Iron Man

Clever UCW. Still the hungry upstart, UCW-Wrestling is constantly looking for new twists to put into its product. Its latest new (that is, not purportedly "lost") video is an iron man match, pitting two wrestlers against each other in what amounts to an endurance contest. Iron-man rules award points for pins, submissions, and knockouts, the sort of things that usually win matches all by themselves. The winner is the guy to accumulate the most points by the end of a 30-minute time limit. (UCW hardly ever has a match that's under 30 minutes, so rest assured that this little fight is going into overtime!)

Not satisfied with launching a new contest style, UCW decides to muddy the waters too. Let's make this a match between a respected veteran and former UCW champ, James the Never Give Up Kid, still considered one of the best technical wrestlers at UCW, and, in the opposite corner, one of the company's exciting newer talents, Twisted Torment, a sick fuck of a battler who (as his name implies) prefers hurting and psychologically scarring his opponents to merely winning matches and who prides himself on clean knockouts ("clean" in this case meaning nothing more than "decisive" and "no two ways about it").

And just to sweeten the pot, BodySlam appoints Michael Hannigan, Twisted's new sworn enemy, to be the ref. Michael and Twisted crossed paths (literally) in an outdoor match (UCW's first) last month. Twisted blasted the rookie's ass in one of the most memorable UCW melees in recent history. Ever since then, young, hopeful (and still rather doomed-looking) Michael has been training with Axel (UCW's first champ) in the mixed martial arts, all in preparation for a highly anticipated but yet-unannounced match against Twisted Torment.

Will Michael count the match fairly? Or will his antipathy for Twisted interfere with his judgment? Or might he even dare stick his nose into Twisted and James's business? Will James's old-school sportsmanship clash with Twisted's mosh-pit anarchism? After a long absence from UCW (his last four matches were gleaned from the "lost video" collection), is James really prepared for this kind of intense life-and-death struggle? And are Twisted's pink jungle print tights ringing any bells for any of you other fans? What the hell's up with that? And don't you just love the way an unbuttoned ref shirt hangs upon Michael's shoulders?