Post by strat on Jul 3, 2022 21:33:20 GMT -5
MAY 2022
French Quarter, New Orleans, LA
“He is menacing.”
The voice was quiet, almost felt distant.
I inhaled again, and kept my eyes closed. Summer in New Orleans was its own unique fragrance. The brittle, almost dry grass beneath me needed care, and I let the palms of my hands sink into it as I raised my face to the gods above.
We did our best to create an ecosystem around the house, something overpowering and fresh, to have a haven away from the sewage scent that drifted over us from downtown. Not only did we have plenty of wild gardenia in the yard, but Charlotte had been excited to show our neighbor’s baby the brilliant coloring of the irises that grew in the wild and so we’d cultivated some and they were now adding to the aroma that fought valiantly to encapsulate us from the subpar drainage system that the City of New Orleans deemed suitable.
“Yes. He has the right look.” I offer quietly, in response. I can sense impatience, restlessness starting to creep into the air. Tangible.
I draw my lips and suck in another deep breath of air, my hands coming to rest in my lap again.
“But there is no benefit of you beating somebody who nobody cares about. Is he actually good?” This time it felt much closer.
“The truth is,” I begin, “People fear him, because he’s physically imposing. By rights, on any given day, he should be able to pin anyone down to the mat. He’s tough.”
One thing that is constantly levelled at me by detractors, is that I am of slight frame. I weigh one hundred and eighty fully soaked in water, I’m above average height but not tall for a wrestler. Six foot is quite small, actually, when you think about the behemoths that wander like giants through the industry. I don’t seem believable as an athlete on the level that I find myself. I am mistaken for Demi’s valet, or sometimes a famous emo band member that she apparently likes to hang out with.
Sidebar, I don’t think I’ve ever seen Demi socialize with anyone, ever. Not least a member of an emo band. She would eat them alive.
Anyway, it serves a purpose. We’ve all heard the trope of the first day in school, haven’t we? You’re the new kid, you’re not sure how they’re going to receive you, so you walk up to the biggest bully on the schoolyard and you deck him. Lord Raab may not have been the biggest bully, and he might not be at the top of the mountain in terms of his status within the organization, but he was almost twice my weight and not much taller. He was a specimen of a wrestler.
Even in the case that a person finds it plausible that somebody of my build and appearance does fight for a living, typically I am overlooked as a cruiserweight or a luchadore, there is no immediate intention from the organization to see me fight the big guys. As though they’re unsure what exactly it is that they’re going to do with me.
An opponent like Lord Raab would be optimal in so much as it checks many boxes for me. He’s known by the Level Up audience and followers, he is feared in the locker room because he is not only huge but also very unpredictable. From one moment to the next, it feels like his emotions can turn on their head.
“But to answer your question. No. He is not good. But none of them are. Not really.” My hands relax from the fists that they had slowly clenched to become, as I braced them behind me in the grass and shifted off the meat in my buttock and onto my tailbone with my legs moving free from being beneath me,
“The bar is too high, you won’t ever appreciate talent again.” The voice is close enough that I can smell peppermint as the words carry toward me. “Trust me. I know. “
A telltale rattle of ice cubes against their glass container confirms what I already knew to be true. I open my eyes and the sun floods my vision, blurring and blinding me. It takes some time for my pupils to adjust to the correct dilation, it feels like they’re searing at first, and then black spots drift across the sea of vision, before finally I’m able to make out the blue sky once again.
I let my wrists go weak and allow my body to fall onto the bristled mattress of grass.
“However, he is entirely beatable. He bites on everything you give him, he’s a little off the rails and lacks many basic coping mechanisms for when shit hits the proverbial.” A different voice interjects, drawing my attention to it. A sharp, narrow digit traces along my bare collarbone as the last of the words come through to me.
“I should know, I passed him in the hall and he stopped in his tracks, made excuses and then left. He never came back for his belongings.”
That’s the thing about emotion, and those that conjure it in order to be an effective fighter. The ones that wear their heart on their sleeve and live and die by fortitude they can reach for. It’s fleeting, it is frantic, it is out of control. The intrinsic unpredictability of it means that it can see you through a storm, which is why a large portion of people tend to fight in this manner. They create conflict artificially where it does not exist, and try to look for deep-seated personal flaws with their adversary because that is the only way they can push their body into that fight-or-flight adrenaline-based system of combat.
