Good Luck, Babe! (3,000 words on the dot)
Jun 24, 2024 12:40:41 GMT -5
“The Saint” Johnny Eden, Addy A, and 2 more like this
Post by Kyle Shane on Jun 24, 2024 12:40:41 GMT -5
I can't stop noticing the change in her jawline, the tightening around her eyes. My girl's growing up.
She looks my way, her ponytail switches to the other side. I reign it back in, push out those thoughts. I'm not here to live in self-deception.
When I look at her...
"Buy you a drink, beautiful?"
Some Sigma finance-bro wearing an Alan Flusser and a Swiss timepiece is the one who speaks, sidling up next to Array. I see her stiffen. He's sliding a perspiring Mojito her way, and she favors him a blank smile;
For that second, it's where we both began. A frat party in Camden's Beta Phi house, a Solo cup preferred... My forever sin, that haunts both of us.
She's not a teenager anymore. She witheringly smiles, coldly; "Actually, my girlfriend has got me on tab," she tells the Alan Flusser, and tosses her ponytail to give him the brushoff. He scoffs, calls her a cunt.
"I'm impressed," I say.
"I'm thankful I can still impress Kyle Shane, after all these years," the words are jokey, the tone harsher than I thought. Okay, ouch, she's still mad about the documentary.
"Array, I just wanted to clear the air."
She sighs, not unkindly, and toys with the swizzle-stick on her cocktail. "Kyle, if you think I'm still mad about a Vice documentary narrated by C*** J***** dredging up the underage drinking from the MIT party in 2011 or the seedier parts of our lives affects me, you don't know me at all."
"No, but I - "
Her chestnut, almond-shaped eyes flash as she locks with mine; "But you coming around trying to explain everything, that I'm not fond of. I have a girlfriend, Kyle."
"An' I'm with Hiro, now, we-we're exploring what our bond means to each other, and - "
"Uh-huh," she muses wryly, "D'you let Hiro know you were coming to see me? I told Marki everything..."
"I did tell him," I say, stubbornly, (self-deception is a habit I'm working to break.)
Then, the girlfriend is at the end of the bar; I always am struck in awe by the appearance of Marki, taller than I am, with the broad shoulders and ropey muscles of a cage-fighter. She polishes a glass, tips a cocky grin at Array. "This guy bothering you, beautiful?"
Stiffly, I slide a bill onto the counter, "I'm paying for hers, and then I'll go."
Marki looks from the twenty, to meet my eyes. Her flinty chips of ice bore into mine. "Your money's no good here."
Marki turns away from me, and she towers over the bar to plant a kiss on Array's lips. It's as deliberate as it is exclusionary, a show of dominance and look-what-you-can't-have. Why am I even stressing it?
Sensing this isn't the time for me to plead my case, I decided to call it a night. I take out my phone to call Hiro after all.
But I give one last look back. Array and Marki are chatting at the end of the bar, and she doesn't even look back at me.
Girl's growing up, you have to give her that.
For many in this industry, the call to self-deception, living in denial, keeps us in holding patterns.
Where we stay in environments we need to thrive in longer past the best exit. We grow more-and-more embittered, denial manifesting in the most toxic paths.
Problem with awareness is, breaking a toxic spiral means doing the necessary shadow-work to not only suss out what denied part of your ego isn't being satisfied and heal it, it means you have to feel it.
There are some, who aren't even on the first necessary step.
Tatiana Jolee, in her mind, the ever-downtrodden, passed-over lesbian at the bar, watching forlornly as AW management plants a kiss on the lips of its newest sweetheart obsession. Always an angel...
It's telling, Tat, that you and Odin have chosen to more-or-less go dark for explicitly the same reasons: Not just that you failed to beat Teo Blaze, but that you attribute the rise of Teo Blaze from giggling Cruiserclash afterthought/meme as the telling signs of a company trying to push you, stalwart old guards, out of wrestling.
Oh, you're full of conspiracy theories, sure.
You doubtless prepared a Pepe Silva board connecting disparate little occurrences that all signpost towards AW screwing you once again here; Muru eliminating you from Havoc> Vespertine deciding to attack you>Kyle Shane coming out and trashing your Twitter content >suddenly Torture is returning to Evolution with a big announcement.
In your addled little mind, it's easy to fit jigsaw pieces together, even should you have to mash the square peg down with something as blunt as a tack hammer.
Couldn't be that Teo Blaze put you down because he spun his chamber like a pistolero and outshot you by a margin of two-to-one, even calling you to the carpet on the fact that, despite everything you believe you're owed for a main push you can't even be bothered to show up independently or familiarize yourself with the product.
Nah, it's just the AW bookers YOU NAMED just hated your approach, won't ever give you the time of day!
Couldn't've been that Downfall ended your tenure as World Champion prematurely because (he pointed out) you were a coyote that's finally caught the roadrunner, only to find you didn't have the faintest idea what to do when the win you'd been pushing for for a year finally came...
