Narrator: As you well know, a folding steel chair can be a formidable weapon in the ring. In the past few weeks, the Wicked have demonstrated this, with their attacks on the team of Lilith and Sianna Kane as well as on one of J.J.’s Union members, Assassin. Other members of the GWA have shown that they are handy with this weapon of destruction, but few as creative as The Wicked. Today, we join The Wicked as they go for a tour of the Samsonite steel folding chair factory in Illinois…

The camera opens to an outside shot of a large factory building, smokestacks piping smoke into the bright sky. The camera then zooms in to Thanatos, John Grim and another man, all clad in hard hats, standing in front of a non-descript door, above which hangs a sign reading “Samsonite Furniture Inc., Authorized Personnel only beyond this point.

Thanatos: Hey all you GWA fans, this is your favorite tag team here, The Wicked, with Jeffrey Beasley, plant foreman of the Samsonite Furniture plant here in Illinois… say hi to the people, Jeffrey…

Jeffrey: Hello… glad to have you all here at the factory.

Grim: For those of you who don’t know, Samsonite manufactures the steel folding chairs that the GWA uses… the very same chairs that we, The Wicked, endorse for smashing opponents skulls with.

Jeffrey; Well, that isn’t the original intent for the chairs…

Thanatos: Quite true, but they are very useful in that capacity… We figured that, since they are seem so often in our profession, we would come here to the home of the steel folding chair…

Grim: And we asked Jeffrey here to give us a tour of the plant, see how these chairs are made… Shall we get going on this tour?

Jeffrey: All right then, if you’d all make sure that your hard hats are on tight, we can proceed…

They enter the building, followed by the camera. Upon entrance, the camera pans around to show yards upon yards of one-inch steel tubing, tied together in bundles. There are pallets upon pallets of sheet steel, stacked to the ceiling.

Jeffrey: Now, here at the factory, the majority of the work is done via an automated assembly line. What we have here is the raw materials, before they go through the processes. We use the tubing for the legs, the frame for the back of the chair, supports for the seat as well as the cross supports for the legs. The steel over near the wall is the heavy duty steel for the seat portion of the chair, it’s 20 gauge and one seat can hold 300 pounds, easily… the other pallets are for the seatback portion of the chair, that is slightly lighter, 24 gauge steel.

Thanatos: So, when we nail someone with the seatback portion, we’re actually using a lighter material than the seat itself?

Jeffrey: Only slightly so… although, due to the rigidity of the frame that holds the seatback, they are almost equal.

Grim: Make a mental note of that, T… hit with the seat portion.

Thanatos: Aye aye, Captain Winkie…

Grim: Careful, skippy, or I might test one of these chairs out on you…

Jeffrey: Moving on… as I said, the majority of the process is automated, and the next few steps will be somewhat boring… let’s move ahead, shall we.

The group walks through a door into a noisy room, filled with machines. A few workman are scattered throughout, some hauling in the raw steel from next door, others feeding the metal onto the assembly line piece by piece.

Grim: It’s noisy in here!

Thanatos: What?

Grim: I said “It’s noisy in here!”

Thanatos: What?

Grim: I said…

Grim looks at Thanatos, who is smiling widely, and flips him the bird. They look over to Jeffrey, who is motioning them into a glassed in room. They wander into the room, and once Jeffrey closes the door, the room is noticeably quiet.

Jeffrey: Now you see why the workmen wear ear protection…

Grim: Does your insurance cover deafness?

Jeffrey: Actually, yes, it does… this room here is where the process begins. The workmen bring the pallets of raw material into this room. There are a few assembly lines… one solely cuts the 24 gauge into pieces of steel that are manageable to be molded for the backs of the chairs…

Thanatos: Our favorite parts…

Jeffrey: …while another line is used solely for the 20 gauge steel, cut into pieces to be molded into the seat portion of the chair. The tubing you saw is split up into four assembly lines. One measures and cuts piece to be made into the large rear frame of the chair, another line cuts the supports, another the cross supports, and the last one cuts the side legs for the chair.

