Welcome to the second article in this short series. To remind you, the three ‘confessional’ WWE storylines that comprise the critical side of my PhD project – 2005 Lita/Edge/Hardy love triangle, 2009 Jeff Hardy addiction storyline, and 2011 CM Punk Pipe Bomb – also appear in my novel, with the reader receiving character (often wrestlers themselves) via the TV-watching of these storylines. If you’d like to read part 1, click here. Today’s edition will focus on the 2005 love triangle between Lita, Matt Hardy and Edge. Before I get into this, two things worth noting. Firstly, a minor change to the title – I have added the word ‘modern’. I think this is an important distinction. While my work focuses on how kayfabe enabled confessional storytelling post-Montreal Screwjob and the WWE essentially monopolising North American wrestling, there is much more to discover about kayfabe. I recommend Scott Beekman’s book Ringside (2006) for all your wrestling historical needs. Secondly, I have picked the cover image as a reminder of the effect of the 2005 storyline on Amy Dumas’ wellbeing – you can hear her speak about this on the podcast pictured here.
So, to setting the scene for this second extract from my WIP novel, Work, Shoot; Shoot, Work. In this extract, Hera and Alf have been living together for five years, as friends, in a flat in North London. They are regulars on the UK wrestling scene, their main gig being with a London-based promotion , run by a younger promotor using family money (think a less-informed, less responsible Tony Khan). In these scenes, Hera is 27; Alf is 37 and going through the breakup of his first real relationship.
Thank you for reading, any feedback most welcome (bear in mind this is at first draft stage).
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In spring 2005, Hera guessed Alf and Becky’s breakup when she stopped coming round to the flat. After subscribing to a Sky Sports package he couldn’t afford, Alf could be found on the couch every afternoon watching wrestling. Hera was going out in Camden less, pissed off by what had happened at the party, and determined not to help Leo in any way beyond showtime. Anyway, Alf needed her, even if he’d never say it. She refused to allow her mind to settle on which of these three things was her true motive for staying at home. Instead, she focused on taking care of Alf. She brought him cups of tea with a splash of whisky, made him beans on toast when he forgot to eat – with two cans of beans as she could see he was losing mass. But the times she tried to get him to talk about Becky, he refused. He studied each episode of Raw three or four times a week.
One Tuesday teatime he came home with a PC and began setting it up at the dining table. “Don’t look at me like I’m mental,” he said to Hera as he connected the monitor, “every house has got one now. Yes, I credit-carded it, but we need it.” He asked her if she was expecting any phone calls and when she shook her head, he plugged a wire into the phone line, and shortly after a beeping kicked up. “Okay, we’re officially ‘online’, as they say.”
Hera continued to shout at her soap operas from the couch, as he poked at the key board, but after a short time, he announced, “Oh shit.” He told her he was reading the dirtsheets, and all anyone was gassing on about was Lita, one of the female Fed wrestlers who’d headlined Raw, doing the real-life dirty on boyfriend and fellow Fed wrestler Matt Hardy with another Fed guy, Edge. A real-life love triangle. Hardy had made it public, Alf said, and, get this, got fucking fired for it.
Hera span to him. “Told you she was getting booed the other night on Raw.” She pounded the couch cushion in excitement. “What did I say? I can read a crowd even through the screen.”
“Talk about injustice, man. What’s he fired for? Fucking Fed. Fire her, for fuck’s sake. Fuck them.”
When they realised Edge was advertised to fight Lita’s on-screen husband Kane in next week’s Raw main event, they stayed up till 1am to watch live, gingham blanket spread across both their laps. “Twenty-quid Lita’s turning heel,” Hera said.
Alf accepted the bet and as the main event started, their twenty pound notes laid side by side on a cushion at their feet.The moment Lita handed Edge the weapon that secured his victory, Hera snatched up the two twenty-pound notes. “Told you. I’m a genius. Get me on the booking team.”
After the match, Edge and Lita greedily lapped tongues on the entrance ramp as Kane watched on.
“Fucking hell,” Alf said. “They can’t do that. Hardy’ll be watching that at home.”
