Post by Spencer Adams on Aug 12, 2019 15:32:18 GMT -5
Part 1: Suppression (Post Carnage)
WE GON’ BE ALRIGHT!
WE GON’ BE ALRIGHT!
The words chanted by the Phoenix crowd gathered outside the arena came with extra weight tonight, ringing through the night and seeping in through my own ear drums.
WE GON’ BE ALRIGHT!
As I continue trying my best to keep my left shoulder stable, I can feel the aftershock of my upper body’s every movement coursing through the injured area. Still, I find the moment’s biggest concern to be secondary to my own lingering frustration.
WE GON’ BE ALRIGHT!
How many times do we have to run this back? How many times in my professional career is a ruthless antagonist going to rear their head and shine that wicked grin as they attempt to derail everything I love and everything I find myself fighting so hard for?
WE GON’ BE ALRIGHT!
I’ve always clung to hope and optimism, because I know without it, I will fade and things will be washed away. The timing right now though? I’m not sad or down on myself. If I were to be looking in a mirror, I bet my expression would match those around me right now.
WE GON’ BE ALRIGHT!
We were seeked out and attempts were made to snuff us out, to extinguish our fire once and for all. I’m not, I’m fucking angry. WE are fucking angry and right now, I’d say as a group, there is more determination than ever.
WE GON’ BE ALRIGHT!
It means a lot to me on a personal level to see and hear these people out here giving out this sort of reaction in the face of hardship. There were times not horribly long ago where I felt isolated from these people, where we’d mutually drifted apart and built bitter resentment.
WE GON’ BE ALRIGHT!
Honestly, even through this uncertainty, knowing I am likely to head into a situation where medical professionals advise against me carrying on with this movement for the time being..I feel optimistic in a way that reminds me of my rookie tenure in WCF, an era where time and time again I would pick myself back up despite the losses and attacks by people doing their best to keep me from doing so.
WE GON’ BE ALRIGHT!
Over these past few months, I’ve felt the sort of by committee energy supplied by these passionate brothers and sisters in arms and with this I know that what happens next is going to matter and will not only be my own personal biggest moment to date, but it will be all of ours as we fight on in pursuit
WE GON’ BE ALRIGHT!
WE GON’ BE ALRIGHT!
WE GON’ BE ALRIGHT!
Part 2: Imperfection
The scene built around the bowling alley in East Jesus is an eccentric one, something that YouTube videos and Viceland snippets will never do perfect justice. While Salvation Mountain serves us all as a spiritual sauna of a formation whose vibrant colors look as if they were melted on by giant overhanging candlesticks of every shade and color, the abstract art of East Jesus was far less beautiful by traditional standards.
East Jesus looks more like the result of a Coachella, Mad Max, and Texas Chainsaw Massacre mashup left to ferment under the harsh desert sun. The displays are faded and cluttered to say the least, but tell a story all their own. From old trucks lined with baby doll heads to lone walls of hubcaps and fatbacked televisions, East Jesus is made up of elements from normalcy molded into the makings of a backwoods Wonderland.
The frustration in AA was continuing to mount with every occuring blunder as he rolled a battered black bowling ball down the lane.
I stood off to the side, tracking the ball as it traversed the lumpy dirt and wooden walls of the bath in front of it.
KOS: Maybe it’s more deliberate than you think.
Andre: Bro, all that’s needed is to smooth the fuckin’ ground out and it’s golden though.
KOS: Why should it be? Take a look around us. All of this is far from convention, but you know that. It’s what makes Slabs what it is, right?
Andre: I’m just tryna bowl the shit, bro. I know what you sayin’ about the arts and that’s chill. I fuck wit’ all that, but this right here ain’t function right.
KOS: When was the path to an end goal with any sort of significance ever an A to B affair? Make no mistake, every bump ahead is important. It’s a test of one’s persistence and determination. Whether it’s outdoor bowling or life in general.
Andre: or a couple’uh shitters tryna smash ya shoulder into chocolate pudding?
KOS: Yes, actually. It’s exactly like that. Frustration is an understandable quality to have with any sort of adversity, but it’s important to channel our inner strength in the face of it. It should always go hand in hand with fighting effort.
