Post by Downfall on Dec 10, 2023 14:17:05 GMT -5
Now I ask myself the same question. I never want it to be said that I'm not willing to turn my sharp gaze 180 degrees inward.
After every single thing I've worked towards in a perfectly-executed trilogy, after grinding through everything put in my way, when the rubber meets the road and I sit here in this promo room, holding the actual belt in my lap, and tasked with filming weekly content for a wrestling show, it occurs as I stare into my reflection in it's faceplate; What to do with it?
There are many options. Honestly, it could even be said that the first instinct upon winning it was to take a long, loving gaze at this belt I'd just pushed past everything to win, savor the ultimate moment of triumph, and then put it back down.
Not disrespectfully, not throwing it on the ground and stomping on it, not saying that it's never meant shit if it didn't belong to me. No, just taking the moment, tasting it, and then letting it go.
Because that's what "the sunset", as Tatiana Jolee puts it, was always about, wasn't it? That's the epiphany that struck me halfway through the run to Uprising and All-In about the never-ending nature of stories and filming content for a weekly wrestling show. In an ongoing narrative, everything will always have to reset to default. Change can be simply cosmetic.
It's exactly as I pointed out to Tatiana, in point of fact, if you want to claim a longer run with the gold than three weeks, you're going to need to assume the same heady, narcisstic attitude, cock-o'-the-walk I'm the fucking shit and every ounce of dirt I trod on is as beneath me as my opponents, and the same desperate, cheating greed, the insecurity baked in to do whatever you can to hold on to that belt.
Ongoing narratives are assumption of a status quo. Time's a flat circle. All of that.
My three-act harmony was in coming to grips with that, that in year one I did fight my way all the way to the World Title, and did so honorably, and did so without the insight that nothing gold can stay.
That all the gold in California is in a bank in someone else's name, and you just borrow your time with it.
So, yes, I did consider, the completion of this arc as just putting the title down at Turmoil, and walking away, satisfied.
Is that something you'd ever have thought Downfall of 2020, of 2021, would consider, even for a second?
Ahhh but there was another asterisk added (there is always another asterisk). Tatiana kicked out of a tertiary finisher, possibly a second too late, possibly a second too early, who can say? Controversy drives the status quo.
Peter Parker does not ever marry his MJ and retire peacefully from superheroing, he makes a deal with the Devil, Mary Jane is trapped in an alternate universe, something comes to keep them apart, no matter how much it may piss fans who want some change off.
That is the nature of stories.
Tatiana Jolee is given an asterisk, a maybe-legit-maybe-not gripe that gives the idea that she was SCREWED, that this is yet another Torture/Pasternak/Brady/whoever in management SCREWJOB.
There is always another asterisk.
And then, I wouldn't have even had time to ponder if the long-term of defending this title and taking up the yoke on my shoulders was the way it should end for me; Already spinning out of my hands because of Tatiana's stated claim... out, predictably, paraded Gerard Angelo to cash in his All-In briefcase because he thought it would be an easy mark, and out came the returning Shadowlove to prevent HIM, and on, and on.
When I spoke, arrogantly, in August of breaking the wheel, it was with the hubris you expect of me.
Even in the deepest pits of nihilism, there still remains enough of that arrogant young shit in me that says that yes, all life is meaningless, chaotic entropy. That nothing matters. That all of your achievements in time will be fucking dust and that time destabilizes even the most centered bases, but I'm still strong enough, still smart enough, still bad enough to be the one that masters chaos, that turns anarchy to my advantage.
I still harbor those feelings. That I'm good enough to stand tall.
But what this has shown me is that even if you, personally, break your own cycles, there's always another, bigger cog spinning over your head. You're just... well, the Inner Circle. Ha.
I realize this isn't the approach you'd expect of me in this moment. I fought through the Wrestler of the Year tournament, I accomplished what no one in AW history has and won two Turmoils and was the only man to get to three back-to-back finals, I dethroned Jolee and won my second World title. I should be chest beating, swearing dominance, talking about how I've assumed the throne and I'm the Draw of Action Wrestling.
The thing is that I see the writing on the wall, in that entire, breathless exchange, Tatiana rolling out of the ring, Gerard power-walking down with briefcase in hand, smirking in my face, Shadowlove and I'm sorry I keep blanking on his prostitute's name showing up on the ramp.
