Episode 2: Team 3D Academy.
While Donald McCarthy and Amy Adams, who had participated as supervisors that day, were watching test footage and conducting final evaluations, the office door opened.
“Good work, both of you.”
“Haah. Bibi. At least one of you two should’ve shown up.”
“Today was D-Von’s turn, not mine.”
“Then switch turns with each other or something.”
“Hahaha. Sorry, Amy. I’ll consider it next time.”
“Next time, my ass.”
“It’s because I trust you two, isn’t it? Consider it an honor.”
“Tch!”
“Bastard. If you can’t even talk right….”
Though Bibi Dudley had been famous five years ago as a stubborn, hot-tempered old bastard, as he aged, his nasty temper had cooled considerably.
And the pay was good, never once delayed.
That alone was something to be thoroughly grateful for.
“How was today’s tryout? How many did you get?”
“Three.”
“Three out of nine?”
“One punk showed up thirty minutes late. Sent him packing on the spot.”
“Good call. Three… well, that’s not too bad.”
“Pfft. Not bad? Puhahaha.”
“Bibi. You’re going to regret not watching today’s tryout.”
Bibi Dudley wondered what had happened for the two of them to speak with such bravado.
“What’s going on? There wasn’t anyone special on the list.”
“A diamond rolled in.”
“Right. A pink diamond, about three hundred carats.”
“A three-hundred-carat diamond? Who? Was there a former medalist? No, there’s no way they wouldn’t have written something like that on their resume.”
Bibi grabbed the documents spread out in front of him and quickly scanned them.
“The passers are Selma Gonzalez, Alfred Gonzalez and his sister, and Rina Cha? Who was the big jackpot?”
“Rina.”
“Rina?”
“Rina Cha. Born March 9, 2007.”
She wasn’t even twenty yet.
Looking at her ID photo, she seemed somewhat pretty, but not so beautiful as to be shocking.
The only remarkable things were the unbelievable facts that she’d completed a full marathon and had a 450kg Big Three total.
“Did she really lift 450kg? With a 166cm, 50kg body?”
“No, we didn’t even test that.”
“Then?”
“She’s drop-dead gorgeous. Scarlett and Karish, who used to team with you, can’t even compare.”
“She’s pretty even from a woman’s perspective. A total K-pop idol.”
“Even with a photo like this?”
“She must’ve taken it in a hurry with her phone, sloppily.”
“Well, understandable. We were shocked too by the gap between her photo and her real-life looks.”
The WWO divas who had dominated the 2000s, Scarlett Keibler and Karish Stratus, were incredibly famous sex symbols.
Especially Scarlett Keibler—though her wrestling skills were terrible—she had thrilled legions of male fans with her tall height and slender figure.
She had been the very definition of eye candy.
“To that extent? How was her athleticism? What about the other tests? Has she learned pro wrestling before?”
“Full marks on all the other tests too. She’s never formally learned pro wrestling, but her athleticism is considerable.”
“We didn’t even need to bother testing her strength. You know that just from her marathon record. It’s an official record, after all.”
“The footage. Play the test footage.”
They played the test footage immediately.
Squats and burpee tests with perfect form.
None of that registered in Bibi Dudley’s eyes.
Only her face caught his attention.
“Bibi, what do you think?”
“H-Huh?”
“You spaced out.”
Bibi’s face turned red and his voice grew louder at that.
“It’s not like that. Her form. I was staring because her form is so good.”
“Right. Her form is good too. She must have trained for quite a while.”
“Why would a kid like this come here instead of the WWO Performance Center?”
The WWO Performance Center was the best route to WWO, and it provided athletes with a minimum living stipend.
But here at ‘Team 3D Academy,’ they instead had to pay money to attend.
And quite a lot of money at that…
The basic class was three thousand dollars a month, and the advanced class five thousand.
It was no small sum.
While the debut as a pro wrestler itself would be faster here, if that place was the MLB, this place was, at best, AA league.
In facilities, scale, conditions, coaching staff—not a single element was better here.
“You’ll understand if you watch the final interview—Jane Kim. Her role model is Jane Kim.”
“Ah. Jane Kim! Korean!”
“Right.”
“What are you doing? Why haven’t you contacted her to say she passed before she changes her mind?”
“Hey! Bibi. We couldn’t contact her because you showed up.”
“Tell her to start tomorrow.”
“I said I got it.”
Although they had been inducted into the WWO Hall of Fame and operated Team 3D Academy, the Dudley Boyz still wrestled for TPA about once or twice a month.
He didn’t dare hope that TPA, the promotion he was deeply involved in, would catch up to WWO.