Andre: Shit, bro. You talkin’ ‘bout adversity and shit like muhfuckers ain’t pullin’ out the leather to swing across ya back. I don’t know how the fuck your ass is supposed to pull off the dub in a five man ladder match wit’ one arm. Not finna lie, I’d probably have taken the vacation and kicked back for awhile.
KOS: You know that I can’t. If it means cutting the recovery window in half and risking myself for the cause, it doesn’t matter.
Andre: You different, bro.
He cocks back and lets the ball roll off his fingers once more, but botches the release and sends the ball rolling out over the wooden siding at the abrupt sound of a tall, scrawny dog busting out of a nearby screen door and sprinting off towards the camps.
AA turns the direction of the dog and starts taking off before shouting back my direction.
I nod his way as he hurries off out of sight. The gentle sound of the screen door’s last few smacks against its entryway filter through the air, redirecting my eyes to the source as I watch it finally peter out.
Part 3: A swing of the poplar tree branch (AW network exclusive)
A scattered group of crew members scurry along in the background, each one carrying a ladder out towards the stage. A jumble of commands and responses buzzes in the back via walkie talkies as the shot focuses in on a deep breathing and bold-faced KOS. He turns slightly to his right, extending a pointer finger towards the crew members as continue in a conveyer-like formation towards the inner arena.
He stands silent momentarily, tilting his head curiously at the cameraman as he waits for a response. Mild tension wafts towards him and KOS takes another step forward, repeating the question as his eyes fixate on the cameraman.
Cameraman: I-
KOS: I see truth in all of its ugliness. I see no shortage of the word “no”, a future marred by a foot on the back, driving us teeth first against raised concrete. Perspective is a revealing concept that allows us to see constructs that were previously phantom to us. Do you see what I see?
With a half revolution, KOS aims his fiery gaze at the scene unfolding, leaving his back to the camera as he does so.
For TFK, this is shallowness and vanity, it’s magazine covers and invisalign smiles. I see him in this production shuffle clear as day. This second shot at Ryan Lockhart’s world championship is nothing more than a Good Morning America experience and a slew of agreeable, cookie cutter news articles praising. We can all imagine how the gears were turning during the T.H.E conversation about which of them would step up to Ryan at Carnage and surely, there was no shortage of self serving motivation behind himself being the one picked for the opportunity.
Maybe..just maybe..Thaddeus felt safe, thinking that his history of paling around with Lockhart and his old #BeachKrew cohorts in the public eye would mean that he’d avoid some degree of embarrassment and that it would be Alex Richards who would actually end up at a disadvantage, but that’s just an illusion created by the delusional mind of TFK himself. Both Thaddeus and the management team should’ve taken note from his unsuccessful attempt at reaching the top last month, but here we are again, made to watch him fall flat a second time.
The top of the mountain continues to crowd and the battles at the summit only become more and more intense. When you look at TFK, you will see someone who is unchanging, a clickbait fiend clinging to a trailing thread and watching it unravel in front of him. This is where everyone will learn that one of these things is not like the other and TFK’s lack of true passion and preoccupation with the T.H.E lifestyle, something that he personally has rode the entirety of his career, will come back to bite him and it always will, because the heart isn’t there.
It will now end definitively..because the antidote to TFK’s climb up the ranks in Action Wrestling cemented a spot on this summit long ago. While Spencer Adams was elevating the main event to new heights, Thaddeus King was allowed to live at his own personal peak with his career finding its true ceiling as the ruler of a B tier still working to establish its footing. Here, among world champions in a match where a measure of heart will decide who walks out with the world title, there’s no place for a man with the most hollow motives of the entire field.
TFK didn’t just struggle in our previous encounters, he was put away with ease. When the two of us face off, he goes down with little fight. No matter how confident he tries to make himself appear, TFK knows that he doesn’t have an answer when we share a ring and it’s in these moments that he is at his most vulnerable and his ego shows the bruises on its body. It’s been awhile since I had the pleasure of putting him in his place and now I've got thousands of others behind me who are clamoring for it to happen again and whether I’m at full strength or dragging myself up a ladder by my good arm, I will deliver for them.