AW just GAVE the World Title to a man who was already out the door because they wanted him to waste the potential of the championship rather than buy your new vision!
AW would rather be fascinated with shiny new toys like Gerard "SoyBoy" than you, because it's inconvenient, unseemly to put the title on a lesbo in her forties over the young, hip goldenchildren!
In all of your tells you miss the intricacies of exactly why any of these things happen... yet you'll shrilly, bitterly shriek to high heavens that we aren't appreciating the nuanced brilliance of you, this grizzled journeywoman vet who's fought so hard to reclaim her time in the spotlight after years of inactivity.
Riiiight, we don't understand that. 'Cause Downfall wasn't portraying himself as someone who'd gone from main event lights to trade in bingo halls for ten years before receiving an AW contract.
What you don't understand is that the company had jack and SHIT to do with why Downfall left; He intended to hold the title for as long as humanly possible, but he also recognized that his arc's clear ending was to step away when it was over.
That takes more balls and fortitude than you're capable of.
In your piggish, swell-headed self-importance you think your technical prowess has created some lasting legacy that will never be forgotten.
What I want you to know is that I do see you, Tatiana, I see every step of your journey; in many ways, it's one I should be able to intimately relate to.
I am, after all, a bisexual twink from a poor Boston suburb who had to scratch and claw his way to being respected.
Our respective sexual identities, however, shouldn't be the stick that measures us, in a better world, but let's buy your argument and say they are.
I acknowledge where you're coming from because before you even thought to take to Twitter, I was in the same headspace you're in now, in Pure Class Wrestling.
What I'm driving at is, that while I can understand every position you're coming from, I let myself stew in those negative feelings to such an extent that it actively poisoned the prospect of wrestling for me, I didn't do it for four. Years...The simplest truth is I refused to acknowledge my part to play in the entire ugly scenario.
You never have, never will grow out of it.
"Hiro, I can explain where I am tonight, I've just -"
I see them sliding out of the dark.
I brace myself, knowing these Cambridge backstreets can belch out some rough customers.
While I was preparing for MS-13 or some other gang types to come out of the alley, ready to roll me for my wallet, I wasn't expecting the Sigma bro in the Alan Flusser to slide out of the darkness.
I groan in understanding. Because it is Cambridge, and recessions have hit everybody hard. Ex-Wall Street traders and hedge fund managers who are used to living a lifestyle worthy of the gram are out on the streets.
"Ching-ching, simp, how would you feel about a low-yield, high-commision investment opportunity?" Alan Flusser-bro snickers, adjusting a gold watch.
"Investment of a lifetime, b'ys, promise."
"If you want, we can manage whatever money you've got, or are we gonna have to break some piggy banks?"
I sigh, then mentally count out how long it's been since I've punched a grown man in the face. "Hiro, gonna have to call you back."
"If you're looking for a bailout, son, forget it. Those funds're tapped out!"
Alan Flusser produces a knife, flashing in the darkness, as the two behind him loosen their ties. "So what'll it be sissy-boy, a tax-deferred cash deposit, or is this deal gonna need restructuring?"
Four years. Four years since I've punched a grown man in the face.
"What do you say?"
A devil-may-care grin springs to my lips, as, already, the rejection at the bar is fading away. I wouldn't have known that she had looked back for me after I'd left, even if you'd told me. I'm where I need to be right now. "I say..."
"I want my damn 401K back."
My fist mashes Alan Flusser's teeth back against his lips, and I'm riding a surge. For a miracle, I've found what makes the world fall away for a while.
It isn't her.
To be as emotionally stunted and unintelligent as you, that truly is a marvel; You're a fucking forty-five(?) year old woman who thinks that she's on such an unimpeachably-high level that we should be kissing your gnarled, ugly feet.
What I want you to see most clearly is that this isn't vengeance.
Not a hit-job from a petty admin who wants you to keep your mouth shut and never degrade his booking on main.
This isn't even the nonsensical posturing of Vespertine who, in her scattershot, braindead way, elected herself your nemesis, seeming to think that she was defending the honor of the fed when she was naming your various "sins".
Kyle Shane didn't come down after four years away naming you as someone that deserved an ass-kicking on the biggest stage of them all because AW management pointed me in your direction.
Management isn't latching on to Kyle Shane as a rising star to eclipse Tatiana Jolee, someone they want to pass her still-lit torch to.
I've snatched the torch I've been running with from other hands doing everything my way.
This is me, seeing myself in you and vowing, not ever let me turn into that, a jaded, bitter shell hanging on to glories decades gone, laying the same tired catechism out as stinging rebukes.
You're a broken record.
The harshest dig you can ever think to come at someone like Gerard is calling him SOYBOY, which not only lacks a certain oomph when you've tried to use it as an insult once and it floated like a lead balloon...... you double-down spewing it against him a guaranteed five. Fucking. Times. Per promo every. Time. YOU FACED HIM.
Now, you think it's cutting or witty to repeat the same lines against me.
