Johnny Red was never much of a super villain. He was a c-lister at best no one ever really took him seriously. He made a buck or two here and there hiring himself out to better bad guys as powered muscle and he occasionally managed to pull off a robbery but he was never good enough to pull off a major score. He thought about trying to rob a bank but who the hell actually uses paper money these days. It’s all digital and he wasn’t nearly smart enough to make a digital heist work.
Drowning his sorrows one night at The Crow Bar, a local dive frequented by masked bad guys, Johnny overheard a couple of guys talking about The Circuit Maximus, an underground wrestling league for people with super powers. Johnny didn’t have many other options for making money at that moment so he decided he would give it a shot.
The Circuit Maximus was an underground legend and tales were always flying around about it but Johnny wasn’t prepared for what he found. He was expecting a cage fight in some seedy back alley, not the spectacle he found. A warehouse filled with spoiled rich kids and Wall Street crooks with nothing better to do than bet their ill-gotten money on super powered people punching each other in the head.
He was immediately in love and sought out the circuit’s owner, begging her for a chance to fight. She was initially hesitant (After all, who would want to see a nobody like Johnny Red fight?) but eventually she agreed. What was the worst that could happen? The idiot would get his head caved in and everyone would have a good laugh.
Johnny wasn’t the biggest or toughest guy working the circuit but he was definitely one of the sneakiest and he won his first fight. By cheating, sure, but this place was rife with bad guys who cheated all the time so hardly anyone even batted an eyelid.
And he continued to win. Sure, there was the occasional loss but overall he performed well and made a sizable chunk of money. But Johnny surprised everyone, himself included, when he beat the Circuit Maximus champ in the upset of the century,
Johnny Red had finally made a big score. He had finally hit the big time. He was finally a somebody! Unfortunately for him, he had also painted a target on his own back. Now everyone in the Circuit Maximus would be gunning for him and trying to take down the upstart champ.
Johnny Red is finally a champion but how long can he survive in The Circuit Maximus?