While TFK comes into the battle as the most hard headed and short sighted of the bunch, Dandy DiVito is something much more formidable, a wild card whose recent approach has put him at the front of the line in the eyes of many watching. From day one, Dandy established a reputation as a newcomer capable of reaching this point that very few new signings manage to do in a high level promotion. Now that Casey Holliday is out of the way, the spot of next up is open for the taking and the only others currently capable of contending for that spot will be trying to pick up the ball that Casey dropped as All In holder.
There’s something to be said though about somebody who shows the drive to go out there and try to take what they want rather than waiting around or lightly tapping on the collective shoulder of the front office in hopes that they grant you what you feel you’re deserving of and that appears to be what Dandy DiVito is doing right now. He easily could’ve gone back to terrorize the US title division, but he appears to be swinging even higher with eyes set on the very top of the card what many believe to be an unbeatable world champion.
Still, Dandy is no different than the three others in this matchup where it matters most and that is the fact that he wants the crown. Everyone with an AW contract as well as fighting to get noticed and ink their own WANTS that AW world championship, but they don’t need it...not really anyways. Short of clout chasing and a desire to flex machismo, the world title is nothing short of hardware to brag over and lift that sense of self up just a little bit higher to him and so many others in the locker room.
Coming off the heels of a brutal blood feud against Sam Kidsgrove and lurking in the shadows to try to get into the minds of the who's who in Action Wrestling isn’t a bad strategy on paper, but in reality, there is one constant standing in the way of sneaky pursuit and that is all of us, the KOS movement dusting itself off once again and going into battle with our hearts on our sleeves. We see Dandy lurking in the shadows and are prepared to take the worst he has to offer. Dandy comes in here hot off months of waging war with a single rival, we come battle hardened by lifetimes of it against the world. If Dandy thinks he will catch us off guard and snuff out our movement in route to victory, trust me when I say...he’s wrong.
Looking at who we are tasked with getting past tonight, Alex Richards is undoubtedly the most well intentioned and passionate foe in the bunch. While I see it as a questionable move to keep TFK in the world scene following Carnage, I understand Richards inclusion here. Alex is a big match performer who will always provide an honest fight. Despite us often finding ourselves on opposite sides of the battlefield throughout the past handful of years, I’ve always been up front with my acknowledgment of Richards’ place in this industry.
During his first go at Action Wrestling, Richards didn’t find himself in a main event role, but things have been different since returning. Becoming the final WCF hall of famer and coming up just short of ending the reign of Ryan Lockhart at Carnage is as impressive of a comeback tour as we’ll ever see in AW. The last time I faced off against Alex, THIS was the version of him that I was looking for, the hyper focused mammoth of a man capable of knocking heads off of shoulders. THIS is the Alex Richards I will take pride in beating on the way to a second AW championship.
Could he be the one to climb up and pull down the championship? Yes. Has he traveled down the proper path to take down Ryan Lockhart and proceed him as the face of the company? Alex is successful and prosperous. The man has it better than many probably realize and his life has him existing in this sort of sunny bubble. That is what’s so restricting for someone like Richards in a situation like this. The target on Lockhart’s head continues to grow and as that happens, so does the amount of grit and suffering required in pursuit of the gold.
For as competent and capable of a talent as Alex Richards is, the world and mythos surrounding him is one of Looney Tune aesthetics and Scooby Doo hardships. Richards’ world is Pee-Wee’s playhouse and between these impressive athletic outings are days spent getting his bike back from Francis. Alex battled with his inner self long ago and came out a better man as a result, but that better man is far removed from his days spent as a broken individual. He found his fairy tale ending long ago.
Alex is someone who has fun with this profession and that’s good for him, but the number of people who come out each and every week and form a mob choir to shout “We gon’ be alright!” for the world to hear need more than that. We are in the midst of grim times and The King of Slabs is here to shoulder their load and bare their pain..to fight on when told not to in order to return the favor for the strength given to me by each and every one of those chanting voices. Of course, I would welcome a follow up challenge from Richards, but for now, I am here to flip a feeling of mass confusion and misery into one of hope.
