Best Friends
by Chris Smith
Daria is a trademark of MTV Networks
(c)MMVI

When I first met her, I didn't think we'd ever become close friends. I figured.....we just hang out for awhile, and probably get tired of each other and be miserable again.

I was wrong. We were like family.

Only between family would two people do something THIS stupid.

But dammit, it was fun, too. You should have seen the looks on their faces.

We've been planning this for weeks, working out every kink in the system, and preparing our bodies. This was going to hurt. Jane looked at me as we peeked through the curtain and said "You know we're going to catch holy hell over this, right?" I knew. After all, the show was advertised for almost a month, promising more than the average fan could bear. The folks in charge swore on their kids that everything was cleared with the State Commission. We had to leave it at that. If all else fails, we'll just sue HIM. Finally, we gave each other a hug for good luck as Jane's music started up over the P.A. "Riders on the Storm" by Creed. It wasn't exactly her choice of music, but it kinda suits her. She left through the curtain, and the crowd went ballistic. People have been waiting for this, and we've been waiting to give it to them. I waited for my music to play over the speakers, and eventually I went as well. I was kinda curious over what they picked as my theme. "Cat Scratch Fever" by Motorhead. I snickered a little. The people gasped over the fact that it was me, but shortly went to roaring acceptance.

I've done this before, but never in my own town. Not in front of my friends.

When I stepped through the ropes, I had to step carefully. They were replaced with barbed wire. The protective covering for the mat was gone. It was nothing but the wood plating making up the ring. No protection, whatsoever. Worst of all, there were fluorecent bulbs everywhere, strung up along the barbed wire. Tables everywhere. And there was never a shortage of chairs.

We were wrestlers, and tonight, we were fighting each other in an "I Quit" match.

I remember when I first drew my own blood in the ring. I couldn't have been a bigger dipshit. Everyone was looking at me like a pile of dog excrement. Somehow I knew I overdid it, but I wanted to show that I could do it better. I don't know why. Hell, I don't even know why I wanted to belong all of a sudden. Usually, I had no problem being a one of a kind. Jane was along, as always. She didn't care at first about being a wrestler, but she knew how to show me how not to cut myself too deep. The longer I was learning the craft, the more I appreciated it.

As Jane and I removed our coats and shirts, it became more apparent that this was hardly about wrestling. We had pads (Elbow and knee) and brawling gloves, so we both had some protection. The boys were getting a show already just from us in our bras. This is just chaos. Pure chaos.

After the smoke cleared a bit, the bell rang. The match was on, and we were ready to practically kill each other. Jane came forward, as did I, and we locked up. Jane pushed me into the wire and it hurt like hell, but not like the first time. I was somewhat numb to the pain now. After a few times, it's somewhat normal. The referee was right next to us with a mic asking if I wanted to quit. I said no. The fans knew I wasn't going to end the fight at 0:30. That's just stupid. But then, so was what we were doing.

I turned Jane around and I put her into the wire for a few seconds. The crowd was wincing in unison. Who could blame them? It's not often that you see a legit hardcore women's match.

I let Jane up from the wire, and whip her across the ring, and towards the wire again. Jane puts on the brakes, turns around, and recieves a clothesline. Jane falls to the ground, and cusses a bit while wincing, I can't blame her, this puts a wrestler's skills to the ultimate test. You have to land the right way or you're done for good. To make Jane feel better about her position, I drop an elbow on her, so I can feel my back hit that solid wood. She's right, it fucking hurts.

As I'm lying next to Jane, I tell her that it's time to go to work, so I got up and grabbed one of the light tubes. Kids, a word of warning: They're not baseball bats. A baseball bat can hurt, yeah. But the fans aren't stupid. They know that bats can be hollowed out, and faked to look like they were swung that hard. And we know better than to bullshit a hardcore wrestling crowd. Jane was almost to her feet as I turned around and held up the light tube, showing the fans that shit was about to go down. I reared back and timed it so that Jane would see it coming. Jane lowered her head so that the impact was light, there was a roar from the crowd as the bulb exploded over Jane's head.

