Brooklyn Bruiser vs. Valley Doll - Coast to Coast

There was a hot moment where Valley thought she'd gotten supremely lucky. She'd expected Kimmy to just hold on to the leg after she fell and roll right into whatever hold she was going for, get her in a tight clutch before she could make for the ropes. But that hadn't happened - instead, she released the leg after she dropped back, and Valley was flung forward. She was still in a bad position, thrown too loopy from the flip to just pop to her feet, but all she had to do was pull herself up by the ropes and she'd kill Kimmy's rally in the crib.

One hand in front of the other, forward and forward and forward. The AFW had one of the bigger rings she'd ever competed in, but it wasn't going to be that far of a journey. If she got up fast enough, she might even be able to bring Kimmy down with a moonsault press from the middle rope before she knew what was happening.

She had just started to grip a rope when her ankles were snatched up and she was dragged back, erasing all her progress. Valley pressed her palms into the floor and tried to walked forward, hoping to slip free, but Kimmy had a solid grip. Back to the center of the ring she went.

She was wondering what the Brooklyn Bruiser would go for, and she wasn't kept in suspense much longer, as she stepped over Valley and tucked her legs under the armpits. The crowd began to rise and clap, happy to see a Japanese favorite locked in - the Boston Crab, scourge of more Japanese matches than anyone could care to count. Needless to say, she was a bit less enthusiastic about it.

"Let go! Let..." Valley buried her face into the floor, letting her long, blond mane cover the anguish on her face. The only saving grace here was that her back was just about the only part of her body that hadn't taken abuse in this match, so she could survive in it longer than if Kimmy had went back to the ankle. But that was scant comfort. It still hurt like fire in her bones, and since the Brooklyn Bruiser had it locked in with a squat, escaping was harder than ever. Their height difference helped, but not nearly enough to make escape more likely.

Not that Valley wouldn't try. She brought her head up, reached out, clawed at the mat and started to crawl forward. "Boston Crab from the Brooklyn Bruiser..." As bad as the pain was, she couldn't help realizing the joke and making a sly comment on it, even if speaking was hard through all her grunts and groans. "Odd choice."

Kimmy got ahold of Valley right as the veteran had reached the ropes, and she would immediately yank hard on Valley's legs, not wanting to give her a chance to get a good grip on that rope, whether to pull herself up or to try to force a rope break as Kimmy got a better hold on Valley's legs. Kimmy was able to drag Valley back to the center of the ring, and, though Valley immediately got her hands down on the ring to start trying to drag herself back to the ropes, Kimmy was able to get into position and establish her hold before Valley could make much progress.

Kimmy had always loved the Boston Crab, and she knew that it was a very popular submission hold here in Japan, too. She knew that it looked spectacular, as she squatted down onto Valley's back, bending the other blonde practically in half, with her feet dangling only a couple of feet above and slightly behind her head. The crowd responded to the spectacular visual as loudly as Kimmy expected them to, and she grinned as she tried to keep piling on the pressure as Valley began to move towards the ropes again.

"Let go? Why?" Kimmy would taunt, as she would try to pull harder on Valley's legs, and would try to plant her feet firmly on the canvas to stop the veteran wrestler's progress.

One reason Kimmy might have always enjoyed using the Boston Crab was probably because it reminded her of her earliest involvement in the world of wrestling. It was six, maybe seven years ago when Kimmy and her friend Alessandra first started watching replays of old female wrestling matches on the tiny television in the dusty guest bedroom in Al's grandmother's basement. They started out with some truly ancient matches dating all the way back to the mid-1980s—GLOW matches, mostly, along with the odd match from one of the other extraordinarily short-lived televised promotions that existed during that time period. After a few months, Kimmy and Al had tired of some of the sillier elements of GLOW and its kin, and had moved on to more serious productions—including Valley Doll's own Slamazons.

After watching wrestling for almost a year, Kimmy and Al started practicing some of the holds themselves. Al had actually been the one to utilize the Boston Crab the most in those basement "matches," and, when Kimmy proved susceptible to it, the Italian-American girl used it almost every time they tussled. Kimmy eventually did learn how to escape it, and reversed the hold on Al every now and then. When the Brooklyn Bruiser started wrestling professionally, she started using the Crab more frequently as a sort-of homage to those early days.

