Post by Bacchus. on Oct 20, 2022 19:20:16 GMT -5
Apologies this isn’t the proper format – just c&p’ing my CU:LT bio with some tweaks
WRESTLER NAME
Jonathan Backus
RING NAME
“The Rascal King” Johnny Bacchus
NICK NAME(S)
The Rascal King, The Insurgent
PIC BASE
Gerard Way (black hair, around that time between The Black Parade and Danger Days)
WHAT COMPANY ARE YOU REPRESENTING? Unaffiliated
WHAT CHARITY ARE YOU WANTING YOUR PROCEEDS TO GO TO?The Trevor Project
HEIGHT
5’11”
WEIGHT
215 lbs
D.O.B
04/01/1998
HOMETOWN
Orinda, CA
BILLED FROM
Oakland, CA
ALIGNMENT
Tweener – Yeah, I know that’s a cop-out. Johnny’s actions and motives aren’t heelish; he doesn’t cheat and tends to treat heels with scorn and mockery more often than faces. But many find his smug, smirking, shit-talking persona to be utterly insufferable. Think if Enzo was a twink.
MANAGER(S)
Lissie Hope
AFFILIATION(S)
Insurgentsia – A tag team consisting of himself and Ash Blake, occasionally managed by Olive Adler, in AW.
Lissie Hope – The boo thang.
Ruby Goldhirsch – His (as of now) offscreen manager on behalf of DISRUPT Sports Management
PAST AFFILIATION(S)
N/A
PERSONALITY
To call Johnny Bacchus a polarizing figure is an understatement. His supporters would tell you he’s a passionate, loyal, and brilliant young man who’s willing to say inconvenient truths – his detractors would call him an insufferably smug little twerp with a mouth that’s going to get him killed. But Johnny has the track record in the ring to back up his talk on the mic. And boy does he like to talk.
To an older generation, Johnny practically encapsulates everything they loathe about Gen Z. He talks in a rattle of memes, pop culture references, lyric quotations, and absurdist imagery – he wears his radical politics on his sleeve – he’s irreverent, disrespectful, and petulant. Yet, it’s difficult to deny his heart seems to be in the right place. He’ll make a principled stand even if unpopular, and he’ll double down in the face of criticism. The real question is how much scrutiny and adversity can he endure before he buckles under it.
CURRENT ACCOLADE(S)
N/A
ENTRANCE THEME
"Cherub Rock" - The Smashing Pumpkins
ENTRANCE DESCRIPTION
As the drum roll of “Cherub Rock” begins, the lights in the arena die. The guitars begin, the lights flickering white in time. The song kicks into high-gear, the introduction truncated, and the lights flash with brighter intensity as the guitars get heavier and heavier, revealing the outline of a figure now standing among them. Soon, the song explodes into swing, and the lights go up, revealing Johnny Bacchus, standing on the stage, with a black baseball bat draped over his shoulders.
He wears a black peacoat over a black turtleneck, and he holds the bat with his left hand, a single black leather glove concealing it. On his head, he wears a yellow balaclava printed with a smiley face. He reaches up to pull it off and shakes his shaggy black hair out of his face before he tosses the mask nonchalantly into the crowd.
Announcer: Making his way to the ring, from Oakland, CA, weighing in at 215 lbs… he is “The Rascal King” Johnny Bacchus!
Johnny idly slaps hands or takes selfies with any appreciative fans – he blows raspberries or makes stupid faces and jerk-off motions at the less appreciative. At the base of the ring, he leans his bat against the steps before reaching up to grab the ropes and pull himself up. He vaults over the top rope and climbs the turnbuckle, taking a moment to take in the reaction of the crowd, boo or cheer. When he drops down, he pulls the peacoat off and tosses it over the top before pulling the turtleneck over his head and leaving it in the corner. Then he reclines back and awaits the match to start.
WRESTLING STYLE
Brawler with dashes of hardcore and decent grappling/submission chops.
STRENGTHS
-Intelligence and cunning. You don’t get into UC Berkeley straight out of high school being of average intellect. Johnny has a natural ring IQ, and he delights in mind games and little tricks to keep opponents frustrated and flustered. He’s a deliberate strategist in grinding down an opponent’s head and neck before going in for the kill.
