Rodney Nelson, an unassuming chemist, thinks he’s just won the Wrestling World Magazine trivia contest and is about to claim his award. Instead, he is abducted by two hulking reverts who take him to Wrestling World the Planet, a place where wrestling is real and runs the economy. Here Rodney will become a referee, one of the most thankless jobs on the planet. Not content with his station as a ref, Rodney is given the opportunity to train as a wrestler in this crazy world with wrestlers like Extar the Shape Changer and Psycho the Cyclops. He falls in deeper when he meets Belair Belle, the most beautiful woman on six planets — also the women’s champion. Rodney soon learns, though, that wrestling is a brutal business and the life expectancy of new recruits is painfully short.
Prologue
Miscarriage of Justice
Rodney Nelson knew something was wrong the moment he opened the door to Suite 2900 of the Plantations Building. He'd expected to stop in and pick up an interesting but probably worthless prize in the wrestling trivia contest he'd entered-- after all, he'd never won anything of value in his life so why should this be different? But instead of being greeted by some P.R. guy in a loud suit from Wrestling World Magazine waiting to sell him a lifetime subscription, he was immediately confronted by two of the ugliest, most hideous specimens of humanity he had ever encountered in his life.
He blinked his eyes in disbelief at the twin 300 pound brutes who leered at him as he entered. Neither of them had any hair in the usual places. Their shoulders and backs, however, bristled with a wiry black fur that looked like a Brillo pad gone wild. They were identical twins, Rodney noticed, and wore identical lime-green paint on their scar-crossed faces. Only the color of their wrestling trunks distinguished them-- one orange and one purple.
Rodney knew more about the Global Wrestling Alliance than anyone in the world-- he was, after all, the legitimate winner of the Wrestling World Trivia Contest, despite his misgivings-- yet he had never seen this pair in any of the matches before.
"Hey, are you guys new or is it Halloween?" he asked, still thinking it was some sort of PR stunt.
The guy in the purple trunks growled like an animal and, with surprising quickness for a man of great bulk, charged forward, grabbed Rodney's arm, and tightened his grip like a vice.
"Hey, what's going on here!" Rodney demanded as the pain rushed up his arm like a fire. "You can't do this to me!"
While purple-trunks twisted his arm up and behind him in a painful half-nelson, the guy in the orange trunks loped forward.
"Shut up you skinny runt," he sneered.
"Hey, that hurts!" Rodney said to his captor.
"I'll give you hurt," orange-trunks said, balling his fist to strike.
Realizing that this was no joke or PR stunt, and that he had, instead, earned himself a prize-winning beating, Rodney tried to squirm away, but the pressure on his arm only increased. Then, remembering a trick his mother had taught him years ago when a bully had picked on him and broke his programmable calculator, he wound up and kicked orange-trunks squarely between the legs.
Orange-trunks backed up two feet and smiled. Strangely enough, though, purple-trunks let go of his grip on Rodney's arm, dropped to his knees, and squealing like a soprano in the church choir, grabbed his crotch with both hands as he hit high C.
Rodney was so mystified by this unusual behavior that he didn't notice orange-trunks (who seemed to have felt no pain whatsoever) step forward and unleash a club-sized fist into his stomach. Rodney staggered backward as his breath left him faster than air from a burning zeppelin, and smashed his head on the door producing a kaleidoscope of constellations inside his brain.
"Oooof," Rodney gasped as his body collapsed beneath him.
He found himself sitting down against the door. Vaguely he fought against the pain and imagined himself getting up and bolting for freedom. His body, though, had different ideas and refused to do anything except hurt.
"Well, what'da ya think, Mutt?" orange-trunks asked.
Purple-trunks gasped for a moment before answering in a newly-acquired falsetto voice.
"I guess he'll do, Jeff. He's skinny enough. Weak enough. Looks blind enough. We'll just hafta beat the fight outta 'im when we get 'im home. "He's got a mean kick."
"But... but I kicked him," Rodney gasped, pointing to Jeff.
"We're reverts," Mutt replied, still in a falsetto, as if that explained everything. "Come on. Let's get 'im outta here before the portal closes."
"What are you going to do with me?" Rodney whined as Jeff grabbed him by the wrists and dragged him to his feet.
Jeff laughed. "You're comin' with us, runt. You're gonna be a referee."
"A referee?"
"Yeah," Jeff said, dragging him through a doorway and into a darkened cubicle that resembled an ancient elevator. "A referee. You're goin' to Wrestling World."
"Wrestling World? The magazine?"
"No, shrimp, not the magazine. You're going to Wrestling World. The planet."
And then the bottom dropped out and Rodney began to fall.
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