Chuckling, Hera imitated the commentator’s deep south accent, “That’s a man’s wife. What the hell you people thinking here? I’m not going to call her what I’m thinking.”
“It’s not funny. What’s she doing? You don’t do that to someone in real life then work an angle on it.”
“Chill out, Mother Teresa, it’s just business.”
“No, it’s fucked up. Completely fucked up.” And Alf turned off the television and went straight to his room and closed the door.
That week Alf didn’t rewatch Raw and he and Hera didn’t talk about it, but they again tuned in live the following Monday night, the same blanket covering their knees, the same mugs of tea warming their hands.
“You should’ve had a shower after that workout, mate,” Hera grinned, pinching her nose.
“Fuck off. Probably your hair you can smell. Colour’s gonna go quicker if you don’t take care of it.”
“Bad manners.”
“Speaking of bad fucking manners.”
On screen, as Edge and Lita made their entrance dressed in all black, one of the commentators exclaimed, “She’s a two-timer, she’s a backstabber, she’s a home-wrecker.”
A rush careened around Hera’s body. She stood, rubbing her palms together.
There were audible chants of ‘We want Matt’, prompting Lita and Edge to smirk at each other. Lita then spoke into the microphone: “Throw your stones, go ahead, I’m here … I seem to have forgotten, I’m in a room full of saints, so go ahead and pass judgement.”
“Nice work Lita, love,” Hera said. “Like the religious shit.”
“No, look at her, she looks so uncomfortable. It’s hard to watch.”
“Fine, maybe she’s not the best actor, but doesn’t need to be Oscars-level shit does it.”
Alf went to the screen, and they both squatted right in front of it. “I don’t think she wants to be doing this. I swear, look at her closely.” He jabbed at the screen. “Look at her eyes. It’s in her eyes. They keep looking up and the left. What was that film I watched? Something about hostage negotiation. It was saying about spotting liars when their eyes go up and left.”
“She’s acting, mate. Fuck you on about?”
“She’s so phony. Look, look, she’s not touching Edge anywhere near as much as he’s touching her.”
“Nah. No one’s got a gun to her head. If she didn’t want to do it, she wouldn’t do it.”
“That’s worse.” And he returned to the couch and re-laid his blanket, happy his point was proven.
As Lita went on, the crowd erupted into chants of ‘slut’. She waited for the chants to dull then spoke into the close-up camera, “No man that I’ve ever been with could’ve satisfied me…”. Hera’s eyes widened, anticipating Lita’s punchline: “except one. The man I’ve been seeing behind your back for months now.”
“Wow, just wow,” Hera said then ran around the room, pumping her arms.
Alf threw the blanket from his lap. “It’s not okay this. It’s completely fucked up. What kind of bitch–”
“Did Becky do the dirty on you or something?” The thought had crystallised in Hera’s mind, and she’d been unable to stop herself saying it.
Alf sprung to his feet. “What you saying that for?”
“You’re losing it like a complete mark. Doesn’t make sense unless she cheated on you. I mean if it’s true I don’t know how she got two blokes fucking her, but I’m here, mate, if that’s–”
“Get fucked, Jackie.” He jabbed his finger towards the screen. “I don’t like this kind of shit. This kind of angle.”
“It’s modern, mate. It’s got me buzzed. Every time they say something ‘real’, it’s better than a line of coke.”
“No. It’s wrong. And she knows it’s wrong, that’s why she looks so goddamn awkward.”
He sat down again and Hera waited for the vein on his neck to stop protruding before she said, “You sure you don’t want to chat about Becky?”
“Fuck her, mate.”
They watched the rest of the segment in silence. As Lita and Edge left the ring, the same commentator from the deep south exclaimed, “What these two have done to another human being’s life is absolutely repulsive in my view.” Alf kept his eyes on the screen, feeling Hera’s stare.
As spring turned to summer, Alf continued his intense wrestling study, not accepting the sun’s invitation to spend more time outdoors. Although Hera couldn’t see any improvement in his in-ring work, or his mood, she stuck close to him. It was cool, she thought, this routine they’d fallen into of watching Raw live; the late night was no more damaging to her Tuesday morning workout than boozing in Camden.
