The Promo That Never Was, And Similar Atrocities

Post by The Hannahverser on Apr 17, 2016 1:18:57 GMT

The Promo That Never Was,
And Similar Atrocities

The gold coins sparkled in his cupped hand. Her eyes bulged at the sight of them. So he stooped down to a crouch and eyed the little girl face-to-face.

“What’s your name?” His tone soothing, his other hand gently fingered through the coins as he spoke to her.

“Thirteen.” She’d lost a few baby teeth. Her grin was adorable and he told her so even if he thought she was telling fibs about her name.

“Well, Thirteen, I can certainly understand how it feels to not have a lot of money. I come from a poor family, too. Well, maybe not as poor as yours, I mean, what, you must’ve just got here with your family?”

She thought about it. It wasn’t her family, was it? She looked back to see the two large men standing with folded arms. One watched her with angry eyes, the other kept looking towards the terminal anxiously waiting for something she didn’t understand what.

The man with the golden coins shook them to beckon her attention back to him.

“You want these, don’t you?”

She nodded. She’d never seen anything like it, but she knew gold, and she knew that’s what this was, and that these coins must be valuable.

“Hold out your hands.”

She did.

“Careful. Hold them together so you don’t lose any.”

And he emptied the coins from his hands carefully into hers and smiled, tousled her dark hair, and stood up.

“That should get you started.”

With a beam of a smile he was gone. She watched after him as he disappeared in the bright light of the airport and wondered how genuine he’d been. Questions she’d never asked before now. Two large shadows piled in around her.

“Don’t get too far.”

A strong, firm hand clamped onto her shoulder. She regarded the tall men who loomed over her with concern.

“Are we going home soon?” She asked.

A sardonic, mocking chuckle rumbled between both men.

“Yep. You’re going to your new home soon.” One chuckled. She blinked up at him as if he were blocking the sun. The other inspected her newfound treasure with meaty fingers grabbing a coin out of her pool to inspect.

“What's this you got, then? Did you steal these?”

“Fucking arcade coins, Ortega. Stupid bitch thinks they’re real.”

The one who wasn’t Ortega backhanded her cupped hands, and her gold coins spilled and jingled all over the airport tiles rolling in every direction.

“Fucking worthless.” He growled, Ortega and he getting into a mild argument as she stooped down to collect them. She listened to the two strange men she’d known only a few days and bit back revelatory, wave bye-bye to innocence, tears.

“This guy better pay the full amount for this bitch or we’re out a couple hundred dollars and a plane ride home. Oh, look. She’s collecting her monopoly money. Good call on this one.”

On her knees, her palm open and upturned, gingerly picking up and placing each coin back into her hands and remembering the first thing she’d been told with a hand clamped on her neck: Don’t Cry, and you won’t get hurt.

So she didn’t. Not since they’d first grabbed her back home. Where she was now was only her guess to make.

“Chill in the airport. Don’t make a scene. The buyer’ll be here. He’ll take her off our hands and we’re out, okay?”

She picked up the coins, heard their words, and stifled a sniffle.

“Yeah, I’m gonna cut the little bitch’s throat if we have to put up with it much longer.”

(-----------)

Thirteen bolted upright in bed with an early morning headache and gave difficult, depressed blinks to clear the lingering tears out from behind her eyes. Memories from a life she’d all but escaped now relived in dreams and collected in pools out the sides of her eyes every morning. A sharp inhale later and she was doing furious push-ups beside the bed.

Exercise, so they say, makes you happy.

She’d landed in London, England on Saturday.

In two days time she’d learned that $13,000 isn’t as much money as she’d once thought. Worse, this was money she’d been bequeathed from a mysterious benefactor calling herself ‘Bad Kitty’ who had requested she join a wrestling promotion elsewhere. Thirteen had opted not to let anyone’s meat-hooks, especially no one preferring anonymity, to dig in to deep to her.

Been there, done that, got the tee-shirt.

She chose Monarchy Wrestling instead. It seemed like the furthest point from anywhere she'd ever been. A good place to start as fresh as possible.

She’d also learned that she still clung to money the same way she had when she was five collecting arcade tokens off an airport somewhere in middle America. She’d discerned that London Cabbies are expensive and crooked and perverse. And she’d recently discovered not to eat the food unless you bought it fresh and cooked it yourself. And lastly, she realized life here wouldn’t change all that much from how she’d carefully crafted it back in the states.

