Desmond Pryce
Handler: jcbarr
1
Wins
1
Losses
0
Draws
Biography
Desmond Pryce will tell you, if asked, that submission wrestling is not about pain. It's about geometry. About understanding the angles at which a human body is stable and the angles at which it is not, and then relocating it from the former to the latter in the most efficient sequence available. He will tell you this pleasantly. He will seem genuinely interested in your reaction. And then, if you are on a wrestling card with him, he will spend the next twelve minutes demonstrating it on your skeleton until you tap, or until a part of you stops working the way it used to. Pryce is a heel in the truest sense — not theatrical, not moustache-twirling, but quietly, conversationally awful. He is the kind of person who argues that what he is doing is a service, that forcing an opponent to acknowledge their structural limitations is more honest than pretending they don't exist. He has the vocabulary of a physiotherapist and the intentions of a sadist, and the disconnect between the two is where most of his menace lives. He dresses well. He is never late. He wins more than he loses. In STRIFE, he is not yet feared so much as studied — cautiously, at a safe distance.
Attributes
Affects damage output of power-based moves
Affects speed, evasion, and aerial move effectiveness
Affects performance degradation over match length
Affects crowd interaction and promo-based match modifiers
Affects bonus multipliers from pre-match roleplay scoring
Affects match pacing decisions and comeback mechanics
Affects damage received from physical strikes and slams
Passive reduction of damage from counter-able move types
Passive reduction of effectiveness of submission holds
Move List
Finisher
Signature Moves
Class Moves
Universal Moves
Basic Moves
Entrance
Classical strings — something minor-key, precise, and cold. Not aggressive; considered. The lights don't change dramatically, just shift to a cooler, slightly dimmer tone, like the air conditioning in a waiting room has been turned up. Pryce walks out in a tailored black blazer over his ring attire, collar open, unhurried. He moves down the ramp with the easy confidence of a man who has already won and is simply allowing the formality to conclude. He acknowledges the crowd the way a barrister might acknowledge an audience in court — he is aware of them, he accepts their presence, but they are not the relevant parties here. At ringside he removes the blazer, folds it over the announce table barrier, and enters the ring through the ropes with one smooth step. He then turns to face his opponent and watches them with that attentive, almost courteous expression that never quite resolves into warmth. He does not crack his knuckles or stretch dramatically. He simply waits, hands at his sides, and lets them look back at him. It is almost always the opponent who looks away first.
Backstory
Desmond Pryce was raised in Bristol, the eldest of three children, by a mother who was a physiotherapist and a father who coached youth rugby until Desmond was twelve and then departed without particular explanation. The physio background mattered. Growing up around anatomy charts and joint models and the clinical vocabulary of connective tissue gave Pryce a framework for thinking about the body that most wrestlers don't develop until much later, if at all. By the time he found wrestling — through a submission grappling gym at sixteen, initially as a fitness outlet — he was already thinking in the language of leverage and load. He was never especially aggressive. His early coaches found this frustrating. He didn't want to hurt people; he wanted to solve them. Wrestling, specifically submission wrestling, turned out to be the ideal discipline for someone who experienced opponents as interesting structural puzzles rather than enemies. He won consistently. He was not particularly popular with training partners. His professional career has been steady and largely unpublicised — he does not seek attention, and promotions have sometimes struggled to market someone whose most threatening quality is competence. STRIFE, with its focus on in-ring credibility, felt like a correct fit. He applied without fanfare and was approved without incident. He has already mapped the locker room.
Gallery
