Post by Deleted on Sept 7, 2017 2:37:52 GMT
As Nighthawk hobbles into his doctor’s office in the Lakeview East neighborhood of Chicago to get his custom-made knee brace fitted before his return to full-time in-ring competition against Mr. Happy one can’t help but look at him and wonder if he really is prepared for what awaits him. While no one thinks the uber-talented Chicagoan is ever going to fall to Mr. Happy in his 1st match back, one wonders if the path he is so willingly taking the choice to walk down will lead to the kind of injury he might not be able to so easily bounce back from.
But while his health, and more specifically the strength in his left knee, remains an open question the fire and lust for combat we saw him compete with in his return indicates that, in all the ways that matter, Nighthawk is truly ready for competition in his heart and soul. If his body, and his left knee more exactly, can keep up with that readiness is more of an open question.
But as the “Wrestling Machine” sits on the bench waiting to have his knee examined we see the way in which he is taking care to not sit with force and wonder whether the explosive in-ring style he showed glimpses of before his knee injury has been lost forever, or if the newly-discovered musculature he put on his frame while rehabilitating said knee injury will tell in increased explosiveness and perhaps the ability to trade blows with full-fledged heavyweights.
Sitting down on the bench, having rolled his jeans up to expose the left knee and the American-flag bedecked knee brace he wore to the doctor’s office, Nighthawk smiles when his doctor, who happens to be his sister Siobhan, enters the room.
Nighthawk, his Irish accent suddenly coming out stronger around his baby sister: “Hey, kid. I know I’m seeing you on short notice, and I already got cleared by the IWF doctors, but I need a favor.”
Siobhan, rolling her emerald-green eyes with a kind of familial love: “Of course, old man. What can I do for my baby brother, besides tell you how freaked out your orthopedic surgeon was when he saw you on IWF TV with a massive knee brace and being a part of a 6-man tag you didn’t tell him about?”
Nighthawk, bowing his head as though he knows he deserves this mild scolding: “I know, kid. I get it. But Andrew called me, and he asