The Official Playlist

Rope Burn: A Literary Novel

Twenty songs for a world of VFW halls, warehouse rings, and Friday nights that cost you everything.

Rope Burn is a novel about loving something that doesn't love you back. These twenty songs are the soundtrack to that devotion — the grind, the glory, the heartbreak, and the long drive home.

Some belong to specific characters. Some belong to moments in the story. A few belong to the feeling you get when the lights go down and the music hits and the crowd decides to believe.

Play it straight through. It tells a story.

From the world of the novel

— Proudly Presents —

FAHRENHEIT FURY

FRIDAY • BELL TIME 7:30 PM • THE ARMORY

Doors Open 6:45 PM — Meet the Wrestlers at Intermission

★ ★ ★ Main Event ★ ★ ★

8-Man Single Elimination Tournament

New SWP Heavyweight Champion Crowned Tonight

Mike "The Bruiser" Alvarez

Jim "The Hammer" Tanner

Joey Davis

"Bad" Brad Davis

"The Starmaker" Stew Paul

Plus Additional Competitors TBA

Plus Special Attraction

Sy "The Soul" Reaper

Banned by Three State Athletic Commissions

In Hardcore Action — Opponent TBA

Plus More Matches To Be Announced

Card Subject to Change

General Admission

$12

Front Row: $18 • Kids Under 6: Free

Official After Party

The Wing Place

Cold Beer • Hot Wings • All the Boys

Family-Friendly Entertainment
Concessions Available
Wrestler Autographs at Intermission

Takin' Care of Business

Bachman-Turner Overdrive

Luke Anderson's personal theme. The guy with the clipboard. The guy who shows up early, stays late, and holds the whole operation together because somebody has to. He doesn't wrestle. He doesn't want the spotlight. He just takes care of business. Every single Friday night.

Sympathy for the Devil

The Rolling Stones

Stan Weizenschmidt. Pleased to meet you, hope you guess my name. The promoter who can work a crowd into a frenzy and kayfabe his own right-hand man in the same night. Charming, manipulative, impossible to quit. You never know where the performance ends and the person begins.

Independent Women, Pt. 1

Destiny's Child

Amber "Lady Liberty" Justice. She bought her own championship belt when Stan wouldn't. She recruited her own opponents. She built her own character over seven years on the indie circuit. A Black woman working a patriotic gimmick in front of mostly white crowds in Indiana — and they loved her. Because she was that good.

You're So Vain

Carly Simon

Trent "The Future" Howard. Designer jeans, expensive sunglasses worn indoors, and a smirk that made Luke's teeth hurt. His first words at training: "So, when do I get my first title shot?" He played it off like a joke. They both knew he meant it.

Fortunate Son

Creedence Clearwater Revival

Tony DiMarco. Heir to the largest car dealership in the county, firm handshake learned from a business book, and a new hobby that was about to cost everyone else their livelihood. Some folks are born silver spoon in hand.

Everyday People

Sly & The Family Stone

Stew "The Starmaker" Paul. Six-foot-six, four hundred pounds, a security guard at the local high school. People stare, make assumptions. But in the ring, he's Stewie the Starmaker. He matters. He moves better than a man his size has any right to. And he uses his jackpot winnings to fix his mom's bathroom.

Stronger (What Doesn't Kill You)

Kelly Clarkson

Rachel. Not Joey's girlfriend — Rachel. The ER nurse who quietly engineers a better future while the boys argue about tournament brackets. She sees Joey's shoulder getting worse before he'll admit it. She lines up the Heartland job through her cousin. She has her life together. Nobody else in this book can say that.

Your Song

Elton John

Joey and Rachel. She pulls up in a Toyota Corolla wearing scrubs. He smiles like the whole world just got simpler. She's an ER nurse who comes to wrestling shows with her dad. He's the most promising kid Stan's ever trained. Together, they're the future this business doesn't usually allow.

Wanted Dead or Alive

Bon Jovi

Mike "The Bruiser" Alvarez. Twenty years. Stints in Japan and Mexico. A WWE tryout where they said he had "potential but needed to work on his look." A failed marriage. A day job stacking boxes. And every Friday night, he laces up his boots because he doesn't know who he is without this.

Glory Days

Bruce Springsteen

Jim "The Hammer" Tanner. The technical purist from the legendary camp in Minneapolis. Television appearances that almost led to something bigger. Wednesday dinners with his son — the one commitment he never breaks. The same reliable Timex he's worn for as long as anyone can remember.

The Gambler

Kenny Rogers

The casino. The road trip. The night Stew accidentally bet max on a dollar machine and hit for eight grand. But it's really about all of them — sitting at a bar after a show, figuring out when to hold on and when to walk away. Joey's thinking about a factory job. Mike's thinking about nothing else.

Wicked Game

Chris Isaak

A vending machine alcove at 1:30 AM in a Red Roof Inn off Interstate 74. Two people who live inside a world that outsiders never understand, finding each other in the space between shows. For a few hours, Luke isn't the operations manager. He's just a man. By morning, she's gone.

Good Riddance (Time of Your Life)

Green Day

Joey lays the belt in the center of the ring. He gives a speech about what wrestling and the fans meant to him. He shakes hands with the boys. He doesn't look back. There's a certainty in his stride that Luke envies. He's the only one who gets out clean.

Don't Stop Believin'

Journey

The Pine Grove Adult Care Home comes to a Friday night show. Danny, who's thirty-four and has collected every flyer featuring Mike. Thomas, who starts humming along with the entrance music. You have no idea what you've given them tonight, Elaine says. But Luke's thinking the same thing about them.

Tubthumping

Chumbawamba

SWP after Trent's arrest. Half the roster gone. Attendance in the toilet. Eviction looming. Stan takes the microphone: We are the first, the last, and the best. We'll outlive them all. The crowd goes crazy. Not because of what he said, but how he said it. They get knocked down. They get up again.

Hurt

Johnny Cash

Stan and Victor Koslov. Thirty years of stolen money, betrayal, and silence. Victor walks through the curtain to his old Soviet anthem, and the crowd erupts. Two men in their sixties standing in a ring, the weight of everything between them. Truth must be acknowledged before it can be forgiven.

Lose Yourself

Eminem

Luke's double life collapses. The disastrous presentation. The performance improvement plan. The retreat he skips to make bell time. Fifteen years of choosing the clipboard over everything else, and the moment he realizes he's built his entire identity around someone else's dream.

The Show Must Go On

Queen

The retirement show at the Armory. Four hundred and two paid. Joey's last match. Victor's return. Stan's speech. The whole promotion pulling together for one last great night. The canvas gets rolled up. The ropes get stacked by the door. It looks like exactly what it is — disassembled plywood and steel pipe and worn padding. But Luke saw what it became when the lights went down.

I Can't Make You Love Me

Bonnie Raitt

The book's thesis, in one song. Loving something that doesn't love you back. Stan loves the business. Luke loves the promotion. Mike loves the ring. Joey loves it enough to leave. And the business just keeps taking, indifferent to all of it. You already know how this ends. You stay anyway.

Long Train Runnin'

The Doobie Brothers

The drive home. The highway stretching ahead. The thing about this world that nobody who hasn't lived it can quite believe: how small it all gets when you take it apart. And how quickly you'd do it all again when someone asks. "Luke! I need you." He'd been there for fifteen years of Fridays. He couldn't imagine not being there for fifteen more.