Julia Rogers vs. Valley Doll - Light Up the Sky

At first blush, you might think the reason Valley liked Julia so much was because of her aerial ability, that she just wanted to test herself against one of the best high-flyers the company could offer. That was true. But not the whole truth.

The rest had to do with her fire. The passion Julia put into everything she did. The raw nerve she put on the line every time she had an opportunity. That same, blazing energy that was letting her strike back and perservere, and was making the cowgirl a royal pain at the current moment.

The uppercut blasted the wind out of Valley’s stomach, but it wasn’t that bad. She hunched over for a second, but she was fully expecting to pop back up and hit Julia even harder in retaliaion. It was a second too long to wait, however. Should've known better. A second was all the luchadora needed to go flying, grab Valley’s waist, and send her soaring out of the corner for what could surely be a hellacious crash.

Could. But wouldn’t.

As she was thrown off, Valley tried something she’d never done, but was fairly certain she was able to do. She tucked her legs in and rolled back with the power, using the added momentum to take her body out of Julia’s hold. This let her fly out of the corner, flipping about, and it would’ve been a nasty hit by itself, if Valley hadn’t managed to get her legs down in time. Burt she did.

Valley landed square in the middle of the ring, nearly crashing into the referee and hitting hard enough to make the entire ring quiver. She looked up at Julia standing there against the turnbuckle, trapped and wide open after her powerbomb failed. Without a word, Valley narrowed her eyes and broke into a full charge, dashing to towards her rival at full speed with her arm at the side. There was a painful corner clothesline with Julia’s name all over it.

Julia had always considered herself an extremely crowd-attentive performer. There were various types of gasps, oohs and aahs they gave in response to different sights. For instance, when an awesome, high impact move blasted a wrestler into near-unconsciousness, the awe-filled shouts that rained out from the crowd were noticeably different from those made when a wrestler barely kicked out of a seemingly certain pinfall or pulled off a seemingly impossible counter.

She’d fully expected the former here, but was outright shocked to hear the latter.

Julia looked up just in time to see Valley completing her flip in the middle of the ring, wide-eyed and mouth agape at the sight. That easily might’ve been one of the most amazing individual things the cowgirl had ever seen happen in a wrestling ring. Julia was significantly more silent than the erupting crowd, though she completely shared the thought of awe and disbelief. Part of Julia wanted to turn and look at the screen in hopes of catching a replay, but Valley was already on the charge again!

The luchadora had neither the time nor energy to just bolt out of the corner at that particular second. Fortunately, there were plenty of ropes around her she could use for a bit of improv on the fly. She placed a boot on the bottom rope and kicked off, using that to spring her lower body up so she could aim a leaping enzuigiri at the side of her rival’s head, hoping to get the kick off just before the clothesline could slam into her!

Time’s like this, Valley wished wrestling had timeouts like other combat sports. A minute to sit down and breath would’ve been golden.

But nope - no breaks for them. Julia was still standing, and while she was, Valley was going full throttle. She stormed across the ring like a woman possessed, throwing her all into the bull rush. It was risky, as with everything in wrestling, but this time Valley liked her chances. Julia was stunned by the counter, taken off her game plan. This could be capitalized on, she thought. She thought.

In reality, though, Julia was faster than she’d anticipated, more slick, better reflexes. Fast enough to come flying out of the corner and close in on Valley before she herself could be closed in on. The boot that connected with the Slamazon’s face would’ve been unplesant in any situation, but with the way she was running right into it, the pain was doubled, and the result had her reeling.

Valley’s neck snapped back and the rest of her body followed it an instant later, as she staggered away from the blow. She took a stumbling step away, then another, and tried to shake some sense back into her brain. ”Nnh…”

The smack of Julia’s leather cowgirl boot against Vally’s face rang out so loud that all who heard it immediately cringed at the impact. The Slamazon had been going full speed for a while now, to the point that it had all but become overwhelming. But Julia’s patience had finally paid off, and she managed to derail the train of momentum Valley had been riding. The cowgirl was still feeling the exhausting effects of this high speed war, but if she could just fight through the pain and fatigue a little longer, she just might have enough left in her to put Valley away.

