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Salem had been too busy choking for air to realize that Three was already atop him, feeling the solid wood plank brought up painfully underneath his chin. The scent of cedar stung his nose, and for a moment Salem managed to see through the blurry tears that had formed in his eyes from the previous smoke and coughing. He was being dragged up, back into the ring, for surely malicious purposes. Each step Three took drove the board hard into his raw throat and collarbone, leaving them both red from the wood grains by the time Three left him in the ring.

Salem writhed slowly across the canvas, still clenching one bloody fist tightly closed as he struggled to sit up with his opposite forearm. He could feel the ring quiver as Three made his return, the young challenger seeing the white outlines of the straitjacket in-tow. However, as Three would draw in to try and put it on him, Salem would Throw his balled hand forward towards Three's face - revealing a fistful of thumbtacks that Salem had grabbed while under the ring.

Their needles had chewed at his palm in the process, causing the blood that had been on his hands since Three had flushed him from hiding with his crafty tricks. However, if Salem's attempt at catching Three by surprise was successful, he'd immediately attempt to turn the tides by springing off the mat in desperation to nail the man with a gut-wrenching spear.

Salem was fighting for his life at the moment, putting all his might into the nosedive tackle that sent Three sprawling to the canvas. Ordinarily, Salem would try to soak up a bit of enthusiasm from the crowd following such a high-impact maneuver, but this wasn't the time for showboating. Salem had to keep the offense going if he were to avoid what Three had in mind - or manage to beat Three for that matter. Postured atop Three following the Spear, Salem would immediately start to rain down fists at the champion's head, trying to strike him in the sides of his head to both do damage and hopefully rattle his equilibrium, perhaps giving Salem enough time to either recover or go for the jacket, himself.

After raining down some heavy fists against Three's defending forearms, Salem felt that enough damage had been done and went to grasp the coarse grain 2x4 that Three had previously used on him to the delight of the crowd. Draping the wooden post caddy-cornered across the top ropes of the nearest turnbuckle, Salem would return to Three - rousing the champion to his feet. Once his groggy opponent was standing, Salem would hoist Three up by the waist, sending his body up and through the air like a lawn dart with the intent of breaking the champ's face through the cedar plank.

After Salem had thrown Three through the plank, he immediately began working on his next act of punishment, setting up a table that Three had previously thrown into the ring. About the time the crowd started to quieten down, however, Salem was lifting up the apron, looking for a special ingredient to mix into this deadly concoction that was this title match. The audience's reaction caused Salem to look up at Three, shaking as though he were having a seizure as he struggled to get back up to his feet. Pulling a bucket of thumbtacks out from under the ring, Salem clenched his teeth and growled in frustration as he slid back beneath the bottom ropes, bucket in tow.

As Salem poured the thumbtacks across the table, a sound was made that resembled rain as the tiny metal pins were spilled out onto the table and mat, causing the audience to stir once again with anxiousness. Turning to look at Three, Salem glared at the champion as he laughed, almost to his feet already. The bruises from the last time Three laughed like this were still fresh on Salem's mind and body, and Salem knew he'd have to do something big if he wanted to try and put the demon away...

Dragging the champ towards the table by his arm, Salem would get up behind the dazed Three, wrapping his arms around his waist for a suplex attempt as Three stood right in front of the thumbtack'd table. With a grunt, Salem would try to hoist the man up before letting him go just as his back was up above the table, turning around to try and catch the falling Three with a Suplex Neckbreaker - a maneuver that Salem affectionately called, "Nevermore". If successful, Salem hoped to turn around and see Three's broken body among the splinters and needles that would be left from being driven through the tack-laden table.

Salem struggled desperately to get Three over to the table, but he was putting up quite a resistance along the way, causing Salem to get frustrated. Though he'd managed to get behind his opponent, Salem failed to get him up as the veteran was crafty enough to hook a leg behind himself and around Salem's knee. Stepping back with his untangled foot to regain leverage, Salem would inadvertently miss Three's stomp as he went to weaken the big man some more with a volley of blows to his kidneys...hoping to loosen Three's leg so he could attempt the Suplex maneuver once again.

Salem's fists had bruised Three's kidneys, causing the champion to lower his guard enough for the "Charismatic Calamity" to take advantage - lifting the heavyweight up by his waist before dropping his back into the table, while spinning and performing a Neckbreaker at the same time. The move, Nevermore, was one of Salem's signatures. The raven-haired warrior hoped that it would earn its name and keep Three down long enough to get the jacket on him, but no one in the stands was thinking that far ahead as Three went crashing through the table. All they could see were the thousands of tacks sparkling through the air, briefly bathing the ring in a cloud of silver while camera flashes mirrored the spectacle across the arena.

Salem could hear the roar of the crowd, amped up from the impressive spectacle they'd just witnessed. It was like listening to a waterfall, a surging torrent of cheers and applause that rattled Salem to his very bones. Like a surge of electricity, Salem snapped back up to his feet just a second after Three had been laid out across the canvas, turning with wide-eyed wonder as the rookie stood on the brink of capturing his first-ever championship. Turning towards the jacket, Salem advanced towards it a few steps before hearing the sound of trickling rain behind him. Turning slowly, the "Heir-Apparent of Hardcore" was left in wide-mouthed shock as Three rose from the dead mere moments after being buried in splinters and needles.

Wooden boards, ladders, beds of nails, chairs, thumbtacks, and tables...all these things had been thrown at the defending gladiator. And yet, he rose each and every time with that same wicked laugh and smile. For a brief moment, Salem questioned the madness that was this match - was this what it meant to be the Asylum Champion? Salem wanted to know. He had to know what that felt like, wrapping that belt around his waist. Now, more than ever, he stood - tired, bruised, and bloody - before Three...however, the resolve in Salem's eyes was flawless as he looked on at the rising corpse.

"NO!" Salem bellowed, nostrils flaring as he clenched his fists, watching as bloody thumbtacks poured off of the champion as he ascended back to his feet.

Though it may have been flair that drove Three to move forward for the tie-up, it was pride that moved Salem's feet and hands into motion, returning the gesture with bared teeth. People had doubted Salem's worthiness of being in this title match - after all, he was only here because Hiro's friends couldn't keep their hands to themselves during his and Salem's lumberjack match. Winning a contender's shot by disqualification was unflattering to say the least, and the experience had left a sour taste in Salem's mouth and a heavy chip on his shoulder.

He carried that cinderblock-sized burden on his back throughout this entire match, and his body showed it. At this point, Salem was running on more adrenaline than energy, and it was fair to say that tunnel vision had seized hold of his sense of observation. Still, Salem couldn't bow down to Three. Doing so would just prove those people right - even though Salem had been pushing the champion to his very breaking point, he couldn't feel vindicated until he could hold that Asylum Championship up above his head with pride.

Grasping at Three's hands, Salem would blink in brief nervousness as he suddenly sensed a different person standing before him...something more sinister than the Demon he'd been dueling this whole match. Something...sinister.