Cut to this week and my first outing as World Champion; (A perennial AW favorite!) A six-man tag team match that, at best scenario, will end with all six of us brawling so wildly that the match gets thrown out, and Brady Bolt walking out onto the stage to lay down some fucking ridiculous six-man World Title ladder match; Even more realistically, it's going to be the outlier, the "Why in God's name are you in this match" additions of Dake Ken Jr or Teo Blaze taking a pinfall.
Either way, it's just another turn of the wheel.
Nature of unended stories, nature of weekly wrestling content. I'd be asinine to think I could change that.
And it's made me realize there is never going to be that perfect, shining moment in the sun. I'm never going to get even a chance to hold my belt up proudly, nor will there be a fucking one-on-one World Title main event because *snorts coke* Shshsghhha YEAH we gotta have a fucking REAL MAIN EVENT BROTHER.
We'll have to shoehorn in four dipshits that keep losing opportunities, at all costs, and inserting them in there to make things so much bigger and crazier.
Sounds bitter, right? Nihilistic, even?
It's not, it's honest.
At best, I'm standing across the ring from three idiots who's necks I'd had to step on over the past month, starting with Teo who I just outright washed, and who have every motivation to band together and bring my first outing as World Champ to a bitterly unsatisfactory conclusion; meanwhile I'm standing by with two people I don't know from Adam, cannot trust, and, in the curious case of Mister Dake Ken, Jr., continues to haunt the AW World Title scene despite zero victories that matter, graduating from OMEGA and doing fuck all except compete on a level where I'm actually certain Jaice Wilds would be a credible threat.
And lookit that, I've insulted my own partners, now our team will implode. Oopsies, we've hit on yet another established trope, bickering sinking ships. It's almost as if this match is paint-by-the-numbers from jump street.
But what else can I do?
I stare at the belt in my lap. In the low light of this promo room, the gold is muted, the accents dulled. I can see my reflection, but because of the lighting, it's distorted, it barely looks human. And that's an answer, but not one that people want to hear.
What I can do is play my part and play it well. Like me or not, I AM someone who is at home in anarchy. I AM someone who understands that everything has a degradation point, and for a master at probing weak spots there is nothing presented to me that isn't by nature able to be brought smashing to the ground.
Not Gerard, who's part in this story is that of the scrawny, pencil-necked scavenger, someone who is never less than 100% candid that he's just that desperate to reassume the spot he coveted and Jill Park perfected. I fight because I don't ever for one second want him to gain the satisfaction of jumping on me while I'm downed in a nothing tag match and cashing in his briefcase to win a World title by picking bones.
Not Tatiana, who now has just enough of a case that she should still be World Champion and that both I, AW management, and the suspect referees involved are all colluding in some subversive way to keep her from being labelled the face of this company. In her mind, I'm just taking a spot Lissie Hope vacated as Torture's new golden boy (which was hilarious, when you watched it play out, how absolutely certain Tatiana was that Lissie was being favorited); If there's one thing and one thing only I want, it's that Tatiana comes away from a meeting with me absolutely assured that she tried her best to fight me off and she was overmatched, that she could not kick out, that she lost her spot as World Champion not through incompetence or petulance but because of her own, human body failing her.
Not Teo Blaze, who's now on a mission to disprove what I'd said about his own stagnation in the CW Tag division by extending his sojourn to Clash and fighting in the main event against two people he has nothing but disdain and no reason to side with. Who, in point of fact, actively badmouthed him just as badly as I did and called him out for being a joke and a failure.
Not even my own partners, Shadowlove, who I can only see as someone remixing Sam Kidsgrove's arrogant, opprobrious certainty that being self-proclaimed A-listers and red-carpet jetsetters translates into knowing how to hold your penis with the correct hand when you go to the bathroom, or Dake Ken Junior, who's still figuring that part out and has to have his dad hold it for him.
If this is the way the story has to go then I take immense pleasure in subverting expectations. I take, as always, considerable pride in being the one in this match that points out that not a one of them is getting anywhere with the approach they've chosen.
Because I see how every single one of them in this match greedily looks towards this belt I hold in my hands; Like an old cartoon of a man on a deserted island who's eyes fixate on a sand dune and see a turkey dinner, they're salivating.
What they want, Tatiana, Gerard, Dake, is to assume the status quo, to turn the story back into theirs. Because they see this gold only for it's own merit, they just want to have it.
Well while I'm here, I am going to show you all that the Quixotic chase towards being a champion, the pitfalls, the getting knocked down, isn't worth it for you. That you're better off walking away, before you get to that point.
'Cause all the gold in the vault isn't going to be worth what I'm going to put you through on a weekly basis, that's my default.