Grim: Well, that makes sense… Hey, you fans, you getting all this? Or do we have to slow it down for you morons? Too bad, we’re gonna keep going.

They walk out of the room, onto the floor, and through a door into another room. This room is a bit quieter, lacking the whine from the cutting tools, but instead has a rhythmic thumping sound, almost like a percussion section. Once again, Jeffrey leads them into a quiet room.

Thanatos: You guys have rooms like this in every section?

Jeffrey: Yes sir, they’re used for tours, as well as for observation by the management to make sure that the assembly is going smoothly.

Grim: Interesting…

He turns to the camera, wiggling his eyebrows.

Grim: They’re all soundproof?

Jeffrey: Yes sir…

Grim: So, if I had my girl in here, and she was going hard, and I was going hard, and I got her shrieking like a banshee… no one could hear us?

Jeffrey: That is correct…

Grim: So… ah… how much would it cost to rent one of these rooms for a long weekend?

Jeffrey: Heh… I don’t know… we can ask the plant manager when you meet him though… Anyways, this is the molding room. This is where the measured, raw materials are formed and cut into the shapes necessary for the construction of the chairs. The majority of the work is done through pneumatic and hydraulic presses… After coming from the cutting room, the workers at the beginning of the room separate the pieces… All the tubing except for the back frame passes onto the next room without being touched, as they don’t need to be molded…

Thanatos: So this is where the chairs begin to take shape?

Jeffrey: Astute observation…

Grim: Did you just say something about his ass?

Thanatos; Astute, you idiot… it means intelligent, perceptive…

Grim: Percep-what?

Thanatos: You’ll have to excuse my friend, Jeffrey… We believe that he’s the missing link, but that hasn’t been confirmed quite yet.

Jeffrey: I see… anyhow, the workers break the pieces down into more, smaller assembly lines, allowing more to be done at once… The back frames are pushed onto a mold, whence a press comes down, forming the u-shape of the frame around the mold and at the same time pushing holes in for the rivets to be insert later. The sheet metal for the seats go on top of a mold, at which time a pneumatic press slams down on it, forming it around the mold and at the same time shearing off the extra metal, creating a perfectly shaped seat. The assembly line for the seat backs does the same thing, forming the metal to an ergonomic shape while shearing off the extra metal… Before we head to the next section, I’ll take you down to the production floor and show you the individual pieces…

The group exits the room and goes down to the floor. Grim pulls out a Polaroid camera as Jeffrey goes to one line and picks up the seat of a chair. Jeffrey gives Thanatos the pre-made seat of a chair… Thanatos takes it and makes as to swing at Jeffrey, who reacts just as Grim takes a picture. Jeffrey grins, realizing that they were just having fun at his expense, and goes over to the next line, pulling a seatback off the line and passing it around. After everyone has a look, they proceed onto the next section, and into another silent room. This section of the factory is dominated by large machines, with a number of hazardous signs plastered on them.

Thanatos: Man, we could get about ten chicks and have a massive orgy in these rooms, no one would ever hear us… rock on!

Jeffrey: I suppose you could… well, as you all have noticed, up until now, the metal has been the usual, silvery-gray color. In this room, however, the pieces enter those large machines. The are first sandblasted, then blown dry, then coated with the brownish color of paint common to the folding chair industry… That paint is then baked on. After being baked and quickly cooled, the chairs are sandblasted once moor, producing the sheen of the final product…

Grim: Why bother with paint and everything? It doesn’t matter what color it is… cuz the people that we’ve been nailing with them really don’t have a chance to see if the color matches their outfits or not…

Jeffrey: I’m not quite sure…

Thanatos: But you’re the foreman… you’re supposed to know this shit!

Jeffrey: Well, they don’t exactly have a Folding Steel Chair Plant Foreman’s University, ya know?