However, he wanted to overtake EAW, the number-two promotion.
TPA had a women’s roster that was far too weak compared to the men’s, and as a result, they lagged behind EAW’s female wrestlers in both quantity and quality.
There were only about two or three female wrestlers with outstanding beauty.
Compared to her, those female wrestlers were truly nothing.
Over at EAW, there were quite a few female wrestlers with solid skills and the looks to match, including Sara Banks.
While TPA didn’t have a single East Asian female wrestler, EAW had about three or four Japanese female wrestlers who were quite beautiful and very popular.
Furthermore, whenever they held joint PPVs with the cooperation of WWO NEXT, the women’s lineup was always disappointing.
“TPA will be thrilled.”
“They sure will. If she just has the basics down, they might want to debut her right away.”
“Bibi. But there’s something to watch out for.”
“What is it? Amy?”
“Because Rina is so pretty, the male trainees are already drooling over her. You should either train men and women separately or give them a strict warning.”
“I know what you mean. I’ll handle it.”
Though his temperament was foul, Bibi Dudley was relatively clean when it came to male-female matters.
There was no way a man like him would sit idly by and watch something like that happen.
*****
After returning home and watching Neutube, I received a phone call.
“Hello.”
“Yes. Who is this?”
“Ah. Yes, Coach.”
“Are the results already out?”
Isn’t this too fast? It’s only been a few hours since the test.
If they were going to do this, couldn’t they have just announced it on the spot?
As if reading my thoughts, Amy immediately explained.
“I see. Then what should I do going forward?”
“Yes. That’s possible.”
“Understood. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“Yes.”
The next morning, after finishing breakfast early, I ran to the academy to help my food digest.
It was ten minutes by car, but running only took about twenty minutes.
So I arrived much earlier than expected.
Maybe this is better than driving?
But do my stats actually go up when I exercise?
I hadn’t enjoyed exercising like this originally, but quite apart from my life being on the line, my body stats were so broken that exercise was becoming more and more enjoyable.
A win’s a win. Let’s just think positive. Positive.
When I told the security guards blocking my way my name, they checked that I was on the list and let me in immediately.
The area around the ring where I’d taken the test was quiet as a tomb, and sounds of training could be heard from afar.
I was curious, but since I would find out soon enough anyway, I held back and waited while doing simple stretches.
Shortly after, the couple who had taken the test with me came in.
They made it too.
She wasn’t as good as me, but she had been quite skilled.
“Yeah. I figured you’d make it too.”
“Uh. Yeah.”
“I’m Selma Gonzalez, and this is Alfred Gonzalez.”
“Ah. Same last name. So you two are married.”
I’d thought they were a couple, and they were husband and wife.
“What? With that bastard—!”
“Who’s calling us a married couple? That’s my sister.”
“Who’s this bastard calling ‘that’?”
“You called me ‘bastard’ first.”
I had misjudged.
“Ahh. Sorry. Sorry. You two look nothing alike for siblings, so I didn’t know.”
The woman had slightly bronze skin like a South American, while the man looked white.
“I take after Mom, and Al takes after Dad.”
“Yeah. Anyway, sorry.”
After apologizing again, I exchanged greetings with them.
Selma was twenty-three, and Alfred was a year older.
“I knew you were young. You’re really young.”
“Yeah. I won’t be twenty until next month.”
“With that face, you could be an actor or an idol. Why do something tough like wrestling?”
Alfred couldn’t get a word in edgewise and just listened; only Selma and I talked.
“It just kind of happened. And because I want to… Selma, what about you?”
“We grew up watching Rey Mist and Rico Guerrero since we were little.”
“So you both use Lucha Libre style?”
“Right.”
“You should be a Luchador.”
Lucha Libre.
A wrestling style popular in Mexico, Central and South America, and Japan—fast, agile, employing many aerial maneuvers, and incomparably flashy.
And a masked man is called a ‘Luchador,’ while a masked woman is called a ‘Luchadora.’
“Selma, you’re a Luchadora?”
“Oh. You know about Luchadoras? Impressive.”
“But it seems like a waste for a woman to wear a mask. Her looks are a weapon too.”
“Pfft!”
“This bastard’s asking to die!”
Alfred looked to be on the smaller side for a male wrestler at around 183cm, but perhaps because they were mixed-race, both were quite good-looking.
“You two probably don’t even need to wear masks? Alfred’s handsome too; I bet he’d be popular.”
“Ugh!”
As expected of siblings only a year apart, this time Selma made a gagging gesture.
“What style do you do? Do you have one decided?”
“Me? Powerhouse?”
“?”