-Well-rounded. Johnny began his wrestling career in AW’s Pure Division, featuring a Bloodsport-style rules set. His Pure Title reign became the longest in company history until it was merged with the Hardcore Championship in a Champion vs. Champion match, which he won. As AW Hardcore Champion, Bacchus would go on to be the second-longest reigning champion in the division until being dethroned and eventually surpassed. TL;DR the guy’s found success in a lot of styles of fight.
-Street fighter grit and experience. Before becoming a wrestler, Johnny was getting in fights at punk clubs or pulling on a ski mask to brawl with Proud Boys and cops at protests. He’s taken a punch, taken a stomping, and taken a beating with a nightstick – he’s not afraid of pain.
WEAKNESSES
-Average/subaverage build for the business. While not as scrawny as he once was, Johnny’s still only 5’11 and 215 lbs. He can’t gorilla press Holden Ross and would probably even struggle to suplex him. If a bigger guy gets his hands on Johnny, he could easily be ragdolled.
-Petulance. Johnny’s the type that would respond to getting pummeled by blowing a raspberry, earning himself an even uglier pummeling.
-Loyalty/Messiah Complex. In a team situation, he’s willing to tag himself in, even when he’s on his last legs, to protect a teammate. He’s been the one to take the bullet in several matches.
BASIC MOVES
-Punch and Kick combos
-Duck
-Dip
-Dodge
-Chopblock
-Headlock takedown
-STF
-Triangle Choke
-German Suplex
-Tornado DDT
-Swinging neck breaker
-Leg kicks
-Running crossbody
-Flapjack
-Spinebuster
-Dragon Screw
-Bulldog (occasionally off a springboard or diving)
-Armdrag
-Shotgun dropkick
-Curb Stomp (used to set up the King’s Dead)
SIGNATURE MOVE(S)
-The Great Leap Forward – Coast 2 Coast
-Fetch The Guillotine – A slingblade variation; while catching the opponent around the neck, he wraps his arms in a sloppy makeshift Sleeper as he brings the opponent to the ground. Normally he just brings them to the ground like a neckbreaker, but for a Submissions match he can just sink the Sleeper in and hit the grapevine as a finisher.
-The Bottom of Everything – Headlock Driver
FINISHING MOVE(S)- limited to 2 please -
-The Tragedy at Buffalo – Gutwrench Piledriver. He can deliver this to a super heavyweight at great effort and in a highly uncontrolled manner.
-King’s Dead – Trouble in Paradise kick to an opponent on all fours.
He largely uses King’s Dead as a signature these days. However, if Johnny is for any reason unable to hit the Czolgosz Driver, he’ll revert to the King’s Dead as a finisher.
WEAPONS:
A black and red painted baseball bat.
PAST ACCOLADES
AW Pure Champion x 1
AW Hardcore Champion x 1
United the Pure and Hardcore Titles, retiring the former. His continuous reign is the third longest in AW across singles titles.
AW Tag Team Champion x 1, with Ash Blake as Insurgentsia
CU:LT Double Homicide Champion x 1, with Jonny C
OTHER ACCOMPLISHMENTS
NOTABLE FEUDS
vs. Max Daemon
vs. Lissie Hope
vs. Ash Blake/Philidor Holdings LLC.
vs. Regan Voorhees/Affluenza
NOTABLE MATCHES
vs. Kyle Kemp
vs. Max Daemon
vs. Ash Blake
vs. Philidor Holdings
vs. Carter Shaw
BIOGRAPHY
Jonathan “Johnny” Backus was born and raised in the sleepy East Bay suburb of Orinda, disaffectionately called “Borinda” by its few youthful residents. Growing up, Johnny excelled in school – while never terribly athletic, he was creative and intelligent, consistently scoring in the top percentiles of his class. Of course, this was also suburbia; Johnny spent just as much time growing up in curating his natural talents as he did suppressing them to avoid being shoved in a locker and called a slur. On his weekends, he’d often take the BART train with his friends past the Oakland Hills and into Berkeley, where Johnny steeped himself in Radical Left politics and the local Punk culture during his formative teenage years. When he turned 16-years-old, he formally came out as [redacted].