2 years ago, after another early exit from a wrestling promotion she’d chosen to simplify. She’d cut down her expenses. She kept few friends. Had no pets. Life amounted to Eat, Sleep, exercise, train, exercise, train, exercise, train, forgetting at points to sleep. She liked to also forget she had no reason to train or exercise save the reflex of doing so. Preparedness. Watch your back, your front, your side, your up, and your down.

Expect the unexpected.

Rules to live by.

Her push-ups got her heart pumping. She hadn’t worried too much about spending the cash on the small apartment or its furnishing. Thanks to a deal with Monarchy Wrestling she’d, at least for now, secured steady pay. She shook away the nagging worries of: ‘but for how long’, and rose to her feet.

The nerves replayed the phone message in her head:

“…Yeah, we can get you some promo air time. We’ll have a camera crew over to you on Monday.”

Promo?

She bit her lower lip and moved over to practice her blocks and strikes on the Mook Yan Jong (Wooden Dummy).

She hadn’t wrestled, or “Promo’d” for 2 years.

“Promos aren’t that important still are they?” She wondered, nerves not improving her headache, or confidence, any.

Is this a mistake?

Is the Promo necessary?

All the research, video watching, bio-scouring wouldn’t amount to much with one lucky hook, uppercut, bulldog, chair shot, who knows.

Anything could happen in the ring.

Anything.

Small could beat big, big could beat bigger.

In her experience, it was luck.

The dummy caught her wrist and she grimaced angrily, frustrated growling at the wooden enemy and tried ever harder.

Her arms shifted and slid like clockwork between the block-arms of the wooden dummy and made strikes. She lifted a knee, extended a calf. Struck her shin off the wood and grimaced with determination at the emergence of welcome pain.

It was a motto she’d built into herself over time: Try Harder.

Shin not strong enough? Try harder.

Kick harder.

“I used to promo really well. I can probably do it again. Better than I was.”

She breathed to herself loudly. Her energy getting more frantic, then her cell phone rang.

“Just need a bit of time to prepare some thoughts on my opponents.”

Sweat shone on her body.

Her heart pounded.

She moved to see who was calling.

Monarchy Wrestling.

These people didn’t know who she was.

But they’d given her a chance.

A last chance? Maybe.

“Hello?”

“Yeah, hi. We’re your camera crew? We’re in the elevator on our way up.”

“Uh. Wha--, why, I thought this was scheduled for later in the afternoon?”

“Lot of jobs today. Couldn’t squeeze you in later. You said you wanted to promo today. Here we are. Is now a bad time?”

A wince as she looked at herself in the full-length mirror on the closet door: sweaty, no makeup, hair a mess, in nothing but a bra and tanga.

She winced.

Hell yes, it’s a bad time.

“Uhm, NO!” She panicked. “No, no. Just, uhhhh….give me a minute.”

Click.

She hurried, timing the elevator ride in her head as she toweled herself off, ran a brush through her hair, made a mess of her cosmetics already spewed across her washroom countertop and applied a shoddy but passable job of getting ready. She slid on a set of yoga pants, readied a robe to look “unprepared” and waited near the door before she heard her cell phone buzzing with a text message.

“Sorry. Change of plans. Emergency job across town. Reschedule for tomorrow?”

“You’ve got to be kidding.” She muttered as she swiped the phone and replied with a fake smile on her face the camera crew couldn’t, and wouldn’t see and said it’d be fine.

Her shoulders slumped.

After all that: nothing.

“Just my luck.”

She sucked in breath, heaved out her chest and looked on the bright side.

More time to prepare, right?

The rest of Monday was spent nervously looking over the information on The Coronation event. She sifted through the paperwork she’d spent an hour making sure was printed and tacked onto her barren walls. Then worked on lunges around the room while reading the information off the wall to herself before stopping with a confused frown,

“For the preliminary rounds, each wrestler has been sorted with two others who share their story…” She recited, and then moved back to read into her match-up.

“The ‘World Showcase’.” Her frown grew. “But that could be anyone on the roster practically. It’s called diversity, dammit! How the hell did I happen to draw the two super-heavyweights?! I could just as easily fit my story up against Armada and the other cruiser-weights, or the strikers. Or, or… the Bombshells!”