That’s where we come to one of the biggest constants of 2019, AW World Champion Ryan Lockhart. For the bulk of his reign, Ryan Lockhart has begged and pleaded with both management and the rest of the active roster to present him with worthy challengers, voicing disgust and frustration over being put against opponents that he’s felt to be beneath him, but things have been different for the past few months. Lockhart has gone from five hundred and six straight title defenses against the likes of Jaice Wilds to now being run through the Action Wrestling gauntlet.
The results have impressed so far with Ryan narrowly escaping defeat time and time again, but the pressure is building as the pedigree of these challenges continues to grow. The exhibition level defenses are now a thing of the past and that means that with every passing defense, it becomes just a little bit harder for Ryan to survive in a landscape with increasing hunger who are all aiming in his direction. Every finisher, every challenger..they’re stacking on one another. The two counts turn to two and a half counts and as we’ve seen recently..those will turn into two point nines.
Casey Holliday tried to take advantage of the situation and while she came up short, it had to hurt Ryan mentally. Retaining in the face of a healthy All In holder after Bobby Rage dismantles you, that can’t and shouldn’t be ignored, but how close were we to seeing things go horribly wrong for Ryan Lockhart? What would’ve happened if it were Casey that won and scrambled out from the arena with the title in tow? Culture Shock came to make a statement regardless, so they targeted who they perceived as 1A, vying in their own way for “next up”. Ryan Lockhart was very likely one tenth of a second away from being thrown through the stage and going up in flames himself.
Why does it feel that way? Why does it feel that losing the world title will cause Ryan to fall from grace so hard? It’s strange to be able to say that about the longest reigning world champion in company history, a generational talent who is seemingly in a league of his own, but that feeling can’t be ignored. We’re all thinking it, right? Even Ryan. All you have to do is take an honest look at the wideness in his eyes in these close moments and the way he clutches that championship in these narrow victories. It’s not just passion, it’s fear thinly veiled by cockiness when the butterflies settle down.
With the heat growing harsher and harsher, Ryan is reeling. Now, it comes back full circle for his biggest test as world champion and that is against a one-armed foe ready to take him back to a time where he served as his own harshest critic while in pursuit of the sort of spots owned by people like myself and Wade Moor. This is Ryan Lockhart versus The King of Slabs. The difference maker between this and a faceoff against middling never weres is that when I take my shot, I don’t settle on this miss and tell myself that I tried my best. I keep going and all those empty pot shots of you claiming superiority over me..hold no weight at all, not a f*cking ounce. When you bark, I’ll roar..when you bite, I’ll chew..you climb up and reach for your championship thinking that you have a window of opportunity to do so, I’ll hop up on one f*cking foot to yank you back down if that’s what it takes!
This is my everything right here, OUR everything! When I am staring up at the briefcase, on the top of that ladder, I will be faced once more with the evil of a system deeply flawed to its core. As I grab that first rung, I feel strangers avoid eye contact. As I grab for the second, I see those same strangers cross the street to walk opposite me. By the time I’m halfway up, I'm digging around in my pocket for my wallet to fetch my ID and before I can grab the next rung, I hear "drop the weapon!" Screamed in my direction. Still, despite those detours, I make it to the top and when I reach the top of that ladder and look out over a sea of OUR people, anyone and everyone who is forgotten and dismissed by the selfishness of what we have come to know as The American Dream in its current state, I can't help but hear the cries growing sharper with each moment. “DIE N****R DIE!” I'm fingertips away..“DIE N****R DIE!” The dream is about to become a reality. The pressure is supposed to cause me to stumble on my own, but I hang on and as I unlatch the championship from its resting place, that final cry..of die n****r die...it fades to nothing, because I know that when the leather is pulled from its resting place..we will have reclaimed and rectified all of it!
So..when skeptics and critics alike aim their words in the direction of myself and the movement that I continue to scratch and claw for and ask why I’m here, WHY I’m not at home healing and why I’ve put myself in position for this opportunity in the first place..understand that it is because I care..it is because I know that I can’t stand idly by and hope for another competitor to fight in representation of all who are oppressed or down on their luck as a result of the greyness hanging over their heads in this modern world. Pain is temporary, but being perched up top with world championship held even higher and listening to the world sing along? That..is beautiful.