Post by strat on May 22, 2022 20:45:38 GMT -5
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I once said that I climbed the mountain to see the world, not so the world would see me.
For me, success was not the adulation or the glory, nor was it the attention or obligations that came with it. I held little interest in the opinions of people on what it meant to be a champion and yet less interest in being a role model.
It was about proving something to myself. About making a decision to right a wrong, and to know whether the feelings I kept buried for many years, all the what-about-ism, had any truth to them. And what came of it was something else. It evolved, it changed. And I changed and evolved along with it.
That’s the thing about life, though, isn’t it? The only constant is change. The only way to ensure disappointment is to expect that everything will stay the same.
When I made the choice to entertain my curiosity in 2020, there was one name at the top of the hitlist and his name was Damon Riggs. A man who was primarily responsible for my exit from the world of wrestling many years prior, and a man who had enjoyed success in my absence and had continued to grow his legacy and that of his extended ‘family’. He was something of a patriarch and his group had been dominating every territory that they went to. They rolled the red carpet out for this man, and ploughed every last marketing dollar into making sure the world knew that the great man was back, and this would prove to be the moment I was waiting for to make my move.
A blueprint was formulated, and executed, and within weeks I had established a foothold and struck. Riggs knew who had come for him, and he was dispatched with unrelenting force. Retribution was met, but an emptiness followed. An immeasurable and hollow void, an intense and vivid sensation of being unsated. All of this expectation and presupposition had led to a limp and debilitated shell of a man cowering beneath the crushing boot of his conqueror.
The truth of the matter is that Damon Riggs was not what he had once been, but his family played the politics of the game and ensured that they could position people on both sides of a war to ensure that the balance of power would always swing in their favour. The landscape had changed, and I knew, as I stood over him, that I would have to change, too. My calling was greater.
Two members of his extended ‘family’ - Anicka Swan and Xavier Wolf - were best mates, but were caught on opposite sides of a power struggle within the organisation. Anicka was the first and, at the time, only champion of that organisation, and Xavier Wolf had been cast as her challenger. They played mind games, messed with the contracts, and figured out a way to get her onto Xavier’s side with her championship intact. He didn’t want to take her prize, and she didn’t want to be on the opposite side of a war against him. More politicking. I sat myself down, still covered in Riggs’ blood, and adapted the blueprint. Figured out a way that I could satisfy that hunger that I’d awoken.
Over the course of the following months, I evolved from somebody who wanted to lay down the cold fist of vengeance on a man I’d watched from afar walk far too many miles in the footsteps I should have been taking, to a man that knew he could not only retrace those steps in a fraction of the time, but carry the weight of a target on his back whilst doing it. Xavier Wolf and myself engaged in the kind of warfare that ran far deeper than a wrestling match, a championship title, or a singular organisation. The fallout of which is still so very apparent, with the eviscerated wound dividing his family down the middle.
A war that could never end.
I took his sister, then I took his championship, and then I played a little politics of my own, using just enough misdirection to finesse his best friend - Anicka Swan - to beat him to the punch in claiming a rematch. It would end only when one of us could fight no longer.
Or until he reached deep into his Machiavellian playbook and bought the organisation out from under the roster.
We stood face to face on that day, ready to go to war for the final time - because I wasn’t leaving there without watching his last breath escape from his lungs and I knew he felt identical. As we were about to fight, he let me in on the exclusive information that he had purchased the whole organisation that we were fighting for.
And so we fought. And when the fight was over, I walked away, and did not look back. I did what I had to do and came as far as I got, but the parameters had changed. The Championship still sits here in my studio. Three polished golden skulls, angry at the world and screaming to let it know. The word Immortal engraved in blood-red lettering across it. A constant reminder that the quiet voice in the recesses of my mind knows more than I allow them credit for.
But like I said, the world changed. I don’t know if you have ever considered what it may be like to work for somebody you dislike, or somebody that you find distasteful to the very fibre of their core, or whether you could stomach or palate the concept of working at the behest of your very greatest rival, but I would not give him the satisfaction of that. I evolved.
I didn’t think my story was over, but I knew that this chapter was.
What remained of the organisation he bought fought and miserably failed to fill the void left behind, the gaping chasm we had dug out beneath us. That is not intended to come off as arrogant, it is simply a fact. Xavier changed his name from Wolf to Black, and employed some high level free agents to jump-start his new promotion - FIGHT! NYC - and they made it look easy.
So to me, that’s where the challenge evolved. What if I am sitting here, watching out over the most idyllic urban panorama money could buy in Tokyo, thinking that I ascended Everest? What if my Everest was just a little mound in the Sierra Nevada?