But suburbia eats its young, even in the nominally progressive Bay Area of California. Upon their coming out, Johnny’s first boyfriend, Cookie, was sent away by his deeply religious parents. When he returned for Christmas break, Cookie opted to become a runaway rather than return. Now a largely strung-out vagrant living on the streets of Berkeley, Cookie’s fate haunts Johnny like a specter. Nonetheless, he carried on and accepted a full-ride scholarship to UC Berkeley directly out of high school.
In college, Johnny majored in journalism and found himself writing for the student newspaper, the Daily Californian. He roomed with six other roommates, including his childhood friend Jenn, in an apartment over in Rockridge before deciding he didn’t care for the rigors of academic life and dropping out in his Junior year.
In the meanwhile, Johnny floated between odd jobs, never holding any for too long, and slept on the couch in the apartment living room. His radical militancy grew, and as civil disturbances rocked the city, Johnny found himself increasingly black bloc’ing alongside fellow radicals and socialist groups. During this time, he began attending local wrestling shows with his roommate “Fritterz” and soon began regularly watching wrestling on television.
When the COVID-19 pandemic hit, Johnny did what everyone else did: begin collecting unemployment. One night, on a whim, he filled out an application for Action Wrestling so he could claim work search history – he didn’t expect to receive a call back, let alone one telling him he’d be booked and paid on a per-appearance basis. But reveling in the absurdity, Johnny bought himself a pair of wrestling boots and made his debut, even earning himself a win. He didn’t expect it to be the start of a fruitful career.
Within a few weeks of his debut, Johnny found himself in a match for the AW Pure Championship Title, a division built on MMA-style rules and combat. Though utterly untrained and inexperience, a combination of tenacity and cunning allowed him to pick up the belt, and he spent most of the year zealously defending it by hook or crook. At Evolution IV, he faced off with then AW Hardcore Champion, CJ Phoenix, in a Champion vs. Champion match and found himself uniting the titles. As a consecutive reign, Johnny found himself the third longest reigning AW singles champion of all time.
His reign came to an end at the hands of Philidor Holdings, a sinister financial conglomerate who’d sponsored several wrestlers in AW and had constricting the company with their tendrils for over the past year. Involved in a bitter and emotional fight with his former idol, Lissie Hope, Johnny was soon forced to face off against the team leader of Philidor herself, Ashley Blake. Though Johnny battered and even crippled his foe, the numbers game of Philidor and its seemingly inhuman overseer, Samson Saltair, beat Johnny into submission, dragging Ash bleeding and beaten over his near lifeless body. For some, the story would end there, for Johnny, it was the beginning.
In spite of his injuries, Johnny led an assault on Philidor later that very night. And over the next weeks, he’d assemble a small phalanx of fellow wrestlers to directly confront the group and bring the fight to them. He may have lost his title, but at Hellimination, Johnny’s team swept the Philidor team and drove them into disarray, splintering the group. To protect him from Philidor retaliation, Lissie Hope willingly turned on the group and dragged Johnny to safety. The rest went into hiding or found themselves people without a country.
Johnny suffered an ankle sprain that robbed him of the end of 2021 and beginning of 2022. He returned to compete unsuccessfully in a ladder match to crown the number one contender, coming within a fingertip of securing the briefcase before being felled by the match’s ultimate winner, Corey Black. He soon turned his sights towards a war of attrition against Regan Voorhees, bringing himself into the ire of her team, Affluenza. With the odds and numbers against him, Johnny revealed a trick up his sleeve:
A shocking alliance formed with the former spokesperson of Philidor Holdings, Ash Blake.
Johnny’s seeming deal with the devil sent shockwaves through Action Wrestling, with many accusing him of gross moral compromise, hypocrisy, and perhaps outright deceit. Though his reputation as an unambiguously good champion of the company was seemingly stained, he refused to explain or dismiss the collaboration. At Evolution V, the duo revealed their united title of Insurgentsia and went to war for the AW Tag Team Championships, where once more Johnny found himself a fingertip away from victory before being felled from the ladder by the match’s ultimate winners, The Swallowing.
Johnny’s motivations and agenda in CU:LT remain a mystery. In this new environment, the dourness he’d begun to cultivate in AW seems to have dissipated in favor of a darker spin on the impish trickster persona he wore earlier in his career. But this wouldn’t be out of character for Johnny – if there’s one thing the self-proclaimed Rascal King and Insurgent has always been, it’s unpredictable.