She and Al had even made up a modified version of the hold that had become Kimmy's finisher. When Valley commented on how it was in some way at odds for a New York girl to have put her in the Boston Crab, Kimmy laughed and would lift herself up off of Valley's back, easing up on the hold only slightly. "I can fix that."

She would lift up one of her boots and turn to the side slightly. The boot would hover over Valley's lower back for a second before Kimmy would press it down onto her opponent, putting all of her weight on that one foot, and on Valley's back. Once she had done that, she would take half a step back with her other foot, then begin pulling as hard as she could on Valley's legs again, squatting down only halfway to make sure her hold was still secure now that she had transitioned it into her signature Brooklyn Crab.

"This is the Brooklyn Crab! Feel free to submit whenever you want, old lady!" Kimmy would taunt, glancing from Valley to the referee to the loud, roaring crowd. She looked around the perimeter of the ring until she found the nearest cameraman, and nodded her head to the camera. "Hey, Al had better be watching this back home!" she would yell gleefully to the camera.

Kimmy locked in the Boston Crab like she'd been doing it her entire life. Some women were sloppy with the execution. Didn't hold the legs right. Tried to focus on the legs rather than the back. Worked in weird, ineffectual stuff, like trying to come into it out of a powerbomb or something. Not Kimmy. She cranked it in like the professional she clearly was, and she got the result she was going for: Valley Doll screamed at the top of her lungs, a shrill cry that was only drowned out by the roar of the raging crowd.

It died down after a moment, but only because she bit her fist to manage the pain. She panted hard, trying to control her breathe, as she focused on the ropes. Kimmy couldn't have weighed a pound over a buck-sixty, but she carriedherself like a woman twice her size, and that made all the difference. Maybe Valley had been through worse Crabs in her career, but damned if she could think of them at the moment.

She could do this. She could escape this hold. She'd escaped the Boston Crab tons of times, and her flexibility gave her a better tolerance than most. Valley gave the mat a solid pound and started to drag herself forward, straining and stretching her body to its limits.

"Didn't work last time, 'cutie'..." She took a pause, just to catch her breath before she resumed the trek. "Won't work...this time!"

No sooner had those words gotten out of her mouth, than a ray of hope began to shine on Valley's besieged back. Kimmy was easing up, changing it to more a relaxed version of the hold. Why? Valley didn't know or care. She saw her chance and she went for it, putting her all into a mad push for the ropes and salvation.

She'd managed to get about two feet, before the pressure on her back returned, this time in the form of a boot. It took her a solid three seconds to even figure out what was going on, but it all became clear once the pain came back worse then ever - Kimmy was using a new variation on the hold. A brutally effective one.

Valley screamed at the top of her lungs and thrashed around, and the crowd broke into another round of applause, always happy to see something new in the ring.

Her cries died down and she went back to her push, but it was even harder than before. Where before she just had a soft behind to worry about, now she had a hard sole digging into her sensitive flesh. The weight was worse, most of it centered onto one hardened point. Al would be proud. Whoever that was.

Kimmy got that scream out of Valley, the scream that she had heard on Slamazon videos and late at night watching AFW broadcasts for years, and that she was now, over the course of this match, learning to enjoy hearing very, very much. Maybe I should make it my ringtone, Kimmy thought to herself, making herself snicker wickedly with that little personal joke, as she would transition out of the average, run-of-the-mill—perfectly serviceable, but expected nevertheless—Boston Crab, and into her own signature move, her favorite submission hold which had proven its worth time and again back in New York: the Brooklyn Crab.

Valley had sounded very confident when she told Kimmy that the Boston Crab was not going to work. Kimmy had a feeling she wasn't going to be so confident about escaping the Brooklyn Crab. Valley would be bent almost as far in the Brooklyn Crab as she was in the Boston Crab, and, instead of just having the relatively even, wide distribution of weight that Kimmy's butt provided when she sat on Valley's back, she now had Kimmy's boot right in the most sensitive part of her back, the hard rubber of the heel digging into her smooth skin, almost all of Kimmy's weight put on that one spot as she leaned in.