As I pulled Jane up, she punched me in the gut. I held it for a few seconds, selling the pain, giving her enough time to grab a bulb from the wire and do the same thing to me. Jane grabbed another bulb, set it on the floor and whacked me over the head with the first one. As I buckled over, Jane grabbed the other and cracked it over my back. I was standing erect again, but Jane wanted to keep a series going, so she then grabbed the back of my head, and drove it into the wood.

I saw Jane wipe the sweat from her brow and walk towards me. As she attempts to pull me to my feet, I trip her, sending her face into the wire. The ref immediately goes over to her and asks if she wants to quit, she says no, and claps can be heard from the crowd. The hardcore crowds are much like the Japanese audiences, they don't want to be a distraction, so they'll only make noise when it feels appropriate.

I quickly exit the ring and grab a chair. I can't bounce against the wire like ropes, so while carrying the chair, I do a U-turn to get some speed. Sometimes using a chair just isn't enough, you have to get creative. So I run towards Jane (Still with her back turned to me) and dropkick the chair into her back. I couldn't see her reaction, but I heard her pain. Eventually, I'm going to have to let her do some stuff to me. Otherwise, it's going to look too much like a one-sided fight. I pull Jane up and give her a quick "slug" to the temple. I tell her to hit me, and we trade haymakers. We practiced doing that for weeks, trying to get our fists as close to each other's faces as possible before snapping our heads back.

Eventually, Jane stops trying to punch me and picks me up. Some of the people were surprised to see some actual wrestling tonight. Jane slams me into the wood, and I've got my arm over my back, again selling the pain. Not much to sell, though. Jane has blood running down her chest, and I'm feeling a little on my forehead. Things were getting kinda blurry, but I felt some of those fluorecent bulbs being placed across my chest, my stomach, and my knees. That one's not staying up, I can tell you that right now. Maybe Jane was afraid to put one across my neck. Who knows? Then Jane puts that same chair over the bulbs. Yeah, that's going to sting for weeks. I couldn't tell where she was at that time, but I figured she was going to drop on me with something. Sure enough, for a split-second, I could see Jane's legs coming down on the chair, smashing the bulbs over my flesh.

I could hear Jane mouthing for me to run so she could catch me. I knew it was time to parade this thing around the house for awhile. So I exit the ring and walk toward the timekeeper (Poor guy, he had to be the one to ring the bell to start this thing to begin with, I can only wonder what the hell he's thinking), and Jane grabs the back of my head, and rams it into the ring post, I swing my face around the pole and fall onto the floor selling the impact (that takes split-second timing to make it work), oh god they took out the protective mats for the floor as well. Jesus fuck, that hurt. Jane picks me up, takes another bulb, put it across one of my boobs (I forget which) and breaks it with an elbow shot. Oddly enough, I'm more worried about the bra being shredded than how much that glass fucking hurt.

I grab Jane and hold her up by her side. I have no idea how I'm even doing this, seriously. At this point, my vision's blurry, I'm losing blood, and my body's going numb. Somehow, I manage to slam Jane, horizontally into the ringpost. I'm still holding her, but I wind up collapsing onto the floor. God, I wanna go home. This hurts, it's stupid, I'm starting to wonder if the fifty grand paycheck for this show is even worth it. It's probably going to cost that much to pay the fucking doctor bills. After a minute or two passes, Jane comes to, and notices that I'm almost out of it.

