New Recruits

Chapter 46

Standing in Gorilla, Tessa was going through some final warm up exercises ahead of her match. Looking straight ahead, she made no attempt to make eye contact with Seth Rollins. He had been there when she had arrived, and had totally blanked her. It was fine with her; he could go fuck himself as far as she was concerned.

"You good?" TJ Wilson asked her. He had also been there waiting when she arrived.

"All good," she confirmed. If he thought Seth's bad attitude was going to throw her off her stride, he had a long way to go in terms of getting to know her. Her game face was on now, and that meant she was entirely focused on the task at hand.

"Alright, good luck," TJ said, giving her an encouraging pat on the shoulder. If anything, she would have preferred to be left alone, but she knew he meant well.

Seth's music began to play, and he walked through the curtain without so much as a word.

I'll be glad when this match is out of the way and I never have to work with this prick again, Tessa thought. On a more positive note, she heard some boos coming his way after the fans had customarily joined in with the, "Burn it down!"

Moving closer to the curtain, Tessa waited for her own cue, eager to see what reaction she received. The crowd had been supportive during her match with The Miz, so she hoped that support would continue. Ideally, it would increase.

Seth's music faded out. A moment later, Tessa's theme dropped. It was similar to her industrial-sounding Terminator theme from UFC. Although her Terminator character had been canned by Lucy Thorne, the memories of her path of destruction through UFC was still a good thing to conjure in people's minds when she came out to wrestle.

Walking through the curtain, Tessa moved at a brisk pace. She had practiced walking like a badass who was about to murder someone for her UFC entrance, where mind games had been a significant factor in beating her opponents. Keeping up the same demeanour in WWE would hopefully make an impression on those who were yet to be convinced about the legitimacy of her wrestling men.

"And his opponent," ring announcer Greg Hamilton announced, "from Concord, South Carolina, Tessa Blanchard!"

Tessa didn't like not being announced from Charlotte, but she did understand the conflict it caused with Charlotte Flair. Concord was close to Charlotte, so it would have to do. More important were the cheers she was getting. Possibly her biggest challenge was getting the audience to buy into her wrestling men. It seemed to be working, so far.

Entering the ring, Tessa posed with her arms out, facing the hard camera with a pissed off, focused look on her face. She was crafting her character as one that didn't spend much time or energy on ceremony. The same thing had been the case during her UFC career. The Terminator arrived, knocked a bitch out, and left. This iteration of Tessa Blanchard had the same mentality, even if she wasn't going to achieve the same hundred per-cent winning record.

It was time for the match to begin. Tessa paced over to a corner of the ring and turned to face Seth, who was in the opposite corner. He was looking at her with a complete lack of respect on his face. The expression fitted his new heel character perfectly. But Tessa knew that he wasn't wearing that expression for the audience's benefit. It was how he genuinely felt about her.

"The feeling is mutual, motherfucker," she said under her breath as the bell sounded to start the match. "Alright, let's go."

Somewhat surprisingly, Tessa had found Seth to be as good as his word. He had called the match professionally, worked safely, and had done nothing to try and make her look bad.

The match wouldn't win any awards, she knew. But it wasn't expected to. What mattered was that she was performing well against a guy for the second time, and learning a lot in the process. Each match was giving her more confidence. Before long, hopefully, she would find stepping into the ring with a man to be second nature.