And Valley screamed. And she screamed.

Kimmy was more than happy to cede those two feet of canvas to Valley if it meant she was able to put this sort of pressure on the Californian, and put her through this sort of pain. Valley could not last very long at all in the Brooklyn Crab, Kimmy was sure. She had used it to finish more than one match back home in New York, and no girl had ever managed to escape from it without tapping. Valley might have been leagues above anyone Kimmy had faced before, but she was not invincible. Far from it.

Kimmy gave that camera one more look, grinning and sticking her tongue out to let Al back in Brooklyn know that Kimmy knew she was watching. The match was only being broadcast online, but that, actually, was perfectly convenient for Al and all the other girls back home. Kimmy hoped that she could make Brooklyn proud tonight!

"Won't work? I think it's working just perfect!" Kimmy would say, taunting Valley as she grinded her boot as hard as she could into the other blonde's back. "Now tap! Tap!"

As Kimmy demanded her opponent's submission, she would do everything she could to increase her advantage, and to put Valley through excruciating pain. With the older blonde's legs tooked underneath her armpits, Kimmy would try to turn Valley's legs a little bit, back and forth, just enough to tweak the woman's knees while not risking an accidental slip that could allow Valley to get free. Kimmy was still grinning as she looked over her shoulder, down at the disheveled golden locks that covered Valley's head. "Tap...out!"

Valley was sorely tempted to tap out. It was rare that a hold was so excruciating that she seriously considered the option, but this was one of those rare times.

"No!"She slammed her fist into the mat once more, as she felt Kimmy's heel dig between the discs of her spine, as if they could grind her bones to powder. She managed to stifle anymore ear-shattering screams, but she couldn't keep the occaisional yelp from squeaking out, and she certainly couldn't hide the look of pure agony in her eyes. This was pain beyond pain, and that wasn't the only problem.

Kimmy seemed to be getting into the moment. Really getting into it. She seemed to be playing to the camera, totally trying to make an example out of Valley. Not that she could be blamed. If Valley lost here, it would be a great boost. People would remember the Brooklyn Bruiser as the woman who came stomping into the AFW and took out one fo the bigger dogs in the yard on her first day. This was how very successful careers began, and you couldn't help but love the story.

"No..."Maybe it was Kimmy's time. Maybe Valley should've just tapped, before she got seriously injured. Valley's eyes shut tight and she raised her quivering hand, holding it up as the referee dropped down beside. She started to bring it down...then brought it back up again...then down again. Her thoughts were fighting a war with themselves.

"No." She growled the words out. It wasn't just to keep Kimmy from getting the satisfaction. Valley was making the declaration to herself, reinforcing her thoughts. She was not going to give up. Kimmy's journey was incredible, but she'd come far, too. After all the crap she'd gone through last year, she'd promised the people - and herself - that this was going to be her year, that she'd give every match 100%. She was competitor. She was going for titles. She was going to be the best wrestler she could be, and nothing was going to stop her.

Valley slowly brought her hand down and forced her breathing to slow. She needed a clear head for this. The Brooklyn Crab was effecient and powerful, but with one of Kimmy's feet on her back, she'd have trouble walking back if Valley managed to move forward. The only hitch was that moving forward was harder than ever, but if she could survive the agony...yes. Yes. She could do it.

She looked up at the ropes as the crowd began to clap along, punctuating every rapid beat of her heart. Clap, in. Clap out. Clap, in. Clap out. She steeled herself, balled her fists tight, and then she moved.

Valley pushed up and drove forward with a sudden surge, driving hard towards the ropes like a madwoman. Her hands quickly slapped against the mat as she pulled and pulled and pulled for every inch she could get, and she wouldn't stop until she was close enough to reach out and snag the bottom rope.

Her last gasp. It had to be enough. It just had to be.

Valley was managing to choke back any additional screams, as the initial pain shock she suffered when the Brooklyn Crab was first established was replaced by the slow, burning, piercing pain of the hold in action. This was the time that she could just bite her lip and try to hold out without degrading herself by crying out anymore. But all the while, the pain would be building up inside of her. Her back was bent to its absolute limit, her ankles were being tweaked, and every second she must be losing just a little more strength.

