Post by alyadmirer on Apr 1, 2023 1:09:00 GMT
Dateline: Laredo, TX…
Most FAWNatics who follow the house show circuit know the drill: whatever time is listed as the ‘Doors Open’ time, the doors will not open until a minimum of 15 minutes after that. As such, there are two primary strategies when it comes to attendance: either get there early and stake out your place in line (the approach favored by the more dedicated walk ups and those who haven’t bought reserved seats) or show up closer to bell time, an approach which runs the risk of sometimes missing a match or two, depending on traffic and other factors. And even though those in charge of the house show circuit usually try to mitigate that by opening the show with a match or two between local talent, sometimes there’s a reason to be sure to show up even for the unknowns…
“Ladies and gentlemen,” the announcer declares, “your opening contest tonight… is an Audition Match!”
That’s enough to send a buzz through the arena.
It’s a pretty straight forward announcement, but even so, the announcer further elaborates. “Whichever team emerges victorious from this contest WILL secure for themselves a FAWN contract!”
To be sure, this isn’t a tryout. This isn’t the executives in Talent Relations taking a look at talent might be unsure about and determining whether or not they might be cut out for FAWN. No, the brass only book an Audition Match when they know both participants have what it takes to join FAWN…
They just want to see who wants it more.
“Introducing first…”
”COWGIRLS”:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=UpYu9FgcxKo
The leisurely opening chords of Morgan Wallen’s “Cowgirls” begin to play over the arena sound system. Now, a FAWN house show draws an eclectic mix of fans. You have your casual fans, brought out by the allure of a major promotion and its top stars, but you also have the obsessives, who live and breathe the wrestling world, who don’t just follow the goings on in FAWN but also pay intense attention to the independent wrestling world as well. And for that latter camp of fans, that music is enough to prompt an excited murmur.
“From El Paso, Texas,” the announcer continues, “Weighing in at a combined weight of two hundred and fifty-nine pounds… “Texas Tough” Sage Palmer… “The Shooting Lone Star” Rylee Palmer… HEEELLLLLL ONNN THHHEEE RAAANNNGGGEEE!!!!!”
SAGE PALMER
RYLEE PALMER
Two women emerge onto the stage, easily identifiable as sisters even without the announcer’s identification. Both women are clearly no older than their early 20’s, the taller of the two appearing to be the older, but only by a couple of years at most. She wears a snug, white, sleeveless crop top that simultaneously struggles to conceal an impressive chest underneath it, while failing to provide the tiniest sliver of cleavage. Below, she wears a pair of tight, light blue denim jeans that sport almost too many rips and tears to be called a whole pair, revealing healthy swaths of thigh, knee—well, black kneepad underneath the jeans--and the teasing undercurve of her right glute. She sports cowboy boots in lieu of more traditional wrestling footwear, with long, strawberry blonde locks spilling out from underneath a black Stetson.
Her sister, just a couple of inches shorter, wears a white tank under a red flannel, knotted under a bust that isn’t quite as formidable as her sister’s but wouldn’t draw many complaints. Where she has her sister beat is downstairs, her fuller, firmer booty clad in dark blue denim cutoffs. Like her sister, she sports brown cowboy boots and black knee pads, her darker auburn hair similarly topped with a black Stetson.
And both girls sport nice, shiny, silver title belts around their waist—the source of the intrigue from the more dedicated fans in the crowd. For the last seven months, Sage and Rylee have reigned as the South Texas Association of Rambunctious Rasslers (STARR) Tag Team champions. Both might have only been in the business for a couple of years now, but they had already started building quite the independent resume.
With this match taking place in Laredo, one might expect a warm welcome for a couple of beautiful girls from nearby El Paso. And sure, there is a smattering a polite applause from the… let’s say less informed amongst the crowd. But the haughty sneers and dismissive waves from Sage and Rylee as they head down the aisle are enough to quickly unite the crowd into a chorus of jeers and whistles.
The Palmer girls hop onto the apron and slip through the ropes without much fanfare. While Rylee heads to her corner and starts to slip out of her flannel, Sage saunters over to the referee. Removing her hat, she places it on the official’s head before leaning in to give him a quick peck on the cheek. To his credit, the blushing referee quickly steps back, fumbling to remove the hat, but in the eyes of the crowd, the damage has been done, the FAWNatics directing a chorus of boos in his direction as well. For her part, Sage just smirks and turns away, a sassy swish in her hips as she moves to join her sister in their corner.
“And their opponents…”
A moment later, the derisive whistles being directed at the Palmer sisters are interrupted by another whistles. This one comes over the sound system, and is decidedly more of a catcall. And for the majority Hispanic audience, especially the ones who follow wrestling south of the border as well as in the United States, that whistle sends them into a frenzy. With Becky G’s “Guapa” now playing over the speakers, the announcer resumes his introductions.
”GUAPA”:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=5wdEzJUweGE
“From El Corazón del Paraíso… Weighing in at a combined weight of two hundred and fifty-three pounds… Xochitl Aguilar… Valentina Rodriguez… LAAASSS AMMMAAANNNTTTEEESSS PRRROOOHHHIIIBBBIIIDDDAAASSS!!!!!”
XOCHITL AGUILAR
VALENTINA RODRIGUEZ
That pop only grows louder when two lovely Latinas part the curtains and step onto the stage. Xochitl, (ZO-chee-ill, for those who need to know) stands a solid five feet seven inches tall, her lithe frame clad in a black one piece with a mesh peek-a-boo window running from clavicle down to belly button, revealing a glimpse of purple cups beneath. She wears matching fingerless, elbow length gloves, black ankle boots, and thigh high leggings. A black and purple sash is tied around her waist, knotted over the left hip. Valentina, a few inches shorter at five foot three, sports a long-sleeved leotard with a scooped neckline. The upper portion of the leotard is pink, the image of a dragon with its wings spread in silver across the chest. A narrow band of silver runs across the waist, almost like a belt, while the lower portion of the leotard is a dark blue marked by scattered hearts in pink along both the front and back. Pink knee pads and white boots complete the ensemble.
The brunettes cross in front of each other as they start to dance their way down to the ring, keeping close to the railing, slapping hands with as many of the offered hands as they can reach. And when the duo meet up again, they pull their attention away from the crowd long enough for Valentina to wrap her arms around Xochitl’s neck, rise up on her toes, and give her tag team partner a decidely un-Platonic kiss.
Just a few short years ago, so much about this union would have been inconceivable. Not only were the Rodriguez and Aguilar families two of the founding families of lucha libre, but the war between them had spanned decades. Valentina herself was a late arrival to the feud, only having learned of her ties to the Rodriguez family about ten years back, having grown up unaware that her father was Arturo Rodriguez…
(And, not to put too fine a point on it, Arturo Rodriguez was about the last person in the lucha libre world would suspect of parenting an illegitimate child.)
Xochitl and Valentina’s paths first crossed a little over five years ago, and at first, it seemed the blood feud between the two families would spill across another generation. But eventually, mutual hatred gave way to mutual respect.
And mutual respect eventually spawned something more.
Valentina and Xochitl climb onto the apron and slip into the ring, the scions of Lucha royalty exchanging a few words of strategy before Valentina departs the ring. In the opposite corner, after a hearty round of consultation, Rylee exits as well, leaving Sage in to start the match.
DING! DING! DING!
Sage raises her arms in a fighting stance as lucha and gringa start to circle, Xochitl raising her hands above her head and clapping, established a rhythm that the nearly full house quickly picks up on. As the distance between them begins to disappear, Aguilar brings her hands down as well. And once the two are close enough, they each lunge forward, tying up, struggling to establish dominance. After a few moments’ stalemate, it’s the American who slowly begins to push her opponent into retreat, until Xochitl’s back is pressed against the ropes.
“Alright, she’s in the ropes,” the ref barks. “Break it.”
“Que?”Sage asks with a smirk, refusing to oblige, and forcing the official to start a count. Only at “FOUR!” does Palmer relent, Aguilar raising her hands to indicate a clean break as Sage steps back…
… and then BLISTER’S the brunette’s cheek with an open hand slap.
“Those contracts are OURS, coño,” Sage hisses, proving she’s picked up some colorful Spanish to go along with the more basic vocabulary while growing up in a border town. “We’re gonna toss your flabby asses in a dumpster, and ship it back across the border. Where you belong.”
Those close enough to the ring to hear Sage’s remarks unload with vitriol, but Xochitl elects to let her actions speak for her.
Pushing off the ropes with a snarl, Aguilar surges toward her foe, seemingly all too eager to tie up in another collar and elbow. Only when Sage’s raises her arms to engage, Xochitl slips around behind, the brunette snaking her arms around Palmer’s waist and using the Texan’s momentum to drive the strawberry blonde into the ropes, chest and belly first. Falling backward, the lucha beauty pulls her opponent down with her, forcing Sage’s shoulders flat to the mat with an O’Connor Roll, Aguilar remaining seated atop Palmer’s thighs as the referee slides into position…
ONE…
TWO…
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Sage bucks her way free. A less agile wrestler likely would have been sent tumbling to her hands and knees, but Xochitl quickly gathers her momentum, and hurtles into the ropes. The brunette shoots back toward a rising Palmer, leaping at the strawberry blonde before Sage can fully process what’s happening. Acting on pure instinct, Sage catches her foe, but as her arms slip around Xochitl’s midsection, the lucha’s luscious legs slip around the Texan’s neck. From there, Aguilar pulls her foe off her feet rather easily with a spinning headscissors takedown.
SPINNING HEADSCISSORS TAKEDOWN:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=s-6riNQCyJ0
A reeling Sage is sent skidding across the mat, haplessly finding her way into a neutral corner as Xochitl scrambles to her feet and tags out to Valentina. Aguilar lingers in the ring for a moment, long enough to take her partner’s wrist and whip her toward the corner occupied by Sage. Rodriguez rushes in, swiveling her hips to RAM her backside into the strawberry blonde’s startled mug.