Oooh, but you, you're beef jerky, you're leatherworn, outdoorsy, the type'a d*ke that wears lumberjack colognes and musky flannel. Get the fuck out of here.
The irony inherent is that Gerard shows some flavor, while you've only ever given the mildest vanilla.
Every single line you deign to record is a retread with the same talking points every time, complaints about management loving Gerard, Teo, and Downfall vacating "YOUR" title.
If it wasn't for the fact that you're so active on X with your "hipster filters" and cat videos I'd think you'd blessed the world and finally just shut the fuck up.
I'm thankful you didn't bother to promote Havoc. Given license to spend all your words talking about the roster, the amount of people you'd deem made of soy would make me eliminate myself by putting a gun in my mouth and pulling the trigger with my toe.
What I want you to see clearest, is that your willful denial hasn't gotten you anywhere, it probably never will.
Tatiana, you routinely brag about what you're capable of elsewhere, how many of the "Why are you still wrestling for them?" crowd exhort you to leave AW behind.
You'll always be unsatisfied wherever you go because you haven't done the work to assess where you're really at.
So go, find the grass ain't so green, then what?
Then, you'd take these same frustrations out on management there, once you started faltering and not being good enough because there's always gonna be another soyboy management loves, rather give the title to a queer woman like you, in your mind.
It genuinely is a case of an asshole getting on a plane in New Jersey, and an asshole getting off the plane in Vegas.
I could spoonfeed you lines of dialogue, helpfully provide you an entire biography on Kyle Shane. Could even hand you context that Downfall was my tag partner (in 2015-2016).
I could (and have) spilled my heart out about where my road has led me.
I don't feel confident, even if I gave you all of your ammo and loaded the gun for you, you wouldn't throw it at the ground and stamp your feet, whining that you're being passed over for another young buck, completely missing every shot you take, because it's never about your opponent, it's only ever you whining about yourself.
What you are, ultimately, is out of ideas.
I don't shit on people's records because it's a dick-measuring contest, that's what you don't get.
I chart people's marked lack of progression, and Tat, you've been going nowhere for so long without processing it, it's as if you're a statue.
2022 and 2023 both found you spending a good portion of the year underachieving, yet when you wanted more that you weren't given, it was Torture's fault; the jealousy you projected on the clear fan favorite in Lissie was because you assumed that your star would never be visible if it couldn't outshine her sun. When Jill Park became the obvious favorite, you were the first to step up to the rooftops screaming COLLUSION! CONSPIRACY! AW HOLDS PEOPLE BACK, SO THEY CAN PUSH JILL PARK!, insecure pedantic peacocking from someone who simply couldn't stomach the fact that she was being outworked on every level.
Three years, Tatiana.
In three years, you're in the exact-same spot, that's why I say it doesn't matter what you do, even if you leave AW twisting in the wind after Evolution, because it's your problem.
Because YOU don't want to fucking grow up.
What I've realized is that my words aren't going to get through to you.
Your world is entirely centered around these conspiracies in your mind, that everything in wrestling exists to pay homage to this song you've been singing, that's never once changed in the intervening years.
You've surrounded yourself both in your daily life (and in the followers who like your mealy-mouthed, fence-sitting posts) with people never push back, never tell you anything other than that you're the greatest to ever live, of course it must be the AW Booker's fault you're not where you want to be.
Being fair to you, you either don't know, don't seem to understand how anything in AW works if it isn't within your narrowed little bubble; You asked, if I was SO GREAT, why I didn't just challenge Gerard Angelo, as if we didn't just have a whole Havoc match for that reason.
Additionally, that tracks to how lame your attempted comebacks are. Why didn't you just challenge Gerard, are you STUPID?
Everything tracks back to Teo, back to Gerard, throwing your cute little attempts at namedropping people on a hard-working level you can't match.
If Lissie Hope were still here, you'd be complaining that I looked at her first, instead of you.
You wanted, so badly, to be anti-authoritarian, a ghost in the machine, a voice for the voiceless but you also want to be the figurehead, the belle of the ball, headhunted by all of the movers-and-shakers, spoonfed extra attention to feed your brittle little ego.
There's nobody in my sights right now, except for you.
I've named every term in which we've been similar, but when I look at you now all I see is a flapping mouth espousing the same, busted, regressive philosophies that have haunted not just me, but AW for years. This is a redemptive arc in which they're finally silenced.
You aren't facing management.
Not facing Twitter opps.
Not facing a golden child given endless grace.
I am Kyle Shane, student of this game, lover of this game, defender til the death of... this... game, and I've grown the fuck up.
What I do at Evolution, I do because unlike you, I love this game and this federation for what it is, while you can only stare glumly across the bar at what you wish you could feel.
We're celebrating our Pride Month in style, at Evolution I'm fighting you with every scrap of pride, every scrap of love for who I am and what this game's given me, every drop of emotion.
Good luck, babe!
Because this is the Endgame.