You'd be better off riding into the sunset, and far away from me, too.
After every single thing I've worked towards in a perfectly-executed trilogy, after grinding through everything put in my way, when the rubber meets the road and I sit here in this promo room, holding the actual belt in my lap, and tasked with filming weekly content for a wrestling show, it occurs as I stare into my reflection in it's faceplate; What to do with it?
There are many options. Honestly, it could even be said that the first instinct upon winning it was to take a long, loving gaze at this belt I'd just pushed past everything to win, savor the ultimate moment of triumph, and then put it back down.
Not disrespectfully, not throwing it on the ground and stomping on it, not saying that it's never meant shit if it didn't belong to me. No, just taking the moment, tasting it, and then letting it go.
Because that's what "the sunset", as Tatiana Jolee puts it, was always about, wasn't it? That's the epiphany that struck me halfway through the run to Uprising and All-In about the never-ending nature of stories and filming content for a weekly wrestling show. In an ongoing narrative, everything will always have to reset to default. Change can be simply cosmetic.
It's exactly as I pointed out to Tatiana, in point of fact, if you want to claim a longer run with the gold than three weeks, you're going to need to assume the same heady, narcisstic attitude, cock-o'-the-walk I'm the fucking shit and every ounce of dirt I trod on is as beneath me as my opponents, and the same desperate, cheating greed, the insecurity baked in to do whatever you can to hold on to that belt.
Ongoing narratives are assumption of a status quo. Time's a flat circle. All of that.
My three-act harmony was in coming to grips with that, that in year one I did fight my way all the way to the World Title, and did so honorably, and did so without the insight that nothing gold can stay.
That all the gold in California is in a bank in someone else's name, and you just borrow your time with it.
So, yes, I did consider, the completion of this arc as just putting the title down at Turmoil, and walking away, satisfied.
Is that something you'd ever have thought Downfall of 2020, of 2021, would consider, even for a second?
Ahhh but there was another asterisk added (there is always another asterisk). Tatiana kicked out of a tertiary finisher, possibly a second too late, possibly a second too early, who can say? Controversy drives the status quo.
Peter Parker does not ever marry his MJ and retire peacefully from superheroing, he makes a deal with the Devil, Mary Jane is trapped in an alternate universe, something comes to keep them apart, no matter how much it may piss fans who want some change off.
That is the nature of stories.
Tatiana Jolee is given an asterisk, a maybe-legit-maybe-not gripe that gives the idea that she was SCREWED, that this is yet another Torture/Pasternak/Brady/whoever in management SCREWJOB.
There is always another asterisk.
And then, I wouldn't have even had time to ponder if the long-term of defending this title and taking up the yoke on my shoulders was the way it should end for me; Already spinning out of my hands because of Tatiana's stated claim... out, predictably, paraded Gerard Angelo to cash in his All-In briefcase because he thought it would be an easy mark, and out came the returning Shadowlove to prevent HIM, and on, and on.
When I spoke, arrogantly, in August of breaking the wheel, it was with the hubris you expect of me.
Even in the deepest pits of nihilism, there still remains enough of that arrogant young shit in me that says that yes, all life is meaningless, chaotic entropy. That nothing matters. That all of your achievements in time will be fucking dust and that time destabilizes even the most centered bases, but I'm still strong enough, still smart enough, still bad enough to be the one that masters chaos, that turns anarchy to my advantage.
I still harbor those feelings. That I'm good enough to stand tall.
But what this has shown me is that even if you, personally, break your own cycles, there's always another, bigger cog spinning over your head. You're just... well, the Inner Circle. Ha.
I realize this isn't the approach you'd expect of me in this moment. I fought through the Wrestler of the Year tournament, I accomplished what no one in AW history has and won two Turmoils and was the only man to get to three back-to-back finals, I dethroned Jolee and won my second World title. I should be chest beating, swearing dominance, talking about how I've assumed the throne and I'm the Draw of Action Wrestling.
The thing is that I see the writing on the wall, in that entire, breathless exchange, Tatiana rolling out of the ring, Gerard power-walking down with briefcase in hand, smirking in my face, Shadowlove and I'm sorry I keep blanking on his prostitute's name showing up on the ramp.
Cut to this week and my first outing as World Champion; (A perennial AW favorite!) A six-man tag team match that, at best scenario, will end with all six of us brawling so wildly that the match gets thrown out, and Brady Bolt walking out onto the stage to lay down some fucking ridiculous six-man World Title ladder match; Even more realistically, it's going to be the outlier, the "Why in God's name are you in this match" additions of Dake Ken Jr or Teo Blaze taking a pinfall.