Self-consciousness glared at herself through the long mirror.

“This has gotta be rigged.”

She gave a pensive exhale then it was back to nervously biting her lip and shadowboxing and cringing whilst envisioning Damu Akpu-Nku Big Splash-ing her to death.

“I don’t even know how to pronounce his name. He’s like double my height. Ditto Kaiden Vess. Every kick will have to be a jump kick. They could just cheap shot me with a bop on the head. Madre a mios I won’t even make it past the first bell if they cheat.”

She rubbed her forehead nervously, eyed her phone and contemplated calling Monarchy Wrestling and the whole thing off. Instead she fretted her way back to the wooden dummy and let the sound of her arms and legs ricocheting off the wood blockers bounce off the walls, just like her mind was housing that nagging pendulum of a thought of whether she was ready for this, for a promo, for wrestling and for the chance to watch herself fail once more.

That was Monday.

Tuesday morning began just like Monday.

Same dream.

Same push-ups.

Different underwear.

After an hour of reviewing every piece of information she could dredge up on Kaiden Vess and Damu Akpu-Nku she hopped in the shower.

“Kaiden Vess – Heavy-Hitter. Avoid getting in close or he’ll unleash. Keep moving. Eliminate his center of gravity. Take out his legs or his extremities first to weaken. Don’t go for killing blows too early. Wait. It’s a tournament. And I gotta hold the option open of making it past Vess and Apanka Damkos Mbuntu, or however you say it.” She stopped moving and thought aloud with concern as the warm shower spray soothed down her body.

“It’s been so long. Promos like this it’s typical to, like, do a run-down of the roster, right? In case I make it past the first round and end up fighting Alexis Morrison, or something? Be prepared for any contingency, that’s what the pros do, don’t they? Damn. Do they still promo like that? Provided I get past the Natural Disasters I should be prepared for anybody.” Her finger danced along her lower lip in contemplation beneath the raining showerhead.

The very pinnacle of optimal efficiency this day, she resumed bobbing and weaving, shadowboxing through the shower spray feeling dynamic.

“Cian O’Conner – Ex-IRA. Dirty, long-haul fighter. Expect endurance; think nothing of the age. Stiff strikes. Likes to draw blood. Experienced. Potentially adaptive to any style—“

The same mistakes as yesterday just weren’t an option today. She spent a good 45 minutes in the shower listing off everything she knew about the Monarchy roster without a thought to water conservation. She’d be ready for the camera crew no matter what it cost, she’d be relaxed, and she’d be eloquent and prove to herself she could do this. She’d be able to shoot a promo on anyone, ‘verbally rip him or her to shreds’, she’d heard it called, and the rest would be history.

Out of the shower getting ready, she was patient and confident. She made sure to wear something professional for television, her wardrobe choices weren’t infinite, but she liked to think she looked classy then sat in the plain armchair near the door imagining what it’d be like to go toe-to-toe with Ryan Lecavalier before checking her phone to see a collection of text message from the as-yet MIA camera crew that sank her shoulders.

MWCC:

“There in 20 minutes.”

“Camera Crew’s Here.”

“Where Are You? Been knocking for 10 minutes. What’d you do, fall in the toilet?”

“Sorry. Got other jobs. Call us when you wanna take this seriously.”

Slack-jawed, incredulous, beaten and dismantled by surprise, disappointment and mild disgust with just a smattering of readied, clenched fists and the impending threat of a twitching eyelid rested on her face.

“You’ve got to be kidding me…”

Annoyed, she flipped on her twitter and blew off steam with mindless banter.

That was Tuesday.

Wednesday Morning she had the same dream, only she awoke an hour early never having the coins spilled out of her hands.

She relaxed, didn’t stress, had a bowl of cereal, a quick 30-minute yoga session then got ready with as clear a mind as she could muster having learned the lessons from the previous two days.

She got ready, made herself immaculate, and right on cue, like clockwork, she opened the door with a winning smile to greet the freelance camera crew Monarchy Wrestling had so kindly provided.

“Set up anywhere you think is best.”

“Nice place,” one of them, Jack, remarked. “Kinda bare, though.”

“Yeah, I just moved in.”