They continued to follow the Lita storyline. Alf had already read online that Matt Hardy was going to be re-employed a week before he ‘crashed’ a July episode of Raw. As Hardy was escorted from the ring by ‘security’, Hera threw a slice of pizza – now part of their Monday-night ritual – at Alf. “Stop reading that online shit, you fucking geek. That would’ve been a cool surprise. Bellend. Ruined it for me.”
A few weeks later, Alf sat her in front of the PC. “Watch this. Happened last night.”
“If it’s some dirtsheet bollocks, I’m not interested. You know, you should’ve got us a bigger TV instead of this gimp machine.”
“Christ, shut up. Just watch.” He brought up on screen a video of Lita, casually dressed with her feet resting a coffee table.
“She on Big Brother or something? Looks like the pissing diary room.”
Alf explained it was some online show the Fed did every week, with the public calling in with questions for the wrestler. Hera half-watched, still complaining about their prehistoric TV until one caller said, “Hey Amy, this is Matt Hardy.”
“Oh fuck,” Hera looked up at Alf. “That really him? And he called her ‘Amy’. What the actual fuck?”
Hera and Alf didn’t take their eyes off the screen as Lita replied to Hardy’s disembodied voice: “I don’t think I owe you an explanation of my relationship with Edge, although I can tell you why I don’t want to be with you. Cutting wrestling promos in a personal context could be one excuse.”
Hera yelled, “She said ‘wrestling promos’. This is mental.” Alf nodded, smiling. Finally, she thought, he was getting into this storyline. Coming out his funk. He lightly rubbed her shoulder as Hardy replied, “‘I came out Monday and called him Adam because that’s the only name I know him by, but I didn’t even call you Amy, because the Amy Dumas I know is dead. She is gone. Lita is all I know.”
Hera said, “This is giving me a thousand ideas. You got a notepad or something?”
“Shhh. Keep watching.”
Lita went on: “I’m a very private person … private issues are private issues … Enjoy me from 9 to 11, and then don’t worry about who I’m in bed with. I have no obligation to the fans to be Matt Hardy’s girlfriend.” And finally, “There’s still places I don’t want to go, and I don’t think I should,” before she walked off set.
Hera jumped from the chair and began pacing the room.
“Told you she didn’t want to do it,” Alf said.
“But she is doing it, you absolute mark. Shit, they used real names. It’s like every time we say kayfabe’s dead they stick another knife in the corpse.” She ran to her room, brought back a notepad and pen, and sat back at the table. “Imagine being Hardy,” she said.
“Yeah.”
“Obviously him and Edge are gonna have to have a match now, right? Fucking hell, I reckon Hardy might actually murder him. It’ll be at Summerslam, don’t you reckon? How much is a pay-per-view? I’ll keep some money spare. Wait, I think that’s the same night we’re booked at the Ballroom. Amazing, we’ll get all the boys round after the show, we’ll all watch the live murder of Edge– sorry, ‘Adam’.”
“Maybe.”
“What’s up with you? This is class.”
He’d retreated to the door. “I’m fine.”
“You were buzzed a second ago. You still not telling the boys we’ve got Sky Sports, you tight bastard?”
He took his Velcro wallet from the bowl on the side unit. “You keep going with your ideas. I’ve got to sort a few things.”
“It’s six-thirty. The shops are shut, you knob.”
“Who said anything about the shops? See you soon.” And she heard the jangling of his keys and then the front door open. As the door slammed shut, she yelled, “For fuck’s sake, Alf. I thought you were done with your moody bollocks.”
She was in bed, still writing her notes, when she heard him come back around one-thirty. When she got up to make her coffee the next morning, she found him on the couch passed out in his clothes, mobile phone resting on his belly. She pulled two mugs down from the cupboard and, as she spooned instant coffee into them, clanked the spoon on the rim as loudly as she could.
Work Shoot Confessional 
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