Either way, it's just another turn of the wheel.
Nature of unended stories, nature of weekly wrestling content. I'd be asinine to think I could change that.
And it's made me realize there is never going to be that perfect, shining moment in the sun. I'm never going to get even a chance to hold my belt up proudly, nor will there be a fucking one-on-one World Title main event because *snorts coke* Shshsghhha YEAH we gotta have a fucking REAL MAIN EVENT BROTHER.
We'll have to shoehorn in four dipshits that keep losing opportunities, at all costs, and inserting them in there to make things so much bigger and crazier.
Sounds bitter, right? Nihilistic, even?
It's not, it's honest.
At best, I'm standing across the ring from three idiots who's necks I'd had to step on over the past month, starting with Teo who I just outright washed, and who have every motivation to band together and bring my first outing as World Champ to a bitterly unsatisfactory conclusion; meanwhile I'm standing by with two people I don't know from Adam, cannot trust, and, in the curious case of Mister Dake Ken, Jr., continues to haunt the AW World Title scene despite zero victories that matter, graduating from OMEGA and doing fuck all except compete on a level where I'm actually certain Jaice Wilds would be a credible threat.
And lookit that, I've insulted my own partners, now our team will implode. Oopsies, we've hit on yet another established trope, bickering sinking ships. It's almost as if this match is paint-by-the-numbers from jump street.
But what else can I do?
I stare at the belt in my lap. In the low light of this promo room, the gold is muted, the accents dulled. I can see my reflection, but because of the lighting, it's distorted, it barely looks human. And that's an answer, but not one that people want to hear.
What I can do is play my part and play it well. Like me or not, I AM someone who is at home in anarchy. I AM someone who understands that everything has a degradation point, and for a master at probing weak spots there is nothing presented to me that isn't by nature able to be brought smashing to the ground.
Not Gerard, who's part in this story is that of the scrawny, pencil-necked scavenger, someone who is never less than 100% candid that he's just that desperate to reassume the spot he coveted and Jill Park perfected. I fight because I don't ever for one second want him to gain the satisfaction of jumping on me while I'm downed in a nothing tag match and cashing in his briefcase to win a World title by picking bones.
Not Tatiana, who now has just enough of a case that she should still be World Champion and that both I, AW management, and the suspect referees involved are all colluding in some subversive way to keep her from being labelled the face of this company. In her mind, I'm just taking a spot Lissie Hope vacated as Torture's new golden boy (which was hilarious, when you watched it play out, how absolutely certain Tatiana was that Lissie was being favorited); If there's one thing and one thing only I want, it's that Tatiana comes away from a meeting with me absolutely assured that she tried her best to fight me off and she was overmatched, that she could not kick out, that she lost her spot as World Champion not through incompetence or petulance but because of her own, human body failing her.
Not Teo Blaze, who's now on a mission to disprove what I'd said about his own stagnation in the CW Tag division by extending his sojourn to Clash and fighting in the main event against two people he has nothing but disdain and no reason to side with. Who, in point of fact, actively badmouthed him just as badly as I did and called him out for being a joke and a failure.
Not even my own partners, Shadowlove, who I can only see as someone remixing Sam Kidsgrove's arrogant, opprobrious certainty that being self-proclaimed A-listers and red-carpet jetsetters translates into knowing how to hold your penis with the correct hand when you go to the bathroom, or Dake Ken Junior, who's still figuring that part out and has to have his dad hold it for him.
If this is the way the story has to go then I take immense pleasure in subverting expectations. I take, as always, considerable pride in being the one in this match that points out that not a one of them is getting anywhere with the approach they've chosen.
Because I see how every single one of them in this match greedily looks towards this belt I hold in my hands; Like an old cartoon of a man on a deserted island who's eyes fixate on a sand dune and see a turkey dinner, they're salivating.
What they want, Tatiana, Gerard, Dake, is to assume the status quo, to turn the story back into theirs. Because they see this gold only for it's own merit, they just want to have it.
Well while I'm here, I am going to show you all that the Quixotic chase towards being a champion, the pitfalls, the getting knocked down, isn't worth it for you. That you're better off walking away, before you get to that point.
'Cause all the gold in the vault isn't going to be worth what I'm going to put you through on a weekly basis, that's my default.
You'd be better off riding into the sunset, and far away from me, too.