“Tap...out!”

Kimmy did not want to get overconfident, but she felt very, very good right now. Even as Valley would begin to drag them towards the ropes again, moving them inch by inch, paying for every inch she gained with another grind of Kimmy's boot on the small of her back, Kimmy knew that this match, right now, was hers. If Valley was able to avoid having to submit to the Brooklyn Crab, Kimmy would have a practically insurmountable advantage once her foe had escaped from the brutal submission hold.

No, idiot, don't get cocky. Never get cocky, Kimmy would chastise herself, and she would shake her head, losing her smile and putting a more determined look on her face as she kept the pressure on Valley. She knew that this match was not over yet. She had to focus on moving it as close to over as she could. She looked over her shoulder again, as Valley's hand hovered and the referee was down on her knees beside the veteran, waiting to see if Valley Doll was going to tap out and give the Brooklyn Bruiser her first AFW win.

Kimmy knew that her opponent was not going to give up here, though. She had wanted to believe that the Brooklyn Crab would be the end of it, but, as she looked down at Valley, even though it was just at the back of Valley's head, she could tell that something was building in the older blonde, and that she was not about to give herself up, not even to a hold like this.

Valley suddenly lunged for the ropes, and Kimmy would try to hold her back as best she could. But with the Brooklyn Crab in place with one boot on Valley’s back, it wasn’t as easy to pull back against Valley. The Brooklyn Crab relied on the excruciating, searing pain to keep its victim immobile. It almost always worked, and here, too, it almost did. But Valley’s burst threw Kimmy off balance. She hopped on one leg for one foot, then two, before finally planting that boot back on the canvas. But just as she did, the referee got up and motioned to Kimmy. “Break, break.”

Kimmy looked over her shoulder at Valley’s hand on the ropes. Well, if anyone was going to break free from the Brooklyn Crab, it made sense that it would be a veteran as tough and in as excellent shape as Valley Doll. Kimmy would tweak her foe’s ankle once more before letting go. She would not leave Valley be, though. She would circle around her opponent, waiting for her to start to get up, before launching a kick at her foe’s thigh to give her some...extra encouragement to rise. “Come on, let’s go!” Kimmy would implore.

That worked. Somehow, that worked. Valley could barely believe that she managed to get a hold of the ropes and survive one of the worst holds she'd ever been put in, but somehow, by nothing less than a miracle, she got them. She grabbed on for dear life with one hand, then the other, and shook them with all she had left. Which, as it turned out, wasn't terribly much.

Kimmy must've been surprised too, because she didn't let go of the hold right away, stretching it out until the referee made her, prolonging the suffering by a couple of seconds. She did let up soon after that, to her credit, but not before she threw in a little ankle lock as a bonus and got a quick yelp out of Valley. If she faced the Brooklyn Bruiser again, someday - and she had a strong feeling that would happen, no matter who won this match - she'd have to keep an eye out for the woman's temper. Kimmy seemed nice enough before the bell, but after she had a bit of a mean streak going on.

Valley kept hold of the ropes, even when Kimmy released the hold, just using them to support herself. They were the only thing that kept her from falling flat on her face, and it allowed her to look out at the audience. Clapping, of course, with a few on their feet. Whether they were applauding her escape or acknowledging the innovative move from a fresh face, Valley couldnt' guess. Hardly mattered. They were entertained. So, at least that part of her job was done. Now, she just had to focus on bringing it home on the right side.

Valley made her way to a single knee as Kimmy began to close in, smelling blood. As hot as she was getting, it wasn't a bad move on the Brooklyn Bruiser's part.Valley's back was hurt like mad, and that vicious twist on her ankle reignited some of her earlier pain. The simple act of standing up was going to be torture. She had to smell the blood in the water. The target was too easy to pass up. But, while Valley was hurt, she wasn't incapicitated. And as much as it hurt to move, she could do it. She would do it. All she needed was for her weary bones to hold for another minute.

As soon as Kimmy's leg came her way, Valley brought her hand up and caught it under her shoulder,  trapping it with her arm. She wound up taking the impact, but this made it more than worth it. "Yeah," Valley looked  up at her with a manic grin, barely hidden under her golden tresses. "Let's!"

She pushed Kimmy's leg away, making her body spin around with it. As soon as Valley saw her back, she tried to leap up, grab her by the shoulders, bring a pair of hard knees up against her back, then let gravity do the rest. If all went according to plan, they'd fall into another wrestling classic: the Lungblower, right into the Brooklyn Bruiser's back.

Kimmy did not want to get off of Valley—not after she had come so close to forcing a submission from Valley. For just those few seconds, Valley's body language had made it obvious that she was thinking of tapping out. Kimmy knew how brutally painful the Brooklyn Crab could be. While she had invented the variation on the traditional Boston Crab, and had never suffered the Brooklyn Crab in competition, she had had Al put her in it during one of their sparring sessions so that she could better understand the hold from both perspectives, to evaluate how best to escape and how much pain it caused.

Valley was one tough bitch if she was able to escape from the hold, to escape from having herself bent in half and stomped into the canvas at the same time. Of course, Kimmy already knew that Valley was a tough opponent. But her respect for Valley would grow more now that the older blonde had managed to escape her ultimate signature move.

Kimmy had backed off, but Valley was in no hurry to get back up onto her feet. Of course she wouldn't be. Standing up would be hell on her back, and on her legs and feet. Kimmy had abused all of those parts of her opponent thoroughly over the course of this match, and even someone like Valley could not keep going and keep fighting forever. With Valley staying down for the time being, Kimmy would move to make her next attack. She circled around behind Valley to the other side, and then, when the Californian began to get up onto one knee, Kimmy would lash out at her with a hard kick to her ribs.

She had thought that this was a calculated risk that would pay off. She was attacking Valley from behind and only slightly off to the left, and the woman had to still be in agony from the Brooklyn Crab. Even if Valley tried to stop it, Kimmy was expecting to be able to pull her foot away if Valley tried to grab it. But Valley pushed herself up just as Kimmy's kick came in. Kimmy could not stop the kick from happening now, but it still hits its mark, slamming into Valley's side as she was halfway up onto her feet. The impact obviously rattled Valley, but she would bring her arm down and clamp it down on Kimmy's boot—and she didn't let go. "Ugh!" Kimmy grunted, as she would hop on one leg, trying to escape from the leg hold.

Valley finally let Kimmy go, but pushed on her as she did, and Kimmy found herself spun around by her own momentum. Somehow, Valley managed to act fast enough to catch Kimmy while she was still turned around. The Brooklyn girl could not understand how her opponent was able to move that quickly with a bum ankle and an aching back. She had seen many, many matches of Valley's online, had watched the woman get beaten up and then get back up and keep going, but it was different here. Kimmy was doing all she could to put Valley down for the count, and the veteran just kept on going and going. Her knees smacked into Kimmy's back, and her hands grabbed onto Kimmy's shoulders. Kimmy couldn't keep herself upright with her heavier opponent weighing on her back. She went down, Valley's knees drilling into her back, the indentation of the knees practically visible on Kimmy's chest...or at least that was how it felt.

Kimmy let out a blood-curdling scream, her turn to do so after all those screams she had forced out of Valley. Her body went partially limp as she fell down on top of Valley's knees, her arms drooping down over the canvas, her head lolling to the side. "F-f-f...d-damn...gaaaahh..." Kimmy seethed between clenched teeth, as she would try to start wiggling in order to get away from her foe.

Valley winced and winced hard as her chest became intimately acquainted with Kimmy's shin, suffering the same caliber of kick that had started all of her troubles in the beginning of this match. Words like 'restraint' didn't seem to register to the Brooklyn Bruiser. If she hadn't gotten a proper appreciation of her kicking power before, she certainly did now. She'd be remembering it for a week, no question. Every time she turned around in bed or tried to do a sit-up. Ace would have to hold off on the cuddling for a little while.

But, as much as taking that kick sucked for her bones, it was worth the trouble if it meant getting even a momentary advantage on Kimmy. It had been a while since she'd had to use a Lungblower - it was too crude for her tastes - but this was a desperate time and she was resorting to desperate measures. It was effective, seemed to put a stop to her momentum for the moment, but there was one problem, something that didn't occur to Valley until she was on the way down to the floor.