As her rival staggered away, Julia stumbled out of the corner as well, still holding onto the ropes for support. But once her foe was closer to the center of the ring, the luchadora sprang back into action.

With a grunt Julia forced herself into a brief run toward the set of ropes directly in front of Valley. She then threw herself into a front handspring to swing her calves against the top rope, which bounced them right back. When her feet hit the mat the high flying cowgirl sprang into a backflip and swung her boot right at Valley’s head again, this time with her signature Overhead Kick! On top of potentially dealing more serious damage, if somewhat late answer to the Pele Kick Valley had delivered earlier.

Stupid, stupid, stupid. Valley could almost kick herself for being so dumb. She’d been in such a rush to win, such a hurry to seize the moment, that she once again wound up running straight into a kick. All because she’d been impatient, and she was wide open, and-

Stop. Get ahold of the situation. Get back into the fight.

Valley gathered her thoughts, cleared her mind, and turned around, ready to get back into it. It just so happened that she did this right as Julia started flipping towards her. Soon enough to appreciate the agility. Not soon enough to actually do much about it.

The Overhead Kick hit Valley’s chest like cannonfire, driving the wind out of it with an impact that left her knees weak. She stumbled back after the hit, dumbstruck and awestruck at the same time, then fell to a knee. Then another knee. Her body began to pitch forward…

Valley shook her head, smacked herself upside the skull and started to rise back up to her feet. She was loopy, out on her feet, looking like her body was running on autopilot more than anything, but she was standing. Or wobbling, at least. Teeter and totter.

The second she felt her kick connect, Julia fell to the mat and rolled right over to the nearest corner. When the Overhead Kick found it’s mark, it almost always put the target down on the mat in perfect position for Julia to finish them off with her ever-reliable Stardust Press. Grabbing onto the ropes, the cowgirl pulled herself up to her feet in preparation to ascend to the top rope, but first glanced back at Valley to make sure she was in fact down and in position.

She wasn’t.

“What the--?!” Julia exclaimed wide-eyed at the sudden realization that Valley Doll was still on her feet! Wobbling, staggering and out of it like someone who’d had way too much to drink, but standing nonetheless. What was she supposed to do now? Panting and tired, Julia wasn’t sure she had enough gas left in the tank to try another high-speed onslaught. And Valley damn sure wasn’t in position to take a Stardust Press. Julia had a big bag of tricks, but no clue which one would be good for finishing off the Slamazon.

Well, there was one that came to mind.

Back in her days wrestling for her parents’ promotion in New Mexico, Julia had won her first championship there with a move she hadn’t used since. The reason? It packed a higher impact than anything else in her regular arsenal, and if she used it often, people would start planning around it. So she’d decided to reserve that particular move for the most special of occasions. Did this qualify? Regardless who emerged as the victor tonight, neither one of them would be leaving the ring with a title of any sort. But then again, a victory over Valley tonight would be arguably the biggest win of her career to this point. So yeah, this qualified.

Julia stepped through the ropes and climbed up to the top rope, then slowly rose to stand tall on the turnbuckle. As she did, both hands pointed up toward the ceiling while the cowgirl looked down on Valley from up high.

“LETS GO!!!!” she roared out, then launched herself from the top rope directly toward Valley. As her body sailed through the air, Julia kicked her right leg up into the air as high as she could, before hurling the boot down at the back of Valley Doll’s head and neck in an attempt to give her foe the Death Penalty!

Oh, boy, this was bad. This was so bad.

Valley was standing, but she was having a hard time doing much else. Everything was spinning, her head ached something fierce, and the worst part was that she should’ve seen that Overhead Kick coming. She’d seen Julia’s signature before, thought she’d prepared the right counter. But watching something on tapes was always different from experiencing it in the ring.