But like a house of cards it comes crashing down when you least expect it but always more often than not.
My successes in life never came from throwing caution to the wind and seeing what happened, never did I cast a stone without first precisely calculating the trajectory and likely landing zone. I truly believe that preparation is key, and that preparing for a battle involves many facets, many of which are entirely unrelated to throwing punches at a heavy back, or drilling springboard dropkicks over and over again for several hours per day.
Miyamoto Musashi wrote that it is important to ground yourself, to master skills that are entirely unrelated to your primary field of expertise, to continue to challenge the mind and to stimulate its growth. Of course, to win your match, you must be competent, but it is as much about understanding what to expect from your adversary, when you should expect it and how that would close the loop and feed into your own strategic approach. I like to keep my head clear, I enjoy the arts, baking bread, and toasting arabica coffee beans. Old film, the cello. Sewing.
Not being overburdened by the barrage of thoughts and concepts that start to creep in is imperative to a successful warrior. Constantly allowing thoughts to detach and release themselves from the prison in my mind is the type of mental exercise that allows me to disassociate from chaos in the heat of battle.
Calm in the eye of the storm is a bigger advantage than any physical attributes could care to offer. Lord Raab could be 500 pounds and seven foot tall. It wouldn’t change anything. In the space of a butterfly’s wingspan, he could be triggered to lose all scope of rational thought.
His mind racing, chasing down the opportunity to right his perceived wrongs at any and all cost, consequence be damned. Not caring what trail of destruction he leaves in his wake, whether he has to cut off his own leg to break one finger.
And all the while, for me everything slows down. Molecules of sweat hang in the air for what seems like eternity, dispersing as they fly through the periphery from the punch I’d thrown and landed before he’d even seen my feet plant on the floor and the torque tear through my hips first and then my shoulders before my arm reached out and widened the gash across his brow.
I’m overwhelmed by the analgesic sensation of being detached from my body, like we are two independent entities, working in unison against the giant before us, but I don’t feel what the body feels, there is distance between us, a separation. There is a holiness, a wholesomeness, that lives in the slow movements, a realisation that time itself is a great gift. The slow and rhythmic heartbeat is the only thing you can focus on because it is so deafeningly loud as it vibrates through your ear drums. The crowd, the referee, even your opponent. There is communication going on around you but you can’t make it out. You’re locked in.
Meanwhile, your opponent has allowed the rage and psychological discomfort you have subjected him to, to hotwire the dashboard of his command center. Cutting off access to all but the medulla oblongata, running on pure instinct alone and forgoing all critical thought.
That is what makes him a conquerable target, because you’re three steps ahead, laying traps, and they’ve got to tiptoe through a field of landmines and pray that they don’t step on one.
They’re on the backfoot, playing catch-up. How can they possibly hope to stand a chance?
That’s the beauty of it. The elegance.
Like a fencer feathers the blade whilst gliding delicately through their piste, casting to the side an over-eager onward advance and driving its point deep into the opponent. The fencer could be holding the blade between the fingertips of his index and his thumb, such is the unimportance of the strength. They know precisely where their adversary is going to go, because they were the hand that guided them, so there is no need for strength. Technique, momentum and precision are all that is required.
In the modern age, the war of information will supersede the war of might.
Never again would a need arise to question whether the slender man with a strange accent was but a side character, groupie, or worst-yet a cruiserweight.
And as soon as that had been established, the next phase could unfold. Everything in its right place.
“You know what to do, darling.”
She smiled, and left a soft greased lip impression on my forehead as she slinked away toward the house.
—
JUNE 7th 2022
Miami, Florida
It would be the second outing. The first was successful enough, and as expected, we’d been more impressive than Paul and Michelle. We had years of cohesiveness, they had barely minutes. It was meaningless, but to see him on the back foot again had been encouraging.
I watched on as the ring was being prepared for our next match. Stagehands cleared up the carnage from earlier in the evening, whilst a live feed from the locker room of Larry Tact was being shown to the arena audience. It wouldn’t be long now, surely.