She was landing on her back. The same back that Kimmy had just bent to hell.

Valley had to bite down hard to stifle the scream this time, as she crashed with an extra passenger on top of her own weight and she took a great deal of pressure in one of the last places she could afford to take it. Her body jerked around like a fish out of water, and Kimmy's body was hurled off without her even realizing it. Her back hurt. Her face hurt. Her leg hurt. Everything. Just. Hurt.

There was a very real part of Valley that was screaming at her to roll out of the ring and take a break, but she knew better. As bad as it was for her, this was the first time she'd had Kimmy vulnerable for minutes, and probably the last time she'd have the window ever again. Right now, the Brooklyn Bruiser was hurt, but that wouldn't last, and when she got her bearings back, there'd be no stopping her. Valley had to end this.

"Okay, I can do this..." She muttered under breath as she rolled to the side and slipped under the bottom rope, making her way out to the apron. Valley grabbed the ropes, using them for support to pull herself up and take the pressure off her weary bones. First the bottom. Then the middle. Then she gripped the top rope with both hands and pulled herself up to both feet, managing to stand again with the assistance.

The plan here was a simple one: Valley would wait until Kimmy stood up and turned her way, then she'd yank herself up to the top rope and jump off with a springboard dropkick, trying to hit her in the face or the chest of even the stomach if she really messed it up. Assuming her body didn't give out along the way, of course. Valley was reasonably sure she could pull off the move, and while it wasn't likely to put Kimmy down hard enough for a pin, it might keep the Brooklyn Bruiser on her back long enough for Valley to do something really stupid...

Kimmy could take very little solace in the fact that Valley was going to be hurting her back as she went down to the canvas again, having successfully caught Kimmy in the lungblower. The move would hurt Valley, too, but the only thing that Kimmy could think about as she was taken down was the immense pain that she was about to be in. And, oh, the pain was as bad as she expected it to be, even as she braced herself an instant before impact. Her back took massive damage as it was bent suddenly over Valley's knees, the sharp, bony joints drilling into her shoulder blades. It felt like they were smashing through muscle and bone and smashing Kimmy's spine. The pain was terrible. Kimmy, as Valley gave her a push, flopped down onto her front and stayed there, groaning.

It took a few seconds for her to really focus again. She was not unconscious, nor completely stunned, but she definitely felt as if she should just keep still and try to not move for a while. Her body had been aching already from the previous punishment Valley had inflicted on it, and that lungblower had been one of the most devastating moves Kimmy had ever experienced. None of the amateurs back at New York Female Wrestling had ever thought to try it, and none of them could have executed it as masterfully as Valley had.

And yet...Kimmy was still conscious, and she was starting to feel better, as the terrible immediate pain began to dull into more of a distant throbbing. It was irritating, and it was something which Kimmy would be feeling and cursing for a week, but she could still fight. She would just power through that pain and get back up to finish the job. She had to finish this soon. She had had the advantage over Valley for several minutes, but now she could feel her advantage slipping away. She didn't know whether she could regain the edge over the veteran if the fight kept on going.

Kimmy glanced over at Valley and saw that the older woman was hurt, too, and was only just starting to roll over towards the ropes to help herself up. Kimmy would growl and would, with some effort, force herself up onto her hands and knees. Her head spun, and she felt suddenly top-heavy, but she would squeeze her eyes shut and shake her head, feeling it slowly coming to a stop. Once it did, Kimmy would get her feet under her, and then, with a louder yell, she would force herself all the way up onto her feet. Once she was up, though her balance was still shaky, she would turn back around to face Valley.

She had only a second before Valley's dropkick smashed into her chest, Kimmy's relative lack of...padding in that area causing her to take quite a jarring blow. She cried out, flailing backwards, crashing down onto her back on the canvas. Her legs came up and almost went over her head, but she managed to bring them back down before she could flip over. Kimmy was dizzy again, and now her chest was aching, but she was not going to quit and let Valley have this one. She would get her hands under her and start pushing herself up once again.