Pleasantries exchanged, the crew ran rigging into the living room. A camera was set up and prepped. By the time they struck the lights Thirteen felt it in her gut, in her bones, in her body, that this was right. She should have done this long ago. To hell with the “Bad Kitty” impetus to set her sails back in motion toward the ring. She was born to wrestle. Born to be in front of the camera. Why was she so nervous? This all fell into place, just like it would at The Coronation, and—

“Damn.” Jack grimaced.

The lights went out.

“What--what’s that mean?” Thirteen’s smile hung dismally, standing in the dark like she’d just been stood up at her own wedding. A lighting tech curiously stepped over to the light switch and flipped it. No light.

“Shorted. Must’ve blown a fuse.”

“It’ll come back, right?” Her smile hung on dwindling hope.

“I don’t know. Buildings like these weren’t exactly pro-rated for the kind of watts we’re pumping into these lights.”

Jack looked at her with sympathy.

“Might not be able to shoot in your apartment.”

“But-But I booked this time. I’ve been preparing for days. I—“

“Not your fault. One of those unlucky ‘acts of God’ is all.”

Thirteen’s smile faded completely, and she feared her eyelid might be noticeably twitching again as Jack’s smile grew in an attempt to comfort her.

“So, we’ll reschedule for tomorrow. You can come down to the studio,” he handed her a business card, “here’s the address. Gives you an extra day to prepare, and we can make sure we can actually light you properly, all right?”

“Right.”

She faked another smile as she tried hard to hide the slump of disappointment in her shoulders as the camera crew cleared out leaving her alone to fold her arms across her waist. Nerves settling back in as she found herself pacing.

“Relax. You’re set. This is just more time to do your homework and prepare. That’s all. It’s not fate trying to get you. Or… the universe taking some strange, prolonged shit on your head. It’s just a setback. You’ll cut your promo tomorrow. And all will be right with the world.”

She muttered to herself with regulated breaths to keep calm before she glared at the wooden dummy.

“For now, I’ll kick the shit out of this thing.”

She gritted her teeth and changed back into her workout gear.

And that was Wednesday.

Thursday.

She woke up a ball of stiff shoulders and neck, tightened jaw and rattled nerves. It was, naturally, the same dream only it lasted forever, and continued on after she picked up every single coin off the airport floor. People came and started bumping her every which way. She lost coins, and had to find them. And every time she did, a knee would jostle her arm and she’d have to start all over from scratch.

Fuck the push-ups, she declared and packed her gear for the gym.

Weights.

Cardio.

She swam laps in the pool.

Sauna.

Nothing could shake the nerves. 4 days. 4 days till Coronation and so much left to do. Was she ready?

Hell no.

She’d become sickeningly convinced of this one truth: everything was against her.

Everything.

Sure, she’d been training so hard she felt like she could kick the enamel off Kaiden Vess’ teeth, but what if he got to her first? What if he and the “African Beast” turned her into a Thirteen sandwich? Or split her in two? Or squashed her into oblivion?

And what else?

She had to cut a promo, by God, a Promo. That ever-loving necessity in every wrestler’s toolbox of talk arsenal guaranteed to prove one’s mettle in a ring. Should she be snide and condescending to indicate confidence, which might make her look like the bad chick she didn’t want to be? Should she be meek and respectful, to sort of “pay her dues”, which might make her look weak and potentially miscast her as too mousy. And just how do you express confidence you don’t entirely have due to what amounts to bad-fucking-luck seemingly showing up at the worst possible times?!

Her teeth grit and ground horribly.

“My damn opponents have a height advantage; therefore a reach advantage; coincidentally a weight advantage and one of them was trained by ‘lions and shit’.”

Riiiiiight.

Nerves. These weren’t butterflies. This was a full-blown stampede of anxious, angry bulls charging through her intestinal tract reminding her of every past event she’d attended where things did not go in her favor. Everything in her life was like that. What would be different about this time?

‘Lions and shit’, she kept grimacing to herself. So she went to the heavy bag and kicked the shit out of it for a while. Then he approached her with the obvious look in her eyes.

“Hey. I’m Matt. Come here often?”

She had headphones in. Something loud blared out of them as she slipped them from her ears and eyed him already knowing the score.

“Hey.”

He had that chin nod and overconfident smirk she inferred meant he was flirting.

“You’re fit.”

“Thanks.”

“You like kick-boxing, huh? What is that, Capoeira?”