She could get her bearings back, though. Drawing her last remaining reserves, Valley started to straighten up, and-

The last thing Valley remembered before everything went black was a sudden, excruciating pain in the back of her neck.

The crowd went wild as Julia nailed the Death Penalty, seeing the brutal but effective move in action for the first time and witnessing a clear result: Valley laid in the middle of the ring, face flat, still and unmoving. She was breathing, so the attack hadn't quite lived up to its name, but she wasn’t doing much else. The referee knelt by Valley’s head to make sure, checking her out, but it was pretty much academic at this point. She stood up a second later, waved to the timekeeper, and the bell was promptly won.

Julia had won, emerging triumphant in one of the most demanding matches of either women’s career. Victory by knockout.

Julia felt the intense impact of her boot against Valley’s neck, and from the near-deafening reaction of the crowd it seemed the kick had looked every bit as brutal to them as it had likely felt to the Slamazon. Julia hit the mat after delivering her finisher and started panting, but only for a brief moment, knowing she needed to capitalize and pin her foe right away.

She turned and started to crawl toward her rival. But right when the cowgirl was about to reach out to roll Valley onto her back, she froze as the sound of the bell rang out. For a moment she was confused, and wordlessly looked around for a clue as to what was going on. Fortunately the situation was quickly cleared up as the ref raised Julia’s hand, and it was announced she had won, via knockout.

Julia breathed a heavy sigh filled with relief and a hint of disappointment, then rolled over onto her back to rest for a moment and catch her breath. She’d never won by knockout before, and wasn’t sure how to feel about it now. She hadn’t pinned Valley, nor had she made her tap. Did that matter? The masked blonde glanced at her unconscious foe, and it seemed plainly apparent that had she gone for a pin Valley would’ve been out well past the three count anyway. All the ref had done was save them a few seconds. Julia chalked her dumb thoughts up to the simple fact that this was just something she wasn’t used to. It was bound to feel a bit awkward to her if it ever happened.

The luchadora rolled back onto her hands and knees again and crawled over to Valley, then put a hand on her shoulder and gently shook her. “Hey, Val... Y’alright?” Happy as she was to have come out on top in this brutal, high speed war, she still had an enormous amount of respect for Valley Doll and considered her a friend. Celebrating could come later, but right now making sure her opponent was alright was more important.

”Haaaaaaa!”

Valley sat up with a sudden start, eyes wide open as she came screeching back into the waking world. She looked around, confused, taking in a thousand points of stimuli. The crowd was cheering and clapping, the referee was looking relaxed, Julia was right there, not attacking her, so…

...oh.

Shock came over Valley’s face, swiftly followed by disappointment, then acceptance. She’d fought hard, so hard, and to come up short after all of that was a bitter pill to swallow. But it wasn’t an easy fight. She’d given her all against a worthy opponent. What more could anyone ask for? Between this, her Iron Man match, and the battle with Ace, she'd had three matches in her AFW career that people would remember for years to come. She was a lucky woman.

”Huh.” Valley ran a hand through her hair and sheepishly looked Julia’s way. ”Guess that’s it, then. Great match, little lady.”

Julia was startled and flinched when Valley suddenly shot up with a shout. But she settled down just as quickly as her foe did. The cowgirl could certainly imagine how Valley must’ve felt once realization set in. She’d felt a similar feeling when her efforts to claim the Entropy Championship had fallen short at Avalanche. But Julia still took a great deal of pride in the fact that she’d helped create a memorable experience for the fans that night, and she hoped Valley would be able to look at this match in the same way.

With a friendly smile and nod, Julia extended a hand to Valley to offer a handshake. “Yeah. Right back at ya, partner. Lets mix it up again sometime,” she replied sincerely. The match tonight had pushed Julia to her limits and tested her in ways no other opponent had, and it had been fun as hell. The opportunity to face Valley again somewhere down the line would no doubt be more than welcome to the cowgirl luchadora.