Grim: You’re cool, man… I like your sense of humor…

Jeffrey: Thanks... anyways, let’s move on over to the next section now…

The groups walks out of the room, onto the floor, and through the door to the next section. This section is filled with laborers, some pulling parts off the line and putting them on other lines, the others assembling the chairs and putting them on the assembly line again.

Jeffrey: Well, we don’t have a room in here, because it’s pretty quiet, as you can hear. This is the section where the final assembly takes place. The workers near the beginning of the line separate the parts into sets, with one seat, one seatback, one large frame, the front legs, crossbars and seat supports. Once they place a complete set onto the assembly line, it moves on to the next assembler who, using a riveter, completes the assembly chair and then caps the ends with rubber covers. They then place it on the line to go to the next room, where they are packed and shipped…

Grim: Who are those men that are down there, taking random chairs into the back room there?

Jeffrey: Ah, yes, that’s quality control. They pull a few chairs out of each batch and take them to the back room, where they are tested to make sure that they are of top quality.

Thanatos: Can we go back there?

Jeffrey: But why? It’s pretty boring stuff…

Thanatos: Heh… we got our reasons…

Jeffrey: Well, I don’t see why not…

The group starts off to the back room, weaving and ducking through the array of assembly lines. Thanatos and Grim stop a few times along the way as workers recognize them. They take photos with the wrestlers, which Grim and Thanatos sign. They stop and chat with other workers, giving them pats on the back, making small talk. They finally get to the back and walk through the door into a mid-sized room filled with weights, hammers, and other assorted pieces of equipment.

Jeffrey: Well, back here, our testers stack weights on the chairs, hammer on them with claw hammers and sledgehammers, use cutting tools to make sure the paint doesn’t scratch… burn them, jump on them…

Grim: Do they hit people over the head with them?

Jeffrey: Um, no…

Thanatos: Well then, we brought something new for y’all… Can you guys bring that in?

The camera turns to reveal a pair of workers hauling in a life-sized wooden statue, dressed up and painted up to look like Jim Daher.

Thanatos: We figured that, since you guys gave us a tour of your factory, and you give us quality products to use… we’d give something back. So, here’s a chair-shot testing model.

Jeffrey: Chair-shot?

Grim: Yeah, that’s what it’s called when we nail someone with a chair over the head… We figured we’d give you a model to test your chairs on, make sure they stand up to the punishment that we will put them through.

The room is lit up with the grins of all the testers. Thanatos and Grim pull out a felt tipped pen and sign the model right across the chest.

Thanatos: And Jeffrey, we got something special for you… stand still, don’t worry, we won’t hurt ya…

He looks a little suspicious as Grim walks over and grabs a chair from one of the testers. He comes over and taps Jeffrey on the shoulder with the chair, then hands it to Thanatos, who does the same.

Grim: Go ahead and turn around now, we’re done…

He turns around, just as Thanatos hits the wooden model with the chair. Thanatos pulls out the pen again, and he and Grim sign it, with the message “I took a chair shot from Grim and Thanatos, and I survived to tell about- to Jeff, from The Wicked” They present this to Jeff, who smiles widely.

Jeffrey: Thanks guys…

Thanatos: No prob, my man… we’re going to have to take off soon, but we hope to come back and visit you guys again sometime soon. Keep watching us, we’ll give you all a shout out sometime… and one more thing before we leave…

Thanatos and Grim huddle at the microphone.

Thanatos and Grim: Til next time, we’re The Wicked…

The team turns around and waves their hands at all the employees in the room to yell.

Employees: AND YOU’RE NOT!

The Wicked laugh and walk around shaking hands with the employees as the camera fades out.

Narrator: Well, it appears that The Wicked managed to get through this tour without causing any grievous bodily harm to anyone… overall, a very pleasant day, maybe they even made some new friends and fans… until next time… na-na na-naa-naaaaaaa!