“Oh Lord, I am so looking forward to this match.” Demi’s demure voice was recognizable from around the corner. Softly spoken, her voice is like honeyed chocolate and ripples layer on layer. Delicate at first, and sweet. But as she continues to speak to him, he starts to feel the undercurrent.
Her hands are braced around his bicep, and though he is hidden behind a mask, what little that can be seen of his eyes tell of the discomfort that he feels. Silently scanning for an escape route, an excuse, anything.
“It will be a dream to get my hands on.. this.. You.”
He’s unsure how to react, but he hasn’t seen me. Perhaps he mentioned something about not needing the match, or something else, I’m too far to get a clear understanding, but she withdraws and he seems flustered. With a swipe of his large arm, he knocks over a table with some AV equipment on it, as Demi saunters over to me looking pleased with herself.
And from there, we were set. She would continue to touch him each time he came near to her throughout the match. Nothing overt, just a subtle hand on the back or shoulder. Tactile. Then would come the big finish. Seemingly put ourselves in a precarious predicament, allow him the upper hand. I would even let him throw me through the sky with that Chokeinator, it served the purpose.
A true test.
One, two, three steps ahead.
I was dead to rites, we took the leap of faith.
Demi leaned forward. She could have easily broken the pin, she had time. But she did something else. She crouched in front of him and did not touch him. It took him less than a millisecond to instinctively react, he jumped up from the pinfall attempt and looked her straight in the eyes, as she was doing to him. Slowly, she reached out for his chin.
An empathetic touch, or it would have been, but the reality had started to sink in for Lord Raab that they were playing with him, and before he could grab hold of Demi, she was gone. He tried to give chase but it was meaningless, it was already too late.
One, two, three steps ahead.
He rushed headlong into a wall, literally.
—
July 3rd 2022
Wailuku, Hawaii
“Okay, make the call.” I speak softly.
My palms are pressed into the concrete floor of the arena as my crossed legs push beneath me. Another big inhalation. I’m trying to reach a state of mindlessness ahead of the tomorrow, and luckily I have been afforded the opportunity to spend some time grounding myself in the surroundings.
I am not so naive as to believe that he can be tricked once again, that he will fall for the same cat-and-mouse play that has cost him in weeks prior. He’s not as stupid as he looks, despite the pain it causes me to concede.
On the exhale, I push myself to my feet and press my hands against the wall this time. It helps with the rush of blood through my body, to stop from fainting. One, two, three steps.
“..ahead.”
I turn around calmly, and the first thing I notice is his hazel green eyes and the flash of white enamel as his lip cocks to the side the way it always does when he’s fucking around with someone.
I’m confused at first, until I see the cell phone pressed to his ear and he is, in fact, making the phone call.
“Yes, yes. What other Lord Raab is there that I could be talking about? As far as I’m concerned there is only one, and I mean, I’m sure for someone of Lord Raab’s stature in the game, there’s bound to be rip-offs. In red masks or something, from Austria.” He struggles to keep his composure, and puts a bottle of Evian to his lips and allows the liquid to lap against his lips to keep them from drying.
The other person is speaking away, and he merely nods whilst rolling his eyes at me.
“With your image as an unstoppable tough guy, it's just the right kind of demographic we are pushing for, man. I could fly you out to New York tonight, you know. Actually, I have the private jet in Hawaii right now. I think you’d be a great brand ambassador for our casino, it’s not long until we go public with all of our marketing collateral, so it’d be imperative that you fly to New York tonight to go over the particulars.”
More silence.
“What? What is there to think about, dude? This is the opportunity to get in on the ground floor.”
Now he’s laughing alongside Lord Raab.
“By the time we’re finished with this marketing run, you’ll be able to buy the whole joint. I wouldn’t pay any attention to Level Up Wrestling, or the clowns who run it.”
I knew that it would be hard to resist. It didn;t make sense to anybody in the world that a person in a mask would be in any way suitable to be the face of a Luxury Casino and Apartment complex, but sometimes it is difficult to see the cold hard truth buried beneath the layers optimistic dreams that seem so much more readily believable to nobody but yourself.
Tomorrow would be decisive, and would be important in setting the trajectory of my time here.
One, two, three steps ahead.