She tilted her head with a modest smile; momentarily eased that someone recognized it, pronounced it right, without anglicizing it into some sort of break-dance fight.

“It’s like dancing, isn’t it?”

“Sort of. It’s rhythmic.”

Her interest vaguely piqued now that he’d broken the ice, she casually wiped her brow, chest heaving her stamina but felt no release forthcoming. Just stress. She’d hit the heavy bag for an hour. Matt smiled at her.

“Wanna spar then? Look like you could use it.”

There’s this look one develops in the face of a come-on that’s either an affirmative, or negative. Thirteen vaguely smiled at him and reluctantly nodded. He was, at least, pushing the right buttons.

“I’ll go easy on ya.” Matt smirked confidently and led her towards the boxing ring with a playful swat on her backside that tensed her spine immediately and made her teeth grind into powder.

10 minutes, a stiff kick to the bridge of the nose and a set of Ambulance lights later and she was running alongside Matt being wheeled out of the gym in a stretcher.

“Oh… Oh… I am so sorry. So, so, so sorry! It was an accident. Are you all right?!”

“He can’t hear you, we had to pack his ears with gauze,” The Ambulance driver, Kurt, informed her. She cringed with horror.

“Will he be all right?”

Stunned as the ambulance doors closed after him with no definite answer. She barely registered when the Gym owner revoked her membership. Charges, he intoned ominously, would be pending once Matt woke up and was coherent.

“You kicked him pretty damn hard, girl. You got anger issues or something?”

“No, I’m just fighting violent fat people in my first damn match back after two years,” she groaned with new doors and more misunderstandings, slammed in her face.

Thirteen went home with shoulders slumped once more and moped about her apartment until it dawned on her.

“Puta que pariu, the promo.”

Stuck in place with widened, revelatory eyes she resisted the invisible weight pushing down on her shoulders. Night had fallen on the city, and she’d long since missed her scheduled meeting with the camera crew all thanks to an overzealous kick. Best call it a day before she inadvertently began Armageddon.

And that was Thursday.

Friday there was no dream. There was nothing but sleep, like her life itself had been wadded safely with gauze to stop the bleeding.

She woke up feeling fine with the single, solitary curious question on her lips, is there really such a thing as bad luck?

That question indwelt on her mind amidst her morning push-ups. It hung over her as she showered and worried about the guy at the gym, Matt, and whether she’d done permanent damage to a guy she barely knew and wished she hadn’t have been thinking so hard about her opponents at the Coronation.

By luck, she’d secured an umpteenth chance with the Monarchy camera crew.

“Better make this one count. We have a tight schedule as it is and our Saturday’s going to be packed too, so there’s no chance of squeezing you in before the big night,” Jack told her over the phone.

Last chance.

The cab ride over wasn’t nervous. She was serene. Resigned, maybe. The week up to this point made her realize how pointless this promo would be if she couldn’t perform in that ring on Sunday, and she’d made peace with the fact that she’d gotten plenty of training time in even if the price of that training was a potential lawsuit and a boatload of needless stress.

She arrived to find them all ready for her. No need to wait, just her in front of a well-lit infinity wall and the cue to start when she was ready.

There was that feeling again as Thirteen stared down at the floor and collected her thoughts before looking into the camera.

“Monarchy Wrestling… you don’t know me. My opponents don’t know me, hell, I don’t even think my camera crew knows me, and none of that matters. This Sunday night, come the Coronation, all that will matter is who’s walking out officially crowned royalty.

I’m not here to make promises. I’m not writing any guarantees. This tournament is stacked with talent from around the world, from the big time to the small time to everywhere in between, and in the end only one of those names is walking out the true victor.

I want that victor to be me. But, let’s face it: I’m going to have to walk through, over, under and around some hefty obstacles to get there. Kaiden Vess…”

She hesitated a moment to ensure she pronounced the other name right.

“Damu Akpu-Nku… Like me, neither name makes a big splash. But everything I know about these two indicates in that ring on Sunday, I’m in for the fight of my life.”

She flexes her bared abs, revealed her fitness, a pedigree of sorts as she glares at the camera.

“I’m no slouch. I’ve fought my entire life, in and out of a ring. I know this won’t be easy. I’m not expecting it to. I’d think you two would be wise not to expect a cakewalk from me, either. As I said, I want to walk out of the Coronation a victor. And getting through you two isn’t going to be easy. And I wanted you to know that I recognize the challenge set before me, and I’m telling you now to expect the same challenge staring right back at you from my corner.

I don’t care if you’re 600 pounds and trained by rattlesnake bites, or you’ve spent a career boxing kangaroos, or if you’ve been hardened by the toughest battles no television camera has ever captured, you’ll walk out of that ring, win or lose, assured you just met the toughest woman you’re likely to ever meet. And, win or lose, she, I, me, kicked the ever-loving fuck out of you. Win or lose. That’s the only promise I can make.

But it’s not just you two I have to worry about if I’m walking out of Sunday a victor. This tournament roster is packed with talent. There’s no denying it. Some of these names speak for themselves. Alexis Terry? Hall of Famer. I looked up to you once. Truth is, though, you haven’t been Alexis Terry since the retirement, have you? A shade of your former self. And now I’ll be sharing a ring with you, and I’m not going to look up to you this time.

And, you’ve brought family into the fold with you. Little Piper Terry may be following around in your footsteps, but she’s going to learn that just having the last name ‘Terry” doesn’t make you a champion, right Alexis Terry’s career anywhere outside of Galveston Wrestling?

I’ll be honest, Brian Williams? I can’t say I’ve followed your career. But anyone who’s anyone has heard of you, has had a hint of your history, and knows the name of the hallowed halls in which you’ve walked. Boardwalk where the toughest of the tough live? 4CW where they don’t come any meaner, or any more ready to fight? I don’t know you. We’ve never met. Never faced you. I’ve studied all that I can, though. And when, if, the time comes I’m ready to kick your ass right back to the Boardwalk to lick your wounds with time enough remaining to lose another match in 4CW.

The list could go on. Ryan Lecavalier? Once so cavalier about the labels you owned, you were, and now not the best there is. I don’t care if you call yourself the best, the worst, it, he, she, them, they, I’ll knock around every last one of you till there’s nothing left to stomp on my way to a crowning. No disrespect. Never disrespect, just the stone cold truth that I want this. And I want it bad.

Looking at this tournament, and every last competitor I could stand against, it’s like a who’s who of the biggest dogs in the yard, and then there’s me. Here. I can’t share in the past glories. But I’ll step to you all the same as an equal, and maybe do each of you one better. Journeyman Phillips, Mason Wolfe, Armada, Tony Miranda, Jan Van Der Roost… I’ve read all I can, and learned all I can this side of a textbook about every single person I could possibly face at the Coronation, and I’m still ready for a surprise. Maybe I can’t match the technical prowess of a Tyler Ransom, or fly as high as Matt Belamy. But what I can do, I can do just as well and better than any of you.

But when we meet on Sunday, like I said, none of that matters. Someone’s walking out of that ring crowned. If it’s not me, you can bet I’ll be nipping at the heels of whoever is. Because the name’s Thirteen not because I rely on luck, or bad luck, but because I am walking, talking skill and determination on a really bad day here to do the work that luck can’t.

I’ll see you all on Sunday.”

Her heart beat satisfied. She glared confidently into the camera waiting the cue for the shoot to wrap.

“Damn.” Jack said.

“W-what?” Thirteen’s smile fluttered with optimism.

“The damn lens cap was on.”

The smile dropped.

“What?”

“And… check that out. Sound wasn’t even recording! That is whacky.”

“But you still filmed, it right? Like… you taped my promo… right?”

“Well no. We didn’t even have a memory card set up! Shit. First time that’s ever happened!”

“Right.” She replied nervously, her hands drifting from folding nervously across her waist and resting falsely confident on her hips like this weren’t a massive knock to her confidence. “W-we can do it again, right?”

Jack checked his watch and grimaced.

“No such luck, babe. That-that was it. We’ve booked something else in 5.”

“Right.”

“Don’t worry about it. So you missed your first promo. It’s just bad luck is all.”

“Right. Bad luck.”

“Don’t sweat it, hey? What matters more, if you talk shit on-air, or if you show up for your match ready to kick the shit your opponents talked right out of them, right?”

Thirteen’s smile dropped ever more.

“I—I’ve got some more training to do.” She grabbed her stuff, the film crew already hard work to fix the glitches they’d just had, assuring the next individual that no mistakes would happen.

Thirteen, it would seem, was better off preparing for her match than shooting a promo.