guys like us.” He groaned and slapped his forehead, along with a nice rub. ”And what is with you and getting us in fights with Egyptians, anyway? We just got turned into slaves by Neith a couple weeks ago, now you’ve got us going up against two of them. What, you’re going for a hat trick?”
”Dude. Dude.” Willy stood up and relaxed his shoulders, giving them a good roll before he looked back at Theo with his trademark goofy smile, the same one that proceeded some of his biggest bonehead moments. ”We got this. We can handle it. And have you seen these two? Come on, can you blame me?”
”I can, will, and am blaming you. I don’t want our debut to end with us fucked in the middle of the ring, figuratlvey or literally, thank you.” Theo rubbed his nose, fighting through the irritation as best as he could. They were here, no getting arond it, needed to just work with this as best as he could. ”Okay.” He snapped his fingers after a long moment of introspection, seizing Willy’s attention. ”Here’s the plan.”
***
The two of them found themselves in the ring a few minutes, getting ready in their corner while their entrance theme died down. Theo would be starting, just like he discussed and he was already warming up and ready to fight, gripping the ropes and leaning forward while he psyched himself out. This was a bad situation, but he intended to make the most of it. He just hoped Willy’s head was in the right place, or it would all fall apart.
Willy
Theo