WRESTLER NAME
Jonathan Backus
RING NAME
“The Rascal King” Johnny Bacchus
NICK NAME(S)
The Rascal King, The Insurgent
PIC BASE
Gerard Way (black hair, around that time between The Black Parade and Danger Days)
WHAT COMPANY ARE YOU REPRESENTING? Unaffiliated
WHAT CHARITY ARE YOU WANTING YOUR PROCEEDS TO GO TO?The Trevor Project
HEIGHT
5’11”
WEIGHT
215 lbs
D.O.B
04/01/1998
HOMETOWN
Orinda, CA
BILLED FROM
Oakland, CA
ALIGNMENT
Tweener – Yeah, I know that’s a cop-out. Johnny’s actions and motives aren’t heelish; he doesn’t cheat and tends to treat heels with scorn and mockery more often than faces. But many find his smug, smirking, shit-talking persona to be utterly insufferable. Think if Enzo was a twink.
MANAGER(S)
Lissie Hope
AFFILIATION(S)
Insurgentsia – A tag team consisting of himself and Ash Blake, occasionally managed by Olive Adler, in AW.
Lissie Hope – The boo thang.
Ruby Goldhirsch – His (as of now) offscreen manager on behalf of DISRUPT Sports Management
PAST AFFILIATION(S)
N/A
PERSONALITY
To call Johnny Bacchus a polarizing figure is an understatement. His supporters would tell you he’s a passionate, loyal, and brilliant young man who’s willing to say inconvenient truths – his detractors would call him an insufferably smug little twerp with a mouth that’s going to get him killed. But Johnny has the track record in the ring to back up his talk on the mic. And boy does he like to talk.
To an older generation, Johnny practically encapsulates everything they loathe about Gen Z. He talks in a rattle of memes, pop culture references, lyric quotations, and absurdist imagery – he wears his radical politics on his sleeve – he’s irreverent, disrespectful, and petulant. Yet, it’s difficult to deny his heart seems to be in the right place. He’ll make a principled stand even if unpopular, and he’ll double down in the face of criticism. The real question is how much scrutiny and adversity can he endure before he buckles under it.
CURRENT ACCOLADE(S)
N/A
ENTRANCE THEME
"Cherub Rock" - The Smashing Pumpkins
ENTRANCE DESCRIPTION
As the drum roll of “Cherub Rock” begins, the lights in the arena die. The guitars begin, the lights flickering white in time. The song kicks into high-gear, the introduction truncated, and the lights flash with brighter intensity as the guitars get heavier and heavier, revealing the outline of a figure now standing among them. Soon, the song explodes into swing, and the lights go up, revealing Johnny Bacchus, standing on the stage, with a black baseball bat draped over his shoulders.
He wears a black peacoat over a black turtleneck, and he holds the bat with his left hand, a single black leather glove concealing it. On his head, he wears a yellow balaclava printed with a smiley face. He reaches up to pull it off and shakes his shaggy black hair out of his face before he tosses the mask nonchalantly into the crowd.
Announcer: Making his way to the ring, from Oakland, CA, weighing in at 215 lbs… he is “The Rascal King” Johnny Bacchus!
Johnny idly slaps hands or takes selfies with any appreciative fans – he blows raspberries or makes stupid faces and jerk-off motions at the less appreciative. At the base of the ring, he leans his bat against the steps before reaching up to grab the ropes and pull himself up. He vaults over the top rope and climbs the turnbuckle, taking a moment to take in the reaction of the crowd, boo or cheer. When he drops down, he pulls the peacoat off and tosses it over the top before pulling the turtleneck over his head and leaving it in the corner. Then he reclines back and awaits the match to start.
WRESTLING STYLE
Brawler with dashes of hardcore and decent grappling/submission chops.
STRENGTHS
-Intelligence and cunning. You don’t get into UC Berkeley straight out of high school being of average intellect. Johnny has a natural ring IQ, and he delights in mind games and little tricks to keep opponents frustrated and flustered. He’s a deliberate strategist in grinding down an opponent’s head and neck before going in for the kill.
