Several more matches passed before the main event: Lagoon Goon vs Sandy. Goon came out first, and Mitch went feral on them when they emerged. Sandy followed, riding on Louis’ shoulders. She was determined to avenge Zevon, and Jodie granted her this opportunity after an excessive amount of pleading. During her entrance, she pointed a finger gun at Mitch while also wielding his kendo stick; the tribute was touching, but it sank in for him how much he missed being up there with the two of them.
“Bit of a mismatch on paper,” said Rod, his tone landing somewhere between the broadcaster persona and his real voice. Mitch blinked a few times while he absorbed that the sentiment was terrifyingly sincere. Arin towered over Sandy’s petite 5’ frame and was twice as wide as her, all bulk and muscle from growing up on a farm. They locked up, and Sandy’s arms trembled as she tried to hold her own, only to be mercilessly thrown down onto the mat. She got up and attempted a few bodychecks, but Goon did not budge.
“Quit trying to show off, Sandy!” Mitch shouted into his microphone, aggravated that she already tossed away the strategy that he and Louis had helped her devise, instead now falling for every attempt that Goon made to rile her up. Eventually, Louis pounded the mat, and the audience clapped along to the rhythm that he had set; this provided a wake-up call that Sandy needed, and her focus shifted towards the speed advantage that she’d possessed.
She stayed clear of the canvas and stuck to the ropes and posts as she went on the offense, desperately scrambling to get as many crossbodies and senton variations in before Lagoon Goon wisened up to her strategy. The crowd warmed up to her when she jumped down from off the top of a ringpost, wrapped her legs around Goon’s neck, and used the momentum to flip them in place. When she let go, she rolled to safety and they landed flat on their back. Mitch howled proudly, having been the one to teach her that hurricanrana in the first place.
For the final maneuver in this sequence, she went up top again, and leapt with missile dropkick to the other corner of the ring to where Goon was slumped, earning a raucous applause. Mitch stood up, hand clutching his own hair as he turned to Rod in disbelief and yelled, “When the fuck did she learn Coast-to-Coast?!”
However, this was not a Cinderella story. The tides turned, and once Lagoon Goon got a hold of their opponent and started a devastating sequence of tiger suplexes, the match was as good as over. Sandy was still green as a competitor with only a handful of singles matches to her name; comparatively, Arin was over 5 years into their career. So though she gave it her all, she got pinned, the bell rang, and the referee had raised Lagoon Goon’s arm in victory. Sandy lay on the mat, breathing heavily and arm draped over her eyes, and Mitch excused himself from the commentary table to rush over to join Louis in checking on her.
“Hey kiddo, you did great.” He knelt down and moved her arm, tutting softly when he saw the tears of frustration she was hiding.
“I wanted to win for you,” she whimpered, not maintaining eye contact.
“Goon’s really tough,” he smiled, and smoothed out her hair. “You’ll get ’em next time, though.”
“Uh, hey,” Louis tapped Mitch between the shoulder blades to get his attention. “They’re chanting your name, dude.”
Mitch’s face scrunched in confusion, and his eyes went wide as he finally caught onto the loud ZE-VON ZE-VON ZE-VON that had erupted around the room. Always the heel, he never received an ovation like that before, but now wasn’t the time to relish in it. “Let’s get her up,” he said, and Louis hooked his hands under her arms. She went limp as he moved her, but managed to stand on her own once she was set on her feet. Mitch lifted her arm into the air, and the chants immediately shifted to SAN-DY SAN-DY SAN-DY. Though she still cried, the corners of her mouth crept upwards until she broke out into giggle. Wiping her eyes with the heel of her palm, she looked back and forth between Louis and Mitch, and hugged them both.
Boisterous applause broke out, and alternating chants of Sandy’s name and BAD MOON RI-SING, along with claps to punctuate the syllables. “What the fuck? Are we finally over?” Mitch wondered out loud in their huddle.
“Think so,” Louis muttered, equally baffled.