The ref starts to usher Xochitl out, but she’s content to make her exit on her own. Valentina, meanwhile, hauls Sage up with a handful of hair, but only long enough to snapmare the Texan back to a seat on the canvas, now just a few feet out of the corner. The lucha beauty then races into the ropes, in front of the seated Sage, shooting off the cables and diving toward her foe. Drawing her knees up, Valentina’s shins slam into Palmer’s knee, the brunette’s momentum sending Sage tumbling backward. Rodriguez lands seated atop the strawberry blonde’s sternum, Sage letting out a gust of a moan as her legs fly into the air. Valentina deftly gathers them up, hooking them under her arms as the referee slides down beside them…
ONE…
TWO…
THNOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Palmer bucks loose.
Dragging Sage up, Valentina shoves her back into the luchadoras’ corner, reaching out to tag Xochitl. Aguilar slips through the ropes, but instead of going toward her opponent, she maneuvers towards center ring. Rodriguez joins her there, where once again Xochitl takes her wrist and whips her off. This time, instead of turning into Palmer, the young brunette beauty leaps toward her, landing with a foot atop each thigh as her hands slip around behind the Texan’s head. Falling backward, Valentina propels Sage out of the corner and into the air, sending her crashing to the mat with a monkey flip.
Palmer barely has time to bounce up to a seated position before Xochitl rebounds off the rope, catching her in the side of the head with a running knee that drops the strawberry blonde to her back, sprawled and woozy. Dropping to her knees beside Sage, Aguilar applies the lateral press, hooking the outside leg and scoring the…
ONE…
TWO…
THRNOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Sage gets a shoulder up.
Pulling Palmer to her feet, Xochitl slips her left arm around the Texan’s waist, while nudging her head up and underneath Sage’s right arm. Stooping forward—and forcing Sage to double over further in the process, Aguilar reaches her free hand up and under the strawberry blonde’s right thigh, the lucha’s left hand moving to lock with the right. Aguilar then pops her hips and bridges back, muscling Palmer off her feet and dropping her on her head and shoulders with a back cradle suplex.
BACK CRADLE SUPLEX:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=XHm9h9-sAjc
Xochitl climbs to her feet and heads to her corner. But as she tags out to Valentina, a rocked and reeling Sage elects to bail, rolling under the bottom rope and tumbling to unsteady feet outside of the ring. All it takes is a look between the lucha lovers to change their gameplan accordingly. Xochitl remains in the ring, while Valentina sprints into the ropes opposite her. Hurtling back on her own partner, Aguilar dips forward as Rodriguez leaps toward her, placing her hands on Xochitl’s shoulders as Aguilar’s hands move to the back of Valentina’s thighs. Straightening up, Aguilar propels her partner heavenward, Rodriguez landing for just a second on the top rope. Springboarding off the rubber coated steel, Valentina stretches her arms out to her sides as she dives onto a turning Palmer, catching the strawberry blonde with their Vuelo de Truena.
VUELO DE TRUENA:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=pRdFG0oo5xM
Peeling Sage off the floor, Valentina shovels the strawberry blonde under the bottom rope. Wheeling away from the ring for just a moment to acknowledge the cheers of the FAWNatics with a playful shimmy, Rodriguez then hops up onto the apron herself—only instead of entering the ring, the lucha makes a beeline toward the near neutral corner. The strawberry blonde Texans remains sprawled on her back as Valentina makes her ascent…
… but there’s another Palmer to worry about. Rushing down the other side of the apron, Rylee catches Valentina’s ankle and gives it a tug. To her credit, Rodriguez is able to grab the top rope with both hands as she sinks into a crouch, that trademark lucha agility no doubt aiding her efforts to maintain her balance. It takes a few moments, but eventually Valentina is able to extricate her leg from Rylee’s grasp…
… just in time for a risen Sage to stuff one hand into Valentina’s chest and the other between her thighs, slamming her from the top turnbuckle down to the canvas.
Rodriguez rolls over to her side, arching her now throbbing back in pain as Sage stumbles toward her corner, where Rylee waits to make the tag. By the time the younger Palmer has entered the ring for the first time, the lucha is back on her feet, but still a little winded from her fall and impact. Rylee takes advantage, grabbing Valentina by the hair and putting her flat on her ass with a snapmare. Taking a step back, the Shooting Lone Star charges forward, driving a vicious running kneelift right between Valentina’s shoulderblades.
SNAPMARE TO RUNNING BACK KNEE:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=D1CUvQhvaX4
The crowd boos at the turn of the tide, and the boos only get louder when Rylee brings her hands up to her eyes and mockingly wipes away a few tears. Sauntering back to a groaning Valentina, Palmer drops to one knee behind her, snatching one handful of the lucha’s raven locks and yanking downward, forcing Rodriguez to look up at the lights. And that’s when Rylee demonstrates that, despite her pretty face, she has a little savage in her—when she chomps down on Valentina’s forehead!
Valentina shrieks in agony as Rylee’s teeth tear into her forehead. Those agonized wails are almost too much for Xochitl, and she slips a leg through the ropes, instinct compelling her to come to her lover’s rescue. But her rational side tells her that will cause more harm than good, forcing the referee to pay attention to her instead of these no good gringa bitches, and she catches herself. Thankfully, the ref has stepped in, even as Xochitl was fighting with herself over interjecting.
Of course, Rylee waits until the count of “FOUR!” to pull back, the auburn-haired brat taunting licking her lips before rising to her feet, Valentina’s hair still held tightly in her left hand. Palmer drags the lucha over to the ropes, and pressing Rodriguez’s throat down across the middle cable, choking the brunette out for another count of four. Strutting toward her corner, she tags Sage before pivoting and sprinting toward the far ropes. Unable to stop herself and wanting nothing more than to rip Rylee’s hair from her scalp, Xochitl starts to scoot down the apron. But Palmer rebounds off the strands before she can do anything, racing back toward Valentina. Leaping into the air, Rylee’s legs shoot through the ropes as her butt lands against the brunette’s shoulders, the Texan sliding down Rodriguez’s body and out to the floor.
LEAPFROG GUILLOTINE BODY PRESS:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=oW9hto7CLP4
Valentina shoots away from the ropes, tumbling down to her belly, rasping and gasping for air. She knows she needs to make a tag, so she struggles up to her hands and knees, Xochitl leaning over the tag rope to reach in for the tag…
Alas, Rodriguez isn’t even halfway to her corner before Sage charges in from behind, swinging a leg forward and brutally driving a cowboy boot between Valentina’s thighs.
The lucha’s eyes roll back as she crumples to the mat, curling into a fetal shell, mewling in anguish. Across the ring, an outraged Xochitl shoots a leg through the ropes and whips her upper body through as well. But the referee steps toward her to make sure she doesn’t.
“Oh, you’re gonna make sure I obey the rules?” Aguilar snaps at him.
The ref can do little more than shrug his shoulders. After all, he understands her frustration. He even agrees with it. But… it’s FAWN. He knows who signs his paychecks. And he knows laxity is a job requirement here.
Dropping to her knees beside Valentina, Sage pushes the lucha over to her back, prying Rodriguez out of her protective ball… and opening the lucha’s belly up, so she can plunge her talons into Valentina’s abs with a belly claw. “AGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!” the brunette howls, her feet kicking at the mat, her hands flying to and pushing up on Palmer’s forearm. “MIIIIIIIIEEEEEEEERRRRRRRDDDDDDAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”
“What do you say, Val,” the ref asks, but she vigorously shakes her head.
“No!” Rodriguez cries out. “NUNCA!!!”
Sage RIIIIIIPS the claw away, Valentina letting out a relieved whimper as she rolls to her left hip, her arms falling across her gulping tummy. But Palmer has no intentions of letting the young lucha regroup. Hairhauling Rodriguez up to her feet, the strawberry blonde rushes toward her corner, Rylee swinging around the ringpost as Sage raises her right leg, placing her boot on the top turnbuckle before SMASHING Valentina’s face into it.
BOOT ASSISTED TURNBUCKLE SMASH:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=CTjQ-0t5WgM
Rodriguez wheels away from the impact, falling to her knees before pitching forward, landing in a sprawled heap alongside the ropes. Without a care in the world, Sage extends her hand for Rylee to tag, the younger Palmer slipping into the ring. Together, the Palmer sisters pull the brunette up and whip her into the ropes. Again, Xochitl scoots down the apron, tag rope in one hand her other stretching to slap at her lover’s back… but coming up short. Valentina hurtles back toward her attackers, who stoop forward, each one grabbing a leg and hoisting the luchadora off her feet. Together, the Palmers drop back, slamming Valentina to the mat face and chest first with a flapjack.
As Sage departs, Rylee uses a cowboy boot to nudge Valentina over to her back, then circles to stand straddling the brunette’s head—taking great pains to make sure each boot is standing on top of Rodriguez’s dark tresses. Bending down, the auburn-haired Texan takes Valentina’s wrists and pulls up, a journey that comes to an abbreviated halt when Valentina runs out of unencumbered hair. Again, the Latina can only howl in anguish, the official stepping in to administer a count….
… which Rylee absolutely milks all the way to “FOUR!”
The Texan releases Rodriguez’s wrists, allowing the brunette to fall back to the canvas… but in the next instant, Rylee jumps into the air. Just high enough to place the soles of her boots over Valentina’s eyes as she comes down, blinding the lucha with a vicious double boot scrape.
Valentina rockets up to a seated position, her hands flying to her suddenly burning eyes. Coming up behind her prey, Rylee pushes the Latina beauty down to her belly, trapping Rodriguez’s left boot in the pit of her right knee before stepping through the keyhole, using her shin against Valentina’s shin to secure the legs in place. She then reaches down, snatching a handful of dark locks and yanking backward. The burning in her scalp first pulls Valentina’s right hand away from her eyes, and when that hand can’t pry Palmer’s hand free of her tresses, Valentina’s left hand follows suit…
… which was the moment Rylee was waiting for.
Bringing her other boot up and behind Rodriguez’s noggin, Palmer STOMPS down, driving her opponent’s face into the mat with a devastating curb stomp.
HAIR PULL CURB STOMP:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=7aDuEBiXbaE
Rolling Valentina over, Rylee applies the lateral press, reaching to hook the near leg…
ONE…
TWO…
THRENOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
A charging Xochitl sends a stomp to Palmer’s back, dislodging her from the pin a moment before defeat.
As the official ushers Aguilar out of the ring, Rylee spares just a moment to glare in the departing Latina’s direction before looking down at Valentina’s sprawled form in disdain. “I gotta hand it to you, puta.” the Texans mutters. “You {i]REALLY[/i] put the ‘MEH’ in ‘MEH-hee-co’, don’tcha?”
Not waiting for an answer, Palmer tugs Valentina up and sends her off with an Irish whip. Raising an arm out toward her side, the Texan charges toward her rebounding foe, but Rodriguez ducks under the intended clothesline. Rylee slams on the brakes, spinning around, but by that time the raven haired lucha is already diving into a handstand. Falling into the ropes, she springs back, landing on her feet for only an instant before diving backward, grabbing a stunned Rylee’s head and pulling Palmer’s head over her shoulder. Gravity does the rest as Valentina plummets to the canvas, connecting with a potentially match-altering Cupid’s Arrow.
CUPID’S ARROW:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=bjnjWEfPBA8
The auburn-haired American is left splattered, face down and trembling. Valentina flops over to her stomach a moment after impact, the move seemingly having taken just about all she had left to execute. But even as she remains laid out and trying to gather up her energies, she spares a little breath to mutter, “I’m… Columbian, carechimba…”
Across the ring, Xochitl emphatically slaps the top turnbuckle, attempting to rally her beloved. She certainly rallies the crowd, who clap along as each slap echoes in the air. And it’s not long before Valentina starts to respond, fighting to make it back to all fours…
… just as Rylee gets back to her feet behind her.
“Newsflash, puta,” the younger Palmer snarls as she hairhauls Valentina off the deck. “No one gives a FUCK!” With that, Rylee starts to whip Rodriguez toward the far corner… but the lucha has at least recovered enough to dig in her heels and reverse the whip! Almost as soon as she sends Rylee off, the dark haired lucha takes off after her…
… but Valentina’s not the only one with counters.
Rather than turn her back into the buckles, Rylee first hops onto the bottom turnbuckle, just as Valentina lowers her shoulder for a would-be spear into the corner. Grabbing the top rope with both hands on either side of the buckle, Palmer lifts her body into the air, leaving the buckles free and clear for Rodriguez to shoot through. To her credit, the lucha gets her hands out in front of her, grabbing the middle rope to halt her momentum. But that’s perfectly fine in Rylee’s book, as she draws her knees up toward her chest and swoops back down, landing her knees against Valentina’s back. Shifting her hands from the top rope to the brunette’s shoulders, Rylee throws her weight backward, RIPPING Valentina off her feet and nailing the bewildered lucha with her Texas Tornado lungblower.
TEXAS TORNADO:
youtu.be/YMjPHj4-dnI?t=48
A shellshocked Valentina drops to her ass, left momentarily seated in a jellied heap before the lack of tension in her body sends her puddling into a shuddering heap. For her part, Rylee rolls to her knees and crawls over to the Palmer corner, where Sage waits to tag her. Slipping through the ropes, the elder Palmer saunters over to her quivering adversary, Rodriguez somehow managing to summon juuuust enough energy to bonelessly flop over to her stomach.
Bending down, the strawberry blonde Texan works her arms underneath Valentina’s belly, and with a grunt she hoists the luchadora off the mat. For a moment, Palmer just holds her opponent against her torso, Rodriguez’s legs kicking absently at the air. Sage then falls back, driving Valentina into the canvas with a gutwrench suplex. Kicking her legs into the air, Palmer pops her hips and rolls through, her arms still snug around the Latina’s waist as she lifts Valentina up with her. Again, she keeps Rodriguez cradled to her chest for a moment, the brunette’s legs somehow managing to kick with simultaneously greater urgency and less energy.
Sage holds her trophy aloft a little longer this time, turning toward the luchas’ corner to blow a taunting kiss in Xochitl’s direction before again falling backward, subjecting Valentina to a heartless Texas Twofer.
TEXAS TWOFER:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Olefj0pCV0
Rodriguez crumples into a heap, face down, legs and arms splayed. Sage just sits up, drawing a chorus of jeers when she dismissively wipes her hands. For a split second, she considers rolling Valentina over for a pin, but decides against it, figuring Xochitl would just butt her nose in. Instead, she hairhauls the exhausted luchadora up onto rubbery legs, Palmer turning her back to her own corner as she begins to backpedal with the brunette in tow. Once “Texas Tough” judges that she’s close enough, Sage wraps her left arm around Valentina’s neck, pulling the Columbian beauty’s head under her arm as her other hand grabs at the fabric of the left leg hole of Rodriguez’s leotard. Again, Sage pops her hips, muscling Rodriguez into the air.
And again, Rylee spins around the ringpost like a world class stripper as her sister plummets backward, Valentina’s legs sailing out of the ring, into the pits of her knees connect with the top rope, shooting the brunette’s body back in the opposite direction as she flips and crumples to the mat.
SUPLEX TO CORNER:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=a_dHzqEibww
Picking herself up, Sage tags out to Rylee, who wastes no time in pulling Valentina up onto wobbly legs. Like her sister, she too tucks the brunette’s head under her left arm. Only she does it facing away from Rodriguez, the lucha’s shoulder pressing into the small of Palmer’s back. Rylee then sprints out of her corner, just a couple of strides before jumping up and SLAMMING Valentina’s mug into the mat with a bulldog. The impact sends the nearly insensate Columbian beauty over to her back in a spasming starfish, while Rylee deftly bounces up from the impact and back to her feet. As she rises, the auburn-haired Texan’s eyes lock on the top turnbuckle, and she lets her gaze linger for just a moment before turning her attention to the crowd, and shouting just three words.
“VIVA LA RAZA!!!”
The Laredo FAWNatics threaten to blow the roof off the building with the boos and their abuse as Rylee slips out onto the apron, marching straight to the corner she had just been staring at. Climbing to the top turnbuckle, the younger Palmer barely even hesitates before leaping from her perch, pumping her body in midair as she descends toward her prey’s…
RAISED KNEES, Valentina thwarting that nearly blasphemous frogsplash and sending an impaled Rylee bouncing away, the Texan rolling onto her side and curling into a coughing, gasping ball.
Boos turn to cheers in a heartbeat, Xochitl pumping a fist in the air as the entire building can feel the momentum shift. “Vamos, nena,” Aguilar urges her partner, stretching her arm into the ring as far as she can. A moment later, and Valentina wills herself over to her stomach, and begins the crawl toward a MUCH tag…
“Dammit, Rylee, move your ass!” Sage shouts from the Palmer corner, likewise extending her hand as far as she can, her eyes imploring her sister to move even after she stops talking. Those eyes never leave Rylee’s retching form. Obviously, no one in the wrestling world knows Rylee Palmer better than her older sister, who’s known her all of Rylee’s life. She’s seen Rylee crash and burn before, and she’s seen her recover. And deep down, Sage can tell…
She’s not gonna recover in time for a tag.
Valentina doesn’t care about any of that. All she cares about is reaching [g]her[/b][/i] corner, her desperation competing against her exhaustion as she drags herself toward salvation. “Eso es todo, nena,” Xochitl says… almost whispers… yet even as softly as she utters the words, she KNOWS her lover can hear her. Can feel her encouragement. Placing a single foot on the bottom rope, Aguilar leans in that much further. “Just a little moooOOOOOOUUUUNNNNHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!”
So consumed with Valentina’s journey, neither Xochitl, the referee, or even many of the fans had noticed Sage slip down from the apron and dart around the ring. Aguilar’s first and only clue comes when she feels two hands wrap around the ankle of her plant foot, and give it a VICIOUS backward tug. The lucha’s other foot TRIES to find the apron as it slips away from the bottom rope, but the force of Palmer’s yank is too great, that boot finding only air as Xochitl falls away from the ring. Worse still, the only part of Xochitl that does manage to find the edge of the apron as she descends is her forehead, the ‘THWONK!’ of the impact mingling with the dull groan from Aguilar’s lips as the brunette’s body puddles against the ringsteps.
And just like that, the pin is put in the FAWNatic’s balloon.
Just then, Valentina manages to lift her head… only to be greeted with the sight of an empty corner. Confusion and despair fall across her face for just a moment. The former at least finding some resolution when she hears the ref shout, “Dammit, Sage! Back to your corner!”
… and that’s when a double axe handle comes CRASHING down between her shoulderblades, courtesy of a diving Rylee.
As the younger Palmer gets back to her feet, a woozy Valentina finishes pulling herself into her corner, turning to collapse with the bottom buckle resting between her shoulderblades. Now, ordinarily in tag team wrestling, a competitor would be moving heaven and earth to keep her opponent from reaching her corner. But with Xochitl on the floor, mewling softly as she sags against the ringsteps, Rylee’s not sweating it. Instead, she pivots and sprints toward the corner to the Columbian brunette’s left. Rebounding off the ropes, Rylee hurtles back toward her adversary, delivering a BRUTAL running facewash
RUNNING FACEWASH:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z0VFGDekUZA
The force of Palmer’s running boot turns Valentina’s chest toward the bottom rope as Rylee’s leg shoots out of the ring, the Texan coming to a halt seating against the lucha’s shoulders and the back of her head. Rylee leisurely lets her arms spill over the top rope, content to just lean there against her foe, until the referee starts a count.
To the shock of absolutely everyone, the Shooting Lone Star pulls away only at the count of “TWO!” She lifts up just enough to allow Valentina to turn back into her reclining position against the bottom buckle… and THAT’S when Rylee thrusts her hips back, buffeting Rodriguez’s features with an enthusiastic Stinkface…
… one that comes with the added indignity of being delivered in the luchadora’s own corner!
Now to the shock of absolutely NO ONE, the auburn-haired Texan continues sweeping her tush across Valentina’s face past “FOUR!” Her eyes locked on the ref’s, she silently DARES him to utter that magic word of “FIVE!”
… and only once his jaw starts to drop, but before any sound can emerge, does Rylee pull away.
A wide eyed, greasy faced Valentina pitches forward to her hands and knees. And Palmer reaches down, gathering up a handful of hair and using it as a leash to dogwalk Rodriguez back into enemy territory, where Sage waits for the tag. As the elder Palmer enters the ring, Rylee hairhauls their chew toy up to her feet and passes her off, Sage stuffing the brunette’s head under her left arm as her sister returns to their corner. Nudging Valentina’s nearly limp left arm up and over her neck, Sage muscles the Columbian beauty off her feet. But she only lifts Rodriguez until her body is just about parallel to the mat, before pivoting and SPIKING the crown of Valentina’s skull into the canvas with a rolling brainbuster.
ROLLING BRAINBUSTER:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=SmNE6LxW7lo
Rodriguez rockets up to a seated position, her hands falling obliviously between her splayed thighs as her glassy eyes give a dead stare toward her corner…
… which remains empty.
Strutting up behind her adversary, Sage plants a boot between Valentina’s shoulderblades and dismissively shoves the daughter of lucha royalty down onto her belly. Dropping down beside the groaning Rodriguez, she takes the brunette’s left arm and threads it between her thighs, before scissoring the bicep. Palmer then reclines across Valentina’s back, casually threading her left arm underneath the brunette’s other arm. With one of the Columbian’s arms now tightly scissored and the other wedged under Sage’s left arm, the Texan reaches her left hand to brush some stray locks out of her opponent’s face. “If you’re gonna beg,” Palmer taunts, “you might wanna start now…”
… and with that, the index and middle fingers of Sage’s left hand curl into hooks, before roughly plunging into Valentina’s nostrils!
Valentina doesn’t beg. She does scream, which might turn out to be even worse for her. Because almost as soon as she starts wailing, Sage STUFFS her right hand into the lucha’s mouth, adding a mandible claw to this diabolical concoction of torture.
SQUEALING PIG (just add nostril hooks):
www.youtube.com/watch?v=MciIW_VLOfM
Immediately, Valentina’s anguished howls are stifled into muffled moans. “How about it, Val?” the ref asks. “I’ll call it as soon as you let me know…”
Valentina can’t utter an intelligible answer. She can barely move her head, between Sage’s cruel dual grips on her mouth and nose. She forces her watery eyes open, straining to get a line of sight on her corner…
STILL empty…
It’s over.
In resigned agony, Valentina’s hand starts to move toward Sage’s shoulder… her back… the back of her head… ANYTHING she can tap to bring this torment to an end…
STARTS to…
“UNNNNNNNGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!”
A double axe handle from a diving Xochitl crashes down on the crown of Sage’s skull, without a heartbeat to spare. The Texan’s hands fall away from Valentina’s face, her legs relaxing their scissors as she rolls away.
Alas, it’s only a momentary reprieve. Before a still dazed and disoriented Aguilar can capitalize, Rylee comes up from behind, bumrushing the brunette to the ropes and tossing her out to the floor.
A frustrated official starts to order the younger Palmer out of the ring, but she’s already heading back to her corner. Meanwhile, a groaning Sage picks herself up, fuming at having been denied the submission. Marching to her corner, she tags Rylee, who instead of entering the ring starts climbing to the top rope. The elder Palmer then turns back to Valentina, scraping the Columbian brunette off the mat before shuffling Rodriguez onto her shoulders and into a fireman’s carry, the FAWNatics left to fear for whatever these dastardly Texans might have in mind next.
Which would remain forever a mystery.
Almost as soon as Valentina ends up across Sage’s shoulders, she begins blasting elbows into the side of Palmer’s skull. It takes three before Rodriguez can wriggle her way loose, dropping down behind the strawberry blonde. The instant Valentina’s boots touch down, her hands move to the Sage’s back, and she gives the curvy Texan a shove… a shove that sends the elder Palmer crashing chest and stomach first into the ropes…
… and THAT impact sends a shimmy through the top rope, which causes the younger Palmer’s footing to fail her. Rylee slips, her descent halted by the wiring of the turnbuckle bisecting her thighs, causing Rylee’s jaw to drop in a silent scream.
Propelled back into the ring by the tension of the ropes, Sage stumbles and turn, just in time to be met by a leaping Valentina. The lucha’s left foot plants against Palmer’s belly, while the right sweeps upward, Rodriguez connecting FLUSH with a step up enziguiri! The strawberry blonde wheels away from the impact, her eyes almost crossing for a second as she falls to her knees, then pitches forward.
A roar runs through the FAWNatics, but it’s a tentative one as Valentina comes down to earth, herself laid sprawled on her stomach, seemingly out of energy… the luchas’ corner remaining distressingly empty. Even so, Rodriguez soon starts dragging herself in the direction of a tag no one was in position to give…
The good news, at least, is that Sage remains laid out and nearly motionless, while her sister teeters atop her painful perch. As she crawls, Valentina struggles to lift her head…
and THAT’s when she sees it: Xochitl’s head emerging over the horizon of the apron.
On her knees on the floor, leaning against the apron, Aguilar shakes away some cobwebs before looking up. The sight of her lover crawling towards her, with each Palmer sister incapacitated, does a magnificent job of clearing her head. Climbing onto the apron, Xochitl remains on her knees as she reaches through the ropes…
Across the remain, Sage remains all but kayoed by that beautifully delivered enziguiri… but Rylee is starting to get some of her wits back about her. Lifting her head, blinking green eyes slowly focusing on the sight of a crawling Valentina and a kneeling Xochitl. Gingerly, the younger Palmer pulls her legs inside the ropes and hops down from the top turnbuckle, her face grimacing and her legs trembling as she lands. She makes one step toward Valentina…
… when Rodriguez marshals her remaining strength into a dive, her hand slapping Xochitl’s.
“TAG!” the ref acknowledges, drawing a THUNDEROUS roar from the crowd as Aguilar rises from her knees and BURSTS through the ropes.
Rylee keeps charging, but so does Xochitl, leaping into a dropkick that catches the Texan beauty square in the chest, dropping her to the mat. As one Palmer crashes down, the other starts to rise, albeit drunkenly. And for her troubles, she too turns into a dropkick that catches her square in the chest. Even with more padding against the blow, Sage is still sent crashing down, Rylee rising again to eat ANOTHER dropkick, this one catching her flush in the jaw.
Neither Palmer seems in a hurry to get back up, so a rising Aguilar gathers two helping handfuls of hair and YANKS them to their feet, before knocking their foreheads together in a Meeting of the Minds!
Down goes Sage! Rylee remains upright, at least temporarily, though it looks like a steady breeze could take her down any instant. She’s certainly not in any state to keep Xochitl from muscling her up onto her shoulders and into a fireman’s carry. Then, Aguilar pushes her cargo airborne, just to clear space to allow herself to fall back, drawing her knees up toward her chest, Rylee crashing down across those knees in a vengeful double knee gutbuster.
DOUBLE KNEE GUTBUSTER:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=4uarW5_5j-o
Across the ring, Sage starts to push up from one knee… only before she can fully straighten up, a resurgent Valentina comes rushing in from behind, off the elder Palmer’s right flank. Leaping into the air, Rodriguez swivels to face Sage as she passes, her right hand reaching out to grab the back of the Texan’s noggin. And as the lucha falls to her knees, that right hand SHOVES down, SLAMMING Sage’s face into the mat with an emphatic Dragonquest—a move Valentina borrowed from the arsenal of her famous grandfather, Daniel ‘El Dragón’ Rodriguez.
DRAGONQUEST:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=VBjfwiRN82g
A moaning Sage rolls under the bottom rope, falling out to the floor. Inside the ring, running on pure adrenaline, Valentina picks herself, her head on a swivel as she locates a rising Rylee. With the younger Palmer still stooped forward, she knows this is her chance. Charging toward the Texan, Rodriguez leaps toward her, planting her knees atop Palmer’s back as her arms slip under and grab Rylee’s waist. Valentina then powers her opponent off her feet, the pair of them flipping through the air, until Rodriguez lands on her back—and Rylee’s knees SLAM down atop the lucha’s tucked knees.
VALENTINA’S MASSACRE:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=ghcfJg7FxYw
The impact shoots Rylee back up to her feet, if only for a moment. But a moment is all an expectant Xochitl needs. Grabbing the Texan’s head, Aguilar shoves her into a tight standing headscissors before wrapping her arms around the auburn haired beauty’s gulping midsection. She swings Palmer up onto her shoulders, into the stall position for a powerbomb…
… only there’s no powerbomb.
Xochitl just keeps her there, for a moment. As Aguilar holds Rylee suspended, Valentina charges into the ropes. However, she races PAST her partner, diving through the ropes to take out Sage with a tope suicida. As this is happening, Xochitl raises her arms, slipping her hands behind Rylee’s head and pulling down. The lucha beauty then bridges back, DRIVING the younger Palmer’s shoulders and the back of her head into the mat.
AGUILAR SPECIAL:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=2klSBmxGZTU
Xochitl maintains her bridge upon impact, the combination of her and Valentina’s finishers (known as Rompecorazones, or Heartbreaker) leaving Rylee jackknifed, her ass pointed up at the rafters as the referee slides into position…
ONE…
TWO…
THREE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
DING! DING! DING!
“Ladies and gentlemen,” the announcers proclaims, while Valentina slides back into the ring under the bottom rope, “your winners… LAAASSS AMMMAAANNNTTTEEESSS PRRROOOHHHIIIBBBIIIDDDAAASSS!!!!!”
Rodriguez kneewalks over to her partner as Xochitl rises that far as well, the spent but triumphant Latinas falling into an embrace… and then a passionate kiss… before pulling away enough to allow the oficial to raise their hands.