-Well-rounded. Johnny began his wrestling career in AW’s Pure Division, featuring a Bloodsport-style rules set. His Pure Title reign became the longest in company history until it was merged with the Hardcore Championship in a Champion vs. Champion match, which he won. As AW Hardcore Champion, Bacchus would go on to be the second-longest reigning champion in the division until being dethroned and eventually surpassed. TL;DR the guy’s found success in a lot of styles of fight.
-Street fighter grit and experience. Before becoming a wrestler, Johnny was getting in fights at punk clubs or pulling on a ski mask to brawl with Proud Boys and cops at protests. He’s taken a punch, taken a stomping, and taken a beating with a nightstick – he’s not afraid of pain.
WEAKNESSES
-Average/subaverage build for the business. While not as scrawny as he once was, Johnny’s still only 5’11 and 215 lbs. He can’t gorilla press Holden Ross and would probably even struggle to suplex him. If a bigger guy gets his hands on Johnny, he could easily be ragdolled.
-Petulance. Johnny’s the type that would respond to getting pummeled by blowing a raspberry, earning himself an even uglier pummeling.
-Loyalty/Messiah Complex. In a team situation, he’s willing to tag himself in, even when he’s on his last legs, to protect a teammate. He’s been the one to take the bullet in several matches.
BASIC MOVES
-Punch and Kick combos
-Duck
-Dip
-Dodge
-Chopblock
-Headlock takedown
-STF
-Triangle Choke
-German Suplex
-Tornado DDT
-Swinging neck breaker
-Leg kicks
-Running crossbody
-Flapjack
-Spinebuster
-Dragon Screw
-Bulldog (occasionally off a springboard or diving)
-Armdrag
-Shotgun dropkick
-Curb Stomp (used to set up the King’s Dead)
SIGNATURE MOVE(S)
-The Great Leap Forward – Coast 2 Coast
-Fetch The Guillotine – A slingblade variation; while catching the opponent around the neck, he wraps his arms in a sloppy makeshift Sleeper as he brings the opponent to the ground. Normally he just brings them to the ground like a neckbreaker, but for a Submissions match he can just sink the Sleeper in and hit the grapevine as a finisher.
-The Bottom of Everything – Headlock Driver
FINISHING MOVE(S)- limited to 2 please -
-The Tragedy at Buffalo – Gutwrench Piledriver. He can deliver this to a super heavyweight at great effort and in a highly uncontrolled manner.
-King’s Dead – Trouble in Paradise kick to an opponent on all fours.
He largely uses King’s Dead as a signature these days. However, if Johnny is for any reason unable to hit the Czolgosz Driver, he’ll revert to the King’s Dead as a finisher.
WEAPONS:
A black and red painted baseball bat.
PAST ACCOLADES
AW Pure Champion x 1
AW Hardcore Champion x 1
United the Pure and Hardcore Titles, retiring the former. His continuous reign is the third longest in AW across singles titles.
AW Tag Team Champion x 1, with Ash Blake as Insurgentsia
CU:LT Double Homicide Champion x 1, with Jonny C
OTHER ACCOMPLISHMENTS
NOTABLE FEUDS
vs. Max Daemon
vs. Lissie Hope
vs. Ash Blake/Philidor Holdings LLC.
vs. Regan Voorhees/Affluenza
NOTABLE MATCHES
vs. Kyle Kemp
vs. Max Daemon
vs. Ash Blake
vs. Philidor Holdings
vs. Carter Shaw
BIOGRAPHY
Jonathan “Johnny” Backus was born and raised in the sleepy East Bay suburb of Orinda, disaffectionately called “Borinda” by its few youthful residents. Growing up, Johnny excelled in school – while never terribly athletic, he was creative and intelligent, consistently scoring in the top percentiles of his class. Of course, this was also suburbia; Johnny spent just as much time growing up in curating his natural talents as he did suppressing them to avoid being shoved in a locker and called a slur. On his weekends, he’d often take the BART train with his friends past the Oakland Hills and into Berkeley, where Johnny steeped himself in Radical Left politics and the local Punk culture during his formative teenage years. When he turned 16-years-old, he formally came out as [redacted].
