Queen of My World

San Diego, CA

Ironically, it was safe to say that Stephanie was on cloud nine right now. She just was just several hours removed from winning World Wrestling Headquarters’ Women’s World Championship in front of over 12,000 people who were a part of her childhood before living with her father in Japan. In a moment of marital inspiration, she reversed a submission to pin Renee Jonae, one of Jaywalker’s prized students and won her third career world title. Things were happening at a steady pace and all she needed to do was stay consistent. She and Violet proved they belonged in Wrestleworld’s tag scene at Badlands and now had their eyes on Drake and Jones. Her plans for Queeniversary were coming along nicely, and plans to get back her EWC X-Division Championship was being set in motion. All that was left was the King of the World. Fourteen of the best and brightest were competing against one another in a winner takes all tournament. Just the thought of being in KOTW sent shivers down her spine. She could barely contain her excitement. If there were a time and place to show the world who she was, it was now. If 2019 was about getting back up to speed, then 2020 was about setting the world ablaze. She just needed to keep her head up and stay the course. Matsuda felt like a large part of her success was due to knowing when to take things easy during her schedule. She needed to look for opportunities, not fights. War was about finding an end to the means, not fighting everything in-between. Stephanie needed to play the game wisely and choose her dates carefully. She was living the best days of her life, but she was still human. 

As she sat on the porch at her mother’s house, she pondered about her first-round opponent. Jimmy Johnson was a name she didn’t know much about other than he was one of several people involved in the Darke and Jones Games. From the videos she’s seen, he used to wrestle in Australia but didn’t know much outside of that. From her observation, he seems to have a sort of old school approach to wrestling. He’s likely to exploit his size advantage and try to outpower her and lock her down with some good old fashioned catch wrestling. If she wanted to make it past the first round, she’d have to stick and move as much as possible. He was around seventy pounds larger than she was, so a few good hits would do her in. She wasn’t particularly worried about Johnson, but rather keeping her own ego in check. She was a world champion now, but not in Wrestleworld. And as far as she’s concerned, Jimmy Johnson was no woman. The War Queen was confident in her own abilities but WW was quickly proving itself to be ‘different’ than most promotions. First off, Jaywalker technically owned his own nation dedicated only to the sport of professional wrestling. Now, Pizza Boy, a former world champion in her old promotion and once the biggest babyface in the world has revealed himself to the world and was working alongside Claudia Michaels. The more the plot thickened, the less she was beginning to trust the woman formerly known as ‘Heart Break Gal’. She did introduce her to Violet, someone who she now was forming a bond with, but that could’ve been a distraction to keep her away from the American Dream Championship. Whatever, though. Cloud would get her shot at the title soon enough. When it came to Wrestleworld, Violet Snow and the road to Campeonatos de Parejas took priority over everything else. For now, it was about becoming Ki- Queen of the World. 

Stephanie stood up and yawned. She might as well cut a promo or something on the Aussie before going to bed. But then again, she hasn’t eaten a thing all day. Maybe driving out to get some food was in order... 



We see Stephanie “Cloud” Matsuda sitting inside a local Jimmy Johns via cameraphone, eating a turkey sandwich. She was dressed in a US Navy hoodie, courtesy of her mother, a former naval lieutenant commander. She seemed deep in thought but finally turns her attention to the camera.

“Well, I’ve been sitting here for the past twenty minutes why in the hell I was booked against a seventy-six-year-old man, and it was only then I realized it wasn’t the two-time Super Bowl coach I would be facing, but some scrub who fumbled his way out of relevancy. Now maybe I’m being a little harsh, but I really thought I was going to meet Jimmy freaking Johnson! Like the ‘real’ Jimmy Johnson, not some weirdo Aussie. Lawd knows I have enough of that in my life with Keelan Callihan. But yet, here we are. The first round of King of the World and my opponent is someone who has yet to make a dent in the business, much less any place at all. This is a guy who describes himself as “the undercard” which to be honest, kind of gets on my nerves. No seriously, it freaking irritates me. This guy reeks of an underachiever and I’m wondering to myself that is this some kind of psychological tactic to get under my skin and psyche me out. I’ve faced opponents who tried pulling this on me before - hell this was the Pizza Boy’s M.O. I’m not one that’s easily fooled, sweets. You and I are going to go in there, and I’ll show you who I am…”

Stephanie took a bite out of a her sandwich and chewed for a couple of moments.

“Underachievement is never a good look. But then again, Jimmy seems to have his own convoluted story going on. At Badlands Johnson attacked Aoi Akuma...who’s supposed to be himself...but isn’t. Like, I’m not going to dwell on this much, because it’s going to hurt my head. And quite honestly, I think this is Jimmy’s plan. I think it’s Jimmy’s intention to frustrate me enough to the point where I won’t be able to focus on this match. I would just be skipping my way into Wrestleworld like ‘oh boy! I’m gonna be good ‘ol Jimmy!’ and then somehow he wins with a roll-up or some bullshit like that. Nah, it’s above me now. We’re leaving screw jobs, cockroaches and whatever else this guy has up his bag of tricks back in 2019 - though the cockroach fiasco did happen this year...goddamn it Jimmy! He screwed it up! Now I’m caught up in his sitcom bullshit!”

Stephanie let out a long, dragged out sigh as she leaned back in her chair, placing her sandwich down.

“This guy made me lose appetite. I’m sitting here eating one of the best sandwiches I’ve had in a while, and this guy made me think about cockroaches! I didn’t eat anything all goddamn day and now I’m not even hungry. I guess I’ll put this sandwich in the fridge - but then it’ll get all soggy and shit. I hate putting half-eaten sandwiches back in the fridge. I mean who finishes their uneaten sandwich!? Most uneaten sandwiches are thrown away! Did you know that an estimated 1.3 billion tons of food are wasted every year on a global scale!? That’s a lot of freaking food man and here’s this guy forcing me to contribute to this atrocity! Heck, that’s more than enough incentive to kick this guys ass, amirite? I’m going to beat Jimmy Johnson worse than the ‘98 Broncos beat the Dolphins! I’m going to beat Double J worse than The Chiefs beat the 49ers!”

Stephanie winks at the camera.

“But, yeah. I want to be Queen of the World. And what’s standing in the way of that is a guy with a weird case of Dissociative Identity Disorder. Or maybe he has clone issues on some ‘Living with Yourself’ mess. Is Jimmy Aoi Akuma? Is Aoi Akuma Jimmy Johnson? Is Double J the same guy who coached Troy Aikman and Emmett Smith to two championships!? Is he the same guy who ruined Dan Mariano’s legacy!? Who the hell knows! But you know what!? THAT’s what I like about Wrestleworld! It’s a freaking madhouse, it’s like it’s in its own separate universe. Well, allow me to indulge Mr. Johnson on Sunday night. I’ll show him why they call me “Cloud” and pull back his mask to reveal the real culprit...his fanfiction.net account. See you soon ladies and gents. I have a tournament to train for.”

Stephanie grins as she turns off the camera to her phone.