And the FAWNatics give a rousing ovation to the newest signed members of the company.
Most FAWNatics who follow the house show circuit know the drill: whatever time is listed as the ‘Doors Open’ time, the doors will not open until a minimum of 15 minutes after that. As such, there are two primary strategies when it comes to attendance: either get there early and stake out your place in line (the approach favored by the more dedicated walk ups and those who haven’t bought reserved seats) or show up closer to bell time, an approach which runs the risk of sometimes missing a match or two, depending on traffic and other factors. And even though those in charge of the house show circuit usually try to mitigate that by opening the show with a match or two between local talent, sometimes there’s a reason to be sure to show up even for the unknowns…
“Ladies and gentlemen,” the announcer declares, “your opening contest tonight… is an Audition Match!”
That’s enough to send a buzz through the arena.
It’s a pretty straight forward announcement, but even so, the announcer further elaborates. “Whichever team emerges victorious from this contest WILL secure for themselves a FAWN contract!”
To be sure, this isn’t a tryout. This isn’t the executives in Talent Relations taking a look at talent might be unsure about and determining whether or not they might be cut out for FAWN. No, the brass only book an Audition Match when they know both participants have what it takes to join FAWN…
They just want to see who wants it more.
“Introducing first…”
”COWGIRLS”:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=UpYu9FgcxKo
The leisurely opening chords of Morgan Wallen’s “Cowgirls” begin to play over the arena sound system. Now, a FAWN house show draws an eclectic mix of fans. You have your casual fans, brought out by the allure of a major promotion and its top stars, but you also have the obsessives, who live and breathe the wrestling world, who don’t just follow the goings on in FAWN but also pay intense attention to the independent wrestling world as well. And for that latter camp of fans, that music is enough to prompt an excited murmur.
“From El Paso, Texas,” the announcer continues, “Weighing in at a combined weight of two hundred and fifty-nine pounds… “Texas Tough” Sage Palmer… “The Shooting Lone Star” Rylee Palmer… HEEELLLLLL ONNN THHHEEE RAAANNNGGGEEE!!!!!”
SAGE PALMER
RYLEE PALMER
Two women emerge onto the stage, easily identifiable as sisters even without the announcer’s identification. Both women are clearly no older than their early 20’s, the taller of the two appearing to be the older, but only by a couple of years at most. She wears a snug, white, sleeveless crop top that simultaneously struggles to conceal an impressive chest underneath it, while failing to provide the tiniest sliver of cleavage. Below, she wears a pair of tight, light blue denim jeans that sport almost too many rips and tears to be called a whole pair, revealing healthy swaths of thigh, knee—well, black kneepad underneath the jeans--and the teasing undercurve of her right glute. She sports cowboy boots in lieu of more traditional wrestling footwear, with long, strawberry blonde locks spilling out from underneath a black Stetson.
Her sister, just a couple of inches shorter, wears a white tank under a red flannel, knotted under a bust that isn’t quite as formidable as her sister’s but wouldn’t draw many complaints. Where she has her sister beat is downstairs, her fuller, firmer booty clad in dark blue denim cutoffs. Like her sister, she sports brown cowboy boots and black knee pads, her darker auburn hair similarly topped with a black Stetson.
And both girls sport nice, shiny, silver title belts around their waist—the source of the intrigue from the more dedicated fans in the crowd. For the last seven months, Sage and Rylee have reigned as the South Texas Association of Rambunctious Rasslers (STARR) Tag Team champions. Both might have only been in the business for a couple of years now, but they had already started building quite the independent resume.
With this match taking place in Laredo, one might expect a warm welcome for a couple of beautiful girls from nearby El Paso. And sure, there is a smattering a polite applause from the… let’s say less informed amongst the crowd. But the haughty sneers and dismissive waves from Sage and Rylee as they head down the aisle are enough to quickly unite the crowd into a chorus of jeers and whistles.
The Palmer girls hop onto the apron and slip through the ropes without much fanfare. While Rylee heads to her corner and starts to slip out of her flannel, Sage saunters over to the referee. Removing her hat, she places it on the official’s head before leaning in to give him a quick peck on the cheek. To his credit, the blushing referee quickly steps back, fumbling to remove the hat, but in the eyes of the crowd, the damage has been done, the FAWNatics directing a chorus of boos in his direction as well. For her part, Sage just smirks and turns away, a sassy swish in her hips as she moves to join her sister in their corner.
“And their opponents…”
A moment later, the derisive whistles being directed at the Palmer sisters are interrupted by another whistles. This one comes over the sound system, and is decidedly more of a catcall. And for the majority Hispanic audience, especially the ones who follow wrestling south of the border as well as in the United States, that whistle sends them into a frenzy. With Becky G’s “Guapa” now playing over the speakers, the announcer resumes his introductions.
”GUAPA”:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=5wdEzJUweGE
“From El Corazón del Paraíso… Weighing in at a combined weight of two hundred and fifty-three pounds… Xochitl Aguilar… Valentina Rodriguez… LAAASSS AMMMAAANNNTTTEEESSS PRRROOOHHHIIIBBBIIIDDDAAASSS!!!!!”
XOCHITL AGUILAR
VALENTINA RODRIGUEZ
That pop only grows louder when two lovely Latinas part the curtains and step onto the stage. Xochitl, (ZO-chee-ill, for those who need to know) stands a solid five feet seven inches tall, her lithe frame clad in a black one piece with a mesh peek-a-boo window running from clavicle down to belly button, revealing a glimpse of purple cups beneath. She wears matching fingerless, elbow length gloves, black ankle boots, and thigh high leggings. A black and purple sash is tied around her waist, knotted over the left hip. Valentina, a few inches shorter at five foot three, sports a long-sleeved leotard with a scooped neckline. The upper portion of the leotard is pink, the image of a dragon with its wings spread in silver across the chest. A narrow band of silver runs across the waist, almost like a belt, while the lower portion of the leotard is a dark blue marked by scattered hearts in pink along both the front and back. Pink knee pads and white boots complete the ensemble.
The brunettes cross in front of each other as they start to dance their way down to the ring, keeping close to the railing, slapping hands with as many of the offered hands as they can reach. And when the duo meet up again, they pull their attention away from the crowd long enough for Valentina to wrap her arms around Xochitl’s neck, rise up on her toes, and give her tag team partner a decidely un-Platonic kiss.
Just a few short years ago, so much about this union would have been inconceivable. Not only were the Rodriguez and Aguilar families two of the founding families of lucha libre, but the war between them had spanned decades. Valentina herself was a late arrival to the feud, only having learned of her ties to the Rodriguez family about ten years back, having grown up unaware that her father was Arturo Rodriguez…
(And, not to put too fine a point on it, Arturo Rodriguez was about the last person in the lucha libre world would suspect of parenting an illegitimate child.)
Xochitl and Valentina’s paths first crossed a little over five years ago, and at first, it seemed the blood feud between the two families would spill across another generation. But eventually, mutual hatred gave way to mutual respect.
And mutual respect eventually spawned something more.
Valentina and Xochitl climb onto the apron and slip into the ring, the scions of Lucha royalty exchanging a few words of strategy before Valentina departs the ring. In the opposite corner, after a hearty round of consultation, Rylee exits as well, leaving Sage in to start the match.
DING! DING! DING!
Sage raises her arms in a fighting stance as lucha and gringa start to circle, Xochitl raising her hands above her head and clapping, established a rhythm that the nearly full house quickly picks up on. As the distance between them begins to disappear, Aguilar brings her hands down as well. And once the two are close enough, they each lunge forward, tying up, struggling to establish dominance. After a few moments’ stalemate, it’s the American who slowly begins to push her opponent into retreat, until Xochitl’s back is pressed against the ropes.
“Alright, she’s in the ropes,” the ref barks. “Break it.”
“Que?”Sage asks with a smirk, refusing to oblige, and forcing the official to start a count. Only at “FOUR!” does Palmer relent, Aguilar raising her hands to indicate a clean break as Sage steps back…
… and then BLISTER’S the brunette’s cheek with an open hand slap.
“Those contracts are OURS, coño,” Sage hisses, proving she’s picked up some colorful Spanish to go along with the more basic vocabulary while growing up in a border town. “We’re gonna toss your flabby asses in a dumpster, and ship it back across the border. Where you belong.”
Those close enough to the ring to hear Sage’s remarks unload with vitriol, but Xochitl elects to let her actions speak for her.
Pushing off the ropes with a snarl, Aguilar surges toward her foe, seemingly all too eager to tie up in another collar and elbow. Only when Sage’s raises her arms to engage, Xochitl slips around behind, the brunette snaking her arms around Palmer’s waist and using the Texan’s momentum to drive the strawberry blonde into the ropes, chest and belly first. Falling backward, the lucha beauty pulls her opponent down with her, forcing Sage’s shoulders flat to the mat with an O’Connor Roll, Aguilar remaining seated atop Palmer’s thighs as the referee slides into position…
ONE…
TWO…
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Sage bucks her way free. A less agile wrestler likely would have been sent tumbling to her hands and knees, but Xochitl quickly gathers her momentum, and hurtles into the ropes. The brunette shoots back toward a rising Palmer, leaping at the strawberry blonde before Sage can fully process what’s happening. Acting on pure instinct, Sage catches her foe, but as her arms slip around Xochitl’s midsection, the lucha’s luscious legs slip around the Texan’s neck. From there, Aguilar pulls her foe off her feet rather easily with a spinning headscissors takedown.
SPINNING HEADSCISSORS TAKEDOWN:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=s-6riNQCyJ0
A reeling Sage is sent skidding across the mat, haplessly finding her way into a neutral corner as Xochitl scrambles to her feet and tags out to Valentina. Aguilar lingers in the ring for a moment, long enough to take her partner’s wrist and whip her toward the corner occupied by Sage. Rodriguez rushes in, swiveling her hips to RAM her backside into the strawberry blonde’s startled mug.
The ref starts to usher Xochitl out, but she’s content to make her exit on her own. Valentina, meanwhile, hauls Sage up with a handful of hair, but only long enough to snapmare the Texan back to a seat on the canvas, now just a few feet out of the corner. The lucha beauty then races into the ropes, in front of the seated Sage, shooting off the cables and diving toward her foe. Drawing her knees up, Valentina’s shins slam into Palmer’s knee, the brunette’s momentum sending Sage tumbling backward. Rodriguez lands seated atop the strawberry blonde’s sternum, Sage letting out a gust of a moan as her legs fly into the air. Valentina deftly gathers them up, hooking them under her arms as the referee slides down beside them…
ONE…
TWO…
THNOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Palmer bucks loose.
Dragging Sage up, Valentina shoves her back into the luchadoras’ corner, reaching out to tag Xochitl. Aguilar slips through the ropes, but instead of going toward her opponent, she maneuvers towards center ring. Rodriguez joins her there, where once again Xochitl takes her wrist and whips her off. This time, instead of turning into Palmer, the young brunette beauty leaps toward her, landing with a foot atop each thigh as her hands slip around behind the Texan’s head. Falling backward, Valentina propels Sage out of the corner and into the air, sending her crashing to the mat with a monkey flip.
Palmer barely has time to bounce up to a seated position before Xochitl rebounds off the rope, catching her in the side of the head with a running knee that drops the strawberry blonde to her back, sprawled and woozy. Dropping to her knees beside Sage, Aguilar applies the lateral press, hooking the outside leg and scoring the…
ONE…
TWO…
THRNOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Sage gets a shoulder up.
Pulling Palmer to her feet, Xochitl slips her left arm around the Texan’s waist, while nudging her head up and underneath Sage’s right arm. Stooping forward—and forcing Sage to double over further in the process, Aguilar reaches her free hand up and under the strawberry blonde’s right thigh, the lucha’s left hand moving to lock with the right. Aguilar then pops her hips and bridges back, muscling Palmer off her feet and dropping her on her head and shoulders with a back cradle suplex.
BACK CRADLE SUPLEX:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=XHm9h9-sAjc
Xochitl climbs to her feet and heads to her corner. But as she tags out to Valentina, a rocked and reeling Sage elects to bail, rolling under the bottom rope and tumbling to unsteady feet outside of the ring. All it takes is a look between the lucha lovers to change their gameplan accordingly. Xochitl remains in the ring, while Valentina sprints into the ropes opposite her. Hurtling back on her own partner, Aguilar dips forward as Rodriguez leaps toward her, placing her hands on Xochitl’s shoulders as Aguilar’s hands move to the back of Valentina’s thighs. Straightening up, Aguilar propels her partner heavenward, Rodriguez landing for just a second on the top rope. Springboarding off the rubber coated steel, Valentina stretches her arms out to her sides as she dives onto a turning Palmer, catching the strawberry blonde with their Vuelo de Truena.
VUELO DE TRUENA:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=pRdFG0oo5xM
Peeling Sage off the floor, Valentina shovels the strawberry blonde under the bottom rope. Wheeling away from the ring for just a moment to acknowledge the cheers of the FAWNatics with a playful shimmy, Rodriguez then hops up onto the apron herself—only instead of entering the ring, the lucha makes a beeline toward the near neutral corner. The strawberry blonde Texans remains sprawled on her back as Valentina makes her ascent…
… but there’s another Palmer to worry about. Rushing down the other side of the apron, Rylee catches Valentina’s ankle and gives it a tug. To her credit, Rodriguez is able to grab the top rope with both hands as she sinks into a crouch, that trademark lucha agility no doubt aiding her efforts to maintain her balance. It takes a few moments, but eventually Valentina is able to extricate her leg from Rylee’s grasp…
… just in time for a risen Sage to stuff one hand into Valentina’s chest and the other between her thighs, slamming her from the top turnbuckle down to the canvas.
Rodriguez rolls over to her side, arching her now throbbing back in pain as Sage stumbles toward her corner, where Rylee waits to make the tag. By the time the younger Palmer has entered the ring for the first time, the lucha is back on her feet, but still a little winded from her fall and impact. Rylee takes advantage, grabbing Valentina by the hair and putting her flat on her ass with a snapmare. Taking a step back, the Shooting Lone Star charges forward, driving a vicious running kneelift right between Valentina’s shoulderblades.
SNAPMARE TO RUNNING BACK KNEE:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=D1CUvQhvaX4
The crowd boos at the turn of the tide, and the boos only get louder when Rylee brings her hands up to her eyes and mockingly wipes away a few tears. Sauntering back to a groaning Valentina, Palmer drops to one knee behind her, snatching one handful of the lucha’s raven locks and yanking downward, forcing Rodriguez to look up at the lights. And that’s when Rylee demonstrates that, despite her pretty face, she has a little savage in her—when she chomps down on Valentina’s forehead!
Valentina shrieks in agony as Rylee’s teeth tear into her forehead. Those agonized wails are almost too much for Xochitl, and she slips a leg through the ropes, instinct compelling her to come to her lover’s rescue. But her rational side tells her that will cause more harm than good, forcing the referee to pay attention to her instead of these no good gringa bitches, and she catches herself. Thankfully, the ref has stepped in, even as Xochitl was fighting with herself over interjecting.
Of course, Rylee waits until the count of “FOUR!” to pull back, the auburn-haired brat taunting licking her lips before rising to her feet, Valentina’s hair still held tightly in her left hand. Palmer drags the lucha over to the ropes, and pressing Rodriguez’s throat down across the middle cable, choking the brunette out for another count of four. Strutting toward her corner, she tags Sage before pivoting and sprinting toward the far ropes. Unable to stop herself and wanting nothing more than to rip Rylee’s hair from her scalp, Xochitl starts to scoot down the apron. But Palmer rebounds off the strands before she can do anything, racing back toward Valentina. Leaping into the air, Rylee’s legs shoot through the ropes as her butt lands against the brunette’s shoulders, the Texan sliding down Rodriguez’s body and out to the floor.
LEAPFROG GUILLOTINE BODY PRESS:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=oW9hto7CLP4
Valentina shoots away from the ropes, tumbling down to her belly, rasping and gasping for air. She knows she needs to make a tag, so she struggles up to her hands and knees, Xochitl leaning over the tag rope to reach in for the tag…
Alas, Rodriguez isn’t even halfway to her corner before Sage charges in from behind, swinging a leg forward and brutally driving a cowboy boot between Valentina’s thighs.
The lucha’s eyes roll back as she crumples to the mat, curling into a fetal shell, mewling in anguish. Across the ring, an outraged Xochitl shoots a leg through the ropes and whips her upper body through as well. But the referee steps toward her to make sure she doesn’t.
“Oh, you’re gonna make sure I obey the rules?” Aguilar snaps at him.
The ref can do little more than shrug his shoulders. After all, he understands her frustration. He even agrees with it. But… it’s FAWN. He knows who signs his paychecks. And he knows laxity is a job requirement here.
Dropping to her knees beside Valentina, Sage pushes the lucha over to her back, prying Rodriguez out of her protective ball… and opening the lucha’s belly up, so she can plunge her talons into Valentina’s abs with a belly claw. “AGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!” the brunette howls, her feet kicking at the mat, her hands flying to and pushing up on Palmer’s forearm. “MIIIIIIIIEEEEEEEERRRRRRRDDDDDDAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”
“What do you say, Val,” the ref asks, but she vigorously shakes her head.
“No!” Rodriguez cries out. “NUNCA!!!”
Sage RIIIIIIPS the claw away, Valentina letting out a relieved whimper as she rolls to her left hip, her arms falling across her gulping tummy. But Palmer has no intentions of letting the young lucha regroup. Hairhauling Rodriguez up to her feet, the strawberry blonde rushes toward her corner, Rylee swinging around the ringpost as Sage raises her right leg, placing her boot on the top turnbuckle before SMASHING Valentina’s face into it.
BOOT ASSISTED TURNBUCKLE SMASH:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=CTjQ-0t5WgM
Rodriguez wheels away from the impact, falling to her knees before pitching forward, landing in a sprawled heap alongside the ropes. Without a care in the world, Sage extends her hand for Rylee to tag, the younger Palmer slipping into the ring. Together, the Palmer sisters pull the brunette up and whip her into the ropes. Again, Xochitl scoots down the apron, tag rope in one hand her other stretching to slap at her lover’s back… but coming up short. Valentina hurtles back toward her attackers, who stoop forward, each one grabbing a leg and hoisting the luchadora off her feet. Together, the Palmers drop back, slamming Valentina to the mat face and chest first with a flapjack.
As Sage departs, Rylee uses a cowboy boot to nudge Valentina over to her back, then circles to stand straddling the brunette’s head—taking great pains to make sure each boot is standing on top of Rodriguez’s dark tresses. Bending down, the auburn-haired Texan takes Valentina’s wrists and pulls up, a journey that comes to an abbreviated halt when Valentina runs out of unencumbered hair. Again, the Latina can only howl in anguish, the official stepping in to administer a count….
… which Rylee absolutely milks all the way to “FOUR!”
The Texan releases Rodriguez’s wrists, allowing the brunette to fall back to the canvas… but in the next instant, Rylee jumps into the air. Just high enough to place the soles of her boots over Valentina’s eyes as she comes down, blinding the lucha with a vicious double boot scrape.
Valentina rockets up to a seated position, her hands flying to her suddenly burning eyes. Coming up behind her prey, Rylee pushes the Latina beauty down to her belly, trapping Rodriguez’s left boot in the pit of her right knee before stepping through the keyhole, using her shin against Valentina’s shin to secure the legs in place. She then reaches down, snatching a handful of dark locks and yanking backward. The burning in her scalp first pulls Valentina’s right hand away from her eyes, and when that hand can’t pry Palmer’s hand free of her tresses, Valentina’s left hand follows suit…
… which was the moment Rylee was waiting for.
Bringing her other boot up and behind Rodriguez’s noggin, Palmer STOMPS down, driving her opponent’s face into the mat with a devastating curb stomp.
HAIR PULL CURB STOMP:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=7aDuEBiXbaE
Rolling Valentina over, Rylee applies the lateral press, reaching to hook the near leg…
ONE…
TWO…
THRENOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
A charging Xochitl sends a stomp to Palmer’s back, dislodging her from the pin a moment before defeat.
As the official ushers Aguilar out of the ring, Rylee spares just a moment to glare in the departing Latina’s direction before looking down at Valentina’s sprawled form in disdain. “I gotta hand it to you, puta.” the Texans mutters. “You {i]REALLY[/i] put the ‘MEH’ in ‘MEH-hee-co’, don’tcha?”
Not waiting for an answer, Palmer tugs Valentina up and sends her off with an Irish whip. Raising an arm out toward her side, the Texan charges toward her rebounding foe, but Rodriguez ducks under the intended clothesline. Rylee slams on the brakes, spinning around, but by that time the raven haired lucha is already diving into a handstand. Falling into the ropes, she springs back, landing on her feet for only an instant before diving backward, grabbing a stunned Rylee’s head and pulling Palmer’s head over her shoulder. Gravity does the rest as Valentina plummets to the canvas, connecting with a potentially match-altering Cupid’s Arrow.
CUPID’S ARROW:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=bjnjWEfPBA8
The auburn-haired American is left splattered, face down and trembling. Valentina flops over to her stomach a moment after impact, the move seemingly having taken just about all she had left to execute. But even as she remains laid out and trying to gather up her energies, she spares a little breath to mutter, “I’m… Columbian, carechimba…”
Across the ring, Xochitl emphatically slaps the top turnbuckle, attempting to rally her beloved. She certainly rallies the crowd, who clap along as each slap echoes in the air. And it’s not long before Valentina starts to respond, fighting to make it back to all fours…
… just as Rylee gets back to her feet behind her.
“Newsflash, puta,” the younger Palmer snarls as she hairhauls Valentina off the deck. “No one gives a FUCK!” With that, Rylee starts to whip Rodriguez toward the far corner… but the lucha has at least recovered enough to dig in her heels and reverse the whip! Almost as soon as she sends Rylee off, the dark haired lucha takes off after her…
… but Valentina’s not the only one with counters.
Rather than turn her back into the buckles, Rylee first hops onto the bottom turnbuckle, just as Valentina lowers her shoulder for a would-be spear into the corner. Grabbing the top rope with both hands on either side of the buckle, Palmer lifts her body into the air, leaving the buckles free and clear for Rodriguez to shoot through. To her credit, the lucha gets her hands out in front of her, grabbing the middle rope to halt her momentum. But that’s perfectly fine in Rylee’s book, as she draws her knees up toward her chest and swoops back down, landing her knees against Valentina’s back. Shifting her hands from the top rope to the brunette’s shoulders, Rylee throws her weight backward, RIPPING Valentina off her feet and nailing the bewildered lucha with her Texas Tornado lungblower.
TEXAS TORNADO:
youtu.be/YMjPHj4-dnI?t=48
A shellshocked Valentina drops to her ass, left momentarily seated in a jellied heap before the lack of tension in her body sends her puddling into a shuddering heap. For her part, Rylee rolls to her knees and crawls over to the Palmer corner, where Sage waits to tag her. Slipping through the ropes, the elder Palmer saunters over to her quivering adversary, Rodriguez somehow managing to summon juuuust enough energy to bonelessly flop over to her stomach.
Bending down, the strawberry blonde Texan works her arms underneath Valentina’s belly, and with a grunt she hoists the luchadora off the mat. For a moment, Palmer just holds her opponent against her torso, Rodriguez’s legs kicking absently at the air. Sage then falls back, driving Valentina into the canvas with a gutwrench suplex. Kicking her legs into the air, Palmer pops her hips and rolls through, her arms still snug around the Latina’s waist as she lifts Valentina up with her. Again, she keeps Rodriguez cradled to her chest for a moment, the brunette’s legs somehow managing to kick with simultaneously greater urgency and less energy.
Sage holds her trophy aloft a little longer this time, turning toward the luchas’ corner to blow a taunting kiss in Xochitl’s direction before again falling backward, subjecting Valentina to a heartless Texas Twofer.
TEXAS TWOFER:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Olefj0pCV0
Rodriguez crumples into a heap, face down, legs and arms splayed. Sage just sits up, drawing a chorus of jeers when she dismissively wipes her hands. For a split second, she considers rolling Valentina over for a pin, but decides against it, figuring Xochitl would just butt her nose in. Instead, she hairhauls the exhausted luchadora up onto rubbery legs, Palmer turning her back to her own corner as she begins to backpedal with the brunette in tow. Once “Texas Tough” judges that she’s close enough, Sage wraps her left arm around Valentina’s neck, pulling the Columbian beauty’s head under her arm as her other hand grabs at the fabric of the left leg hole of Rodriguez’s leotard. Again, Sage pops her hips, muscling Rodriguez into the air.
And again, Rylee spins around the ringpost like a world class stripper as her sister plummets backward, Valentina’s legs sailing out of the ring, into the pits of her knees connect with the top rope, shooting the brunette’s body back in the opposite direction as she flips and crumples to the mat.
SUPLEX TO CORNER:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=a_dHzqEibww
Picking herself up, Sage tags out to Rylee, who wastes no time in pulling Valentina up onto wobbly legs. Like her sister, she too tucks the brunette’s head under her left arm. Only she does it facing away from Rodriguez, the lucha’s shoulder pressing into the small of Palmer’s back. Rylee then sprints out of her corner, just a couple of strides before jumping up and SLAMMING Valentina’s mug into the mat with a bulldog. The impact sends the nearly insensate Columbian beauty over to her back in a spasming starfish, while Rylee deftly bounces up from the impact and back to her feet. As she rises, the auburn-haired Texan’s eyes lock on the top turnbuckle, and she lets her gaze linger for just a moment before turning her attention to the crowd, and shouting just three words.
“VIVA LA RAZA!!!”
The Laredo FAWNatics threaten to blow the roof off the building with the boos and their abuse as Rylee slips out onto the apron, marching straight to the corner she had just been staring at. Climbing to the top turnbuckle, the younger Palmer barely even hesitates before leaping from her perch, pumping her body in midair as she descends toward her prey’s…
RAISED KNEES, Valentina thwarting that nearly blasphemous frogsplash and sending an impaled Rylee bouncing away, the Texan rolling onto her side and curling into a coughing, gasping ball.
Boos turn to cheers in a heartbeat, Xochitl pumping a fist in the air as the entire building can feel the momentum shift. “Vamos, nena,” Aguilar urges her partner, stretching her arm into the ring as far as she can. A moment later, and Valentina wills herself over to her stomach, and begins the crawl toward a MUCH tag…
“Dammit, Rylee, move your ass!” Sage shouts from the Palmer corner, likewise extending her hand as far as she can, her eyes imploring her sister to move even after she stops talking. Those eyes never leave Rylee’s retching form. Obviously, no one in the wrestling world knows Rylee Palmer better than her older sister, who’s known her all of Rylee’s life. She’s seen Rylee crash and burn before, and she’s seen her recover. And deep down, Sage can tell…
She’s not gonna recover in time for a tag.
Valentina doesn’t care about any of that. All she cares about is reaching [g]her[/b][/i] corner, her desperation competing against her exhaustion as she drags herself toward salvation. “Eso es todo, nena,” Xochitl says… almost whispers… yet even as softly as she utters the words, she KNOWS her lover can hear her. Can feel her encouragement. Placing a single foot on the bottom rope, Aguilar leans in that much further. “Just a little moooOOOOOOUUUUNNNNHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!”
So consumed with Valentina’s journey, neither Xochitl, the referee, or even many of the fans had noticed Sage slip down from the apron and dart around the ring. Aguilar’s first and only clue comes when she feels two hands wrap around the ankle of her plant foot, and give it a VICIOUS backward tug. The lucha’s other foot TRIES to find the apron as it slips away from the bottom rope, but the force of Palmer’s yank is too great, that boot finding only air as Xochitl falls away from the ring. Worse still, the only part of Xochitl that does manage to find the edge of the apron as she descends is her forehead, the ‘THWONK!’ of the impact mingling with the dull groan from Aguilar’s lips as the brunette’s body puddles against the ringsteps.
And just like that, the pin is put in the FAWNatic’s balloon.
Just then, Valentina manages to lift her head… only to be greeted with the sight of an empty corner. Confusion and despair fall across her face for just a moment. The former at least finding some resolution when she hears the ref shout, “Dammit, Sage! Back to your corner!”
… and that’s when a double axe handle comes CRASHING down between her shoulderblades, courtesy of a diving Rylee.
As the younger Palmer gets back to her feet, a woozy Valentina finishes pulling herself into her corner, turning to collapse with the bottom buckle resting between her shoulderblades. Now, ordinarily in tag team wrestling, a competitor would be moving heaven and earth to keep her opponent from reaching her corner. But with Xochitl on the floor, mewling softly as she sags against the ringsteps, Rylee’s not sweating it. Instead, she pivots and sprints toward the corner to the Columbian brunette’s left. Rebounding off the ropes, Rylee hurtles back toward her adversary, delivering a BRUTAL running facewash
RUNNING FACEWASH:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z0VFGDekUZA
The force of Palmer’s running boot turns Valentina’s chest toward the bottom rope as Rylee’s leg shoots out of the ring, the Texan coming to a halt seating against the lucha’s shoulders and the back of her head. Rylee leisurely lets her arms spill over the top rope, content to just lean there against her foe, until the referee starts a count.
To the shock of absolutely everyone, the Shooting Lone Star pulls away only at the count of “TWO!” She lifts up just enough to allow Valentina to turn back into her reclining position against the bottom buckle… and THAT’S when Rylee thrusts her hips back, buffeting Rodriguez’s features with an enthusiastic Stinkface…
… one that comes with the added indignity of being delivered in the luchadora’s own corner!
Now to the shock of absolutely NO ONE, the auburn-haired Texan continues sweeping her tush across Valentina’s face past “FOUR!” Her eyes locked on the ref’s, she silently DARES him to utter that magic word of “FIVE!”
… and only once his jaw starts to drop, but before any sound can emerge, does Rylee pull away.
A wide eyed, greasy faced Valentina pitches forward to her hands and knees. And Palmer reaches down, gathering up a handful of hair and using it as a leash to dogwalk Rodriguez back into enemy territory, where Sage waits for the tag. As the elder Palmer enters the ring, Rylee hairhauls their chew toy up to her feet and passes her off, Sage stuffing the brunette’s head under her left arm as her sister returns to their corner. Nudging Valentina’s nearly limp left arm up and over her neck, Sage muscles the Columbian beauty off her feet. But she only lifts Rodriguez until her body is just about parallel to the mat, before pivoting and SPIKING the crown of Valentina’s skull into the canvas with a rolling brainbuster.
ROLLING BRAINBUSTER:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=SmNE6LxW7lo
Rodriguez rockets up to a seated position, her hands falling obliviously between her splayed thighs as her glassy eyes give a dead stare toward her corner…
… which remains empty.
Strutting up behind her adversary, Sage plants a boot between Valentina’s shoulderblades and dismissively shoves the daughter of lucha royalty down onto her belly. Dropping down beside the groaning Rodriguez, she takes the brunette’s left arm and threads it between her thighs, before scissoring the bicep. Palmer then reclines across Valentina’s back, casually threading her left arm underneath the brunette’s other arm. With one of the Columbian’s arms now tightly scissored and the other wedged under Sage’s left arm, the Texan reaches her left hand to brush some stray locks out of her opponent’s face. “If you’re gonna beg,” Palmer taunts, “you might wanna start now…”
… and with that, the index and middle fingers of Sage’s left hand curl into hooks, before roughly plunging into Valentina’s nostrils!
Valentina doesn’t beg. She does scream, which might turn out to be even worse for her. Because almost as soon as she starts wailing, Sage STUFFS her right hand into the lucha’s mouth, adding a mandible claw to this diabolical concoction of torture.
SQUEALING PIG (just add nostril hooks):
www.youtube.com/watch?v=MciIW_VLOfM
Immediately, Valentina’s anguished howls are stifled into muffled moans. “How about it, Val?” the ref asks. “I’ll call it as soon as you let me know…”
Valentina can’t utter an intelligible answer. She can barely move her head, between Sage’s cruel dual grips on her mouth and nose. She forces her watery eyes open, straining to get a line of sight on her corner…
STILL empty…
It’s over.
In resigned agony, Valentina’s hand starts to move toward Sage’s shoulder… her back… the back of her head… ANYTHING she can tap to bring this torment to an end…
STARTS to…
“UNNNNNNNGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!”
A double axe handle from a diving Xochitl crashes down on the crown of Sage’s skull, without a heartbeat to spare. The Texan’s hands fall away from Valentina’s face, her legs relaxing their scissors as she rolls away.
Alas, it’s only a momentary reprieve. Before a still dazed and disoriented Aguilar can capitalize, Rylee comes up from behind, bumrushing the brunette to the ropes and tossing her out to the floor.
A frustrated official starts to order the younger Palmer out of the ring, but she’s already heading back to her corner. Meanwhile, a groaning Sage picks herself up, fuming at having been denied the submission. Marching to her corner, she tags Rylee, who instead of entering the ring starts climbing to the top rope. The elder Palmer then turns back to Valentina, scraping the Columbian brunette off the mat before shuffling Rodriguez onto her shoulders and into a fireman’s carry, the FAWNatics left to fear for whatever these dastardly Texans might have in mind next.
Which would remain forever a mystery.
Almost as soon as Valentina ends up across Sage’s shoulders, she begins blasting elbows into the side of Palmer’s skull. It takes three before Rodriguez can wriggle her way loose, dropping down behind the strawberry blonde. The instant Valentina’s boots touch down, her hands move to the Sage’s back, and she gives the curvy Texan a shove… a shove that sends the elder Palmer crashing chest and stomach first into the ropes…
… and THAT impact sends a shimmy through the top rope, which causes the younger Palmer’s footing to fail her. Rylee slips, her descent halted by the wiring of the turnbuckle bisecting her thighs, causing Rylee’s jaw to drop in a silent scream.
Propelled back into the ring by the tension of the ropes, Sage stumbles and turn, just in time to be met by a leaping Valentina. The lucha’s left foot plants against Palmer’s belly, while the right sweeps upward, Rodriguez connecting FLUSH with a step up enziguiri! The strawberry blonde wheels away from the impact, her eyes almost crossing for a second as she falls to her knees, then pitches forward.
A roar runs through the FAWNatics, but it’s a tentative one as Valentina comes down to earth, herself laid sprawled on her stomach, seemingly out of energy… the luchas’ corner remaining distressingly empty. Even so, Rodriguez soon starts dragging herself in the direction of a tag no one was in position to give…
The good news, at least, is that Sage remains laid out and nearly motionless, while her sister teeters atop her painful perch. As she crawls, Valentina struggles to lift her head…
and THAT’s when she sees it: Xochitl’s head emerging over the horizon of the apron.
On her knees on the floor, leaning against the apron, Aguilar shakes away some cobwebs before looking up. The sight of her lover crawling towards her, with each Palmer sister incapacitated, does a magnificent job of clearing her head. Climbing onto the apron, Xochitl remains on her knees as she reaches through the ropes…
Across the remain, Sage remains all but kayoed by that beautifully delivered enziguiri… but Rylee is starting to get some of her wits back about her. Lifting her head, blinking green eyes slowly focusing on the sight of a crawling Valentina and a kneeling Xochitl. Gingerly, the younger Palmer pulls her legs inside the ropes and hops down from the top turnbuckle, her face grimacing and her legs trembling as she lands. She makes one step toward Valentina…
… when Rodriguez marshals her remaining strength into a dive, her hand slapping Xochitl’s.
“TAG!” the ref acknowledges, drawing a THUNDEROUS roar from the crowd as Aguilar rises from her knees and BURSTS through the ropes.
Rylee keeps charging, but so does Xochitl, leaping into a dropkick that catches the Texan beauty square in the chest, dropping her to the mat. As one Palmer crashes down, the other starts to rise, albeit drunkenly. And for her troubles, she too turns into a dropkick that catches her square in the chest. Even with more padding against the blow, Sage is still sent crashing down, Rylee rising again to eat ANOTHER dropkick, this one catching her flush in the jaw.
Neither Palmer seems in a hurry to get back up, so a rising Aguilar gathers two helping handfuls of hair and YANKS them to their feet, before knocking their foreheads together in a Meeting of the Minds!
Down goes Sage! Rylee remains upright, at least temporarily, though it looks like a steady breeze could take her down any instant. She’s certainly not in any state to keep Xochitl from muscling her up onto her shoulders and into a fireman’s carry. Then, Aguilar pushes her cargo airborne, just to clear space to allow herself to fall back, drawing her knees up toward her chest, Rylee crashing down across those knees in a vengeful double knee gutbuster.
DOUBLE KNEE GUTBUSTER:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=4uarW5_5j-o
Across the ring, Sage starts to push up from one knee… only before she can fully straighten up, a resurgent Valentina comes rushing in from behind, off the elder Palmer’s right flank. Leaping into the air, Rodriguez swivels to face Sage as she passes, her right hand reaching out to grab the back of the Texan’s noggin. And as the lucha falls to her knees, that right hand SHOVES down, SLAMMING Sage’s face into the mat with an emphatic Dragonquest—a move Valentina borrowed from the arsenal of her famous grandfather, Daniel ‘El Dragón’ Rodriguez.
DRAGONQUEST:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=VBjfwiRN82g
A moaning Sage rolls under the bottom rope, falling out to the floor. Inside the ring, running on pure adrenaline, Valentina picks herself, her head on a swivel as she locates a rising Rylee. With the younger Palmer still stooped forward, she knows this is her chance. Charging toward the Texan, Rodriguez leaps toward her, planting her knees atop Palmer’s back as her arms slip under and grab Rylee’s waist. Valentina then powers her opponent off her feet, the pair of them flipping through the air, until Rodriguez lands on her back—and Rylee’s knees SLAM down atop the lucha’s tucked knees.
VALENTINA’S MASSACRE:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=ghcfJg7FxYw
The impact shoots Rylee back up to her feet, if only for a moment. But a moment is all an expectant Xochitl needs. Grabbing the Texan’s head, Aguilar shoves her into a tight standing headscissors before wrapping her arms around the auburn haired beauty’s gulping midsection. She swings Palmer up onto her shoulders, into the stall position for a powerbomb…
… only there’s no powerbomb.
Xochitl just keeps her there, for a moment. As Aguilar holds Rylee suspended, Valentina charges into the ropes. However, she races PAST her partner, diving through the ropes to take out Sage with a tope suicida. As this is happening, Xochitl raises her arms, slipping her hands behind Rylee’s head and pulling down. The lucha beauty then bridges back, DRIVING the younger Palmer’s shoulders and the back of her head into the mat.
AGUILAR SPECIAL:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=2klSBmxGZTU
Xochitl maintains her bridge upon impact, the combination of her and Valentina’s finishers (known as Rompecorazones, or Heartbreaker) leaving Rylee jackknifed, her ass pointed up at the rafters as the referee slides into position…
ONE…
TWO…
THREE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
DING! DING! DING!
“Ladies and gentlemen,” the announcers proclaims, while Valentina slides back into the ring under the bottom rope, “your winners… LAAASSS AMMMAAANNNTTTEEESSS PRRROOOHHHIIIBBBIIIDDDAAASSS!!!!!”
Rodriguez kneewalks over to her partner as Xochitl rises that far as well, the spent but triumphant Latinas falling into an embrace… and then a passionate kiss… before pulling away enough to allow the oficial to raise their hands.
And the FAWNatics give a rousing ovation to the newest signed members of the company.