I think Jane realized that I can't run on my own, so she pulls me back to my feet and leads me to this area next to the curtain where some of the staff watches the show. Jane tells some of the crew to get a table ready with the fixin's. It's basically code for two tables with tons of bulbs and some wire. While they're setting everything up, Jane leads me to the upper balcony where the announcers and video crew set up shop. I know there's an open area for Jane and I to tumble onto the tables, but Jane wants me to slam her into the tables. After all, I'm supposed to be the babyface, so it's only fitting. Jane relays me the instructions real quick, and hoists me over her head, I come to and manage to slip off in a reversal. We trade a few punches, and I grab Jane by the neck and push her, and myself off the balcony and into the tables. Everything broke as planned, the glass was everywhere, wire was sticking out of both of us, and we were practically red with blood. The ref held the mic up to both of us, asking if we wanted to stop the match. Again, we said no. I barely got my "No!" out. It was faint, but the mic picked it up, and the fans cheered a bit. We stirred a bit for a couple of minutes, trying to get our bearings, and I told Jane we needed to take it home (Meaning we needed to wrap up the fight and end it). And so, I got up on one knee, and tried to pull Jane up with me. She was just about as out of it as I was.

We eventually got back to our feet. Everything's a blur, so I'm just hoping we both make it to the ring. I roll Jane under the wire and into the ring, I slide in myself and start to "finish off Jane". I grab a giant mirror, wrapped in barbed wire and put it over her. Someone from the crowd throws in a rubber chicken for me to use (The promotion was infamous for letting the fans bring weapons). So I slap the mirror with the chicken a few times, and then crack it with a chair. But at that point, something happened. Someone whacked me in the back of the head with a bulb. I heard Barry, one of the security guys call for help to get someone restrained. Someone must have had enough, and wanted to hurt me for whatever reason.

I was down on the wood again, and Jane came to, and realized that something was wrong, that we're straying from the finish. I guess she tried to improvise by whacking another set of tubes into the back of my noggin. Just like Jane, earlier, now I'M hanging with my arms over the wire, facing the crowd. And from the corner of my eye, I managed to see the fan that attacked me just before security dragged out of the arena.

Jodie. What the fuck was SHE doing here? She wasn't supposed to know about this event. And how did she know it was Jane and I fighting tonight? The poster did specifically mention us by names.

That wasn't important now, as I realized by the buzzing sound, that Jane had to improvise the end to the match. The end called for me to gently run a weedwhacker on her back for a split-second. Unfortunately, now it had to be reversed, since I was down already. Even more unfortunate, the end didn't happen, as someone else grabbed a mic and screamed for the match to end.

"STOP THIS FUCKING MATCH, NOW!!"

I'm not sure who it was, since I had my back turned. But eventually, the guy came around to my side to get me to agree to end the match. Technically, the match cannot end until one says "I quit", so, it was up to me. I still didn't recognize who it was, even with s temporary 66% of my vision focused. I think this guy might be the head of the State Athletic Commission. The ringside area was getting flooded with security, paramedics, and even a few cops. Apparently, not everything was squared away after all. Either that, or maybe the promoter told him that two girls were going to do a hardcore match. That IS somewhat taboo, for some reason. Shit like this is why all you see on TV regarding women and wrestling is nothing more than lame auditions for modelling contracts. They're too afraid of women getting hurt, like it'll mark the end of civilization as we know it, as if stuff like this isn't going on elsewhere in the world.

I grabbed the mic from the State prick official, got up to my feet. and hobbled over to Jane. It felt like an eternity before I brought the mic to my lips. But Jane wanted to make things right. She took the mic from me, and I couldn't believe it.

"Daria.......I quit."

The timekeeper rang the bell, and I collapsed into Jane's arms. She fell back and onto the ground as well, catching me. I turn around to lay back, trying not to look like I was muff-diving my best friend. Everyone knew we were best friends, storyline and real-life, that was what made it a different kind of match than any other. We've given more than our fill for the fans, the ring is a mess, we're covered in blood, glass chunks are embedded in our skin, and now................now it's over.

Would we have done all of this differently? I dunno. There was so much we wanted to do around the middle of the match, but we assumed we could handle more than we really could. Everything that happened afterwards was a blur. Some of the other talent from the show stopped by to visit us in the hospital. They were big mean-looking guys, but once you got to know them, they're no less tamer than Trent & Jesse. We were told that a news crew arrived at the arena trying to get material for a sensationalized story about women being abused for profit. Luckilly, our names and faces weren't shown. Hopefully we'll be long gone before word gets out.

The things friends do for money.

The End