But suburbia eats its young, even in the nominally progressive Bay Area of California. Upon their coming out, Johnny’s first boyfriend, Cookie, was sent away by his deeply religious parents. When he returned for Christmas break, Cookie opted to become a runaway rather than return. Now a largely strung-out vagrant living on the streets of Berkeley, Cookie’s fate haunts Johnny like a specter. Nonetheless, he carried on and accepted a full-ride scholarship to UC Berkeley directly out of high school.
In college, Johnny majored in journalism and found himself writing for the student newspaper, the Daily Californian. He roomed with six other roommates, including his childhood friend Jenn, in an apartment over in Rockridge before deciding he didn’t care for the rigors of academic life and dropping out in his Junior year.
In the meanwhile, Johnny floated between odd jobs, never holding any for too long, and slept on the couch in the apartment living room. His radical militancy grew, and as civil disturbances rocked the city, Johnny found himself increasingly black bloc’ing alongside fellow radicals and socialist groups. During this time, he began attending local wrestling shows with his roommate “Fritterz” and soon began regularly watching wrestling on television.
When the COVID-19 pandemic hit, Johnny did what everyone else did: begin collecting unemployment. One night, on a whim, he filled out an application for Action Wrestling so he could claim work search history – he didn’t expect to receive a call back, let alone one telling him he’d be booked and paid on a per-appearance basis. But reveling in the absurdity, Johnny bought himself a pair of wrestling boots and made his debut, even earning himself a win. He didn’t expect it to be the start of a fruitful career.
Within a few weeks of his debut, Johnny found himself in a match for the AW Pure Championship Title, a division built on MMA-style rules and combat. Though utterly untrained and inexperience, a combination of tenacity and cunning allowed him to pick up the belt, and he spent most of the year zealously defending it by hook or crook. At Evolution IV, he faced off with then AW Hardcore Champion, CJ Phoenix, in a Champion vs. Champion match and found himself uniting the titles. As a consecutive reign, Johnny found himself the third longest reigning AW singles champion of all time.
His reign came to an end at the hands of Philidor Holdings, a sinister financial conglomerate who’d sponsored several wrestlers in AW and had constricting the company with their tendrils for over the past year. Involved in a bitter and emotional fight with his former idol, Lissie Hope, Johnny was soon forced to face off against the team leader of Philidor herself, Ashley Blake. Though Johnny battered and even crippled his foe, the numbers game of Philidor and its seemingly inhuman overseer, Samson Saltair, beat Johnny into submission, dragging Ash bleeding and beaten over his near lifeless body. For some, the story would end there, for Johnny, it was the beginning.
In spite of his injuries, Johnny led an assault on Philidor later that very night. And over the next weeks, he’d assemble a small phalanx of fellow wrestlers to directly confront the group and bring the fight to them. He may have lost his title, but at Hellimination, Johnny’s team swept the Philidor team and drove them into disarray, splintering the group. To protect him from Philidor retaliation, Lissie Hope willingly turned on the group and dragged Johnny to safety. The rest went into hiding or found themselves people without a country.
Johnny suffered an ankle sprain that robbed him of the end of 2021 and beginning of 2022. He returned to compete unsuccessfully in a ladder match to crown the number one contender, coming within a fingertip of securing the briefcase before being felled by the match’s ultimate winner, Corey Black. He soon turned his sights towards a war of attrition against Regan Voorhees, bringing himself into the ire of her team, Affluenza. With the odds and numbers against him, Johnny revealed a trick up his sleeve:
A shocking alliance formed with the former spokesperson of Philidor Holdings, Ash Blake.
Johnny’s seeming deal with the devil sent shockwaves through Action Wrestling, with many accusing him of gross moral compromise, hypocrisy, and perhaps outright deceit. Though his reputation as an unambiguously good champion of the company was seemingly stained, he refused to explain or dismiss the collaboration. At Evolution V, the duo revealed their united title of Insurgentsia and went to war for the AW Tag Team Championships, where once more Johnny found himself a fingertip away from victory before being felled from the ladder by the match’s ultimate winners, The Swallowing.
Johnny’s motivations and agenda in CU:LT remain a mystery. In this new environment, the dourness he’d begun to cultivate in AW seems to have dissipated in favor of a darker spin on the impish trickster persona he wore earlier in his career. But this wouldn’t be out of character for Johnny – if there’s one thing the self-proclaimed Rascal King and Insurgent has always been, it’s unpredictable.