These are the thoughts that roll around in my mind, as my hand guides a horse-hair brush over the white material that is roughly pinned to a three-legged pine easel. It is almost as though there is something ethereal or not living within my conscious mind which guides my movements. Instinctively, I am bringing to life something that I don’t yet have a concept of, as layers of acrylic in hues of black, grey and crimson red dance delicately against the canvas. Painting was meditation, for me. To me, it is the way in which I release negativity from myself. I believe it is the reason so many people wish to be creative. It is how our neurology regenerates, medicine for the soul. The painting, the artist and the art all work in cohesion to tell a story in the foundational language of our brains - all of the unfiltered emotions and dream visualisation - brought together in one place that is both calm and tempestuous at the same time.
I cast my eyes momentarily from the reflections cast forth from my subconscious mind, I let the thoughts seep out into the aura of the room, and as I exhale, I feel overwhelmed by conflicting and competing intangible feelings. I feel like there is a disturbance in the status quo, the focus has been shattered like stone through stained glass. If I tried to push through I would end up merely rolling rainbow shards of antique glass around in the palms of my hands.
A waft of yeast and wheat billows up through the house and a glance at the wall clock lets me know that it will soon be time to retrieve it from its oven. Kneading and preparing bread is another way to clear my head, to enjoy the stillness of life without rushing from one thing to the other and missing half of the beauty along the way.
I knew that by now, Demi would be preparing a batch of conserve to eat with the bread so I would go down to join them. Rising from the floor below is a rough and beaten pine ladder, and each time I ascend and descend, I feel compelled to take extra care even though I know it is safely mounted to the drop gap. An expansive hallway and a set of stairs separated me from the rest of my family as my studio was somewhat annexed away from the main part of the house. The quiet helped.
As I neared, I could see that Charlotte was trying to talk to her mother but Demi was hurriedly moving through the kitchen towards the television. The news was on, which was never of interest to Demi, and then Charlotte’s back went tense as though a series of bolts had been digitally tightened and all of the slack of her posture had been pulled taut. Her hand gripped onto that of her mother’s.
As I opened my mouth to ask what was going on, the same clouded and conflicted thoughts invaded my psyche. It was almost as though the world was closing in on me, and as I watched the images live and in living colour right before me being broadcast worldwide, I wondered just what it meant.
Xavier Black has been shot.
The sound of the reporter’s solemn voice echoed in my mind. A kind of feedback echo. The kind of echo that you get if two people join a zoom call from the same physical location. The kind that oscillates and multiplies until it is deafening, and you shut down in self-preservation. The colour washed from my face, I could tell from the way Demi’s amber eyes received my expression.
The world was changing again.
Many things raced through my mind at that moment. Many machinations and permutations of what the future outcomes of this would be, and what impact it would have on myself and my family.
Briefly.
And then serenity filled my lungs along with a fresh supply of oxygen, and I looked momentarily towards Charlotte, bracing the nape of my rapidly growing daughter, and then smiled back at Demi.
“I didn’t think he’d actually do it.”
And much like before, in the most unexpected of moments, the touchpaper was uncovered. The impetus for evolution.
I’d been waiting around for Xavier Black to make a mistake, to find a weak and unprotected layer to expose him through, once again. I’d been biding my time, waiting as he sent the same lambs to the same slaughter over and over again, readying myself for the opportunity, or awaiting the retaliation. I hate him, but I don’t underestimate him. What I did to him? I know there will be a receipt if I ever gave him the opportunity to cash one.
And as my brain struggled to process through this, it became clear that it was too late now. He’d been shot several times. Much like Riggs, he was incapacitated and sadly no longer relevant. There is no benefit to the wasted energy it would require to overthink all of the consequences.
There would be no epilogue. It was out of my hands.
All this time wondering whether the people I’d beaten so definitively and decisively had been all they were cracked up to be, and whether that told more about what I’d accomplished, or what they had failed to.
Now it no longer had to be the quiet voice in my head that whispered to me between my rational thoughts. Now I could go out into the world and see it for myself, no longer paralysed in some sort of suspended animation whilst Xavier put himself at arm’s length from the possibility of ending what we started. A new layer, another wrinkle to the curiosity that drove me, was starting to emerge.
We left Japan in early May, and made our presence felt at the DOOM pay-per-view showcase for Level Up Wrestling. This would be an opportunity to prove beyond all doubt that it is more than just a big fish and little pond situation.
Starting from the bottom, I intend to challenge myself with each and every competitor on the roster. I want to be in the dark matches, I want to struggle and earn an opportunity to fight for each and every championship on offer, before finally taking the opportunity to face the Final Boss, one day in the future.
I know it will start on May 24th, in a match against the Waluigi Brothers. Whatever it takes. From there, who knows. One step at a time. One boot after the last. With each new piece of information, adapt, change, reposition and adjust.
Because the moment you get comfortable, the moment you stop looking over your shoulder, the moment you find yourself thinking you know what’s coming is the moment you get blindsided.
I once said that I climbed the mountain to see the world, not so the world would see me. But I guess the reality is that there are many mountains that overlook many worlds, and I’ve only climbed one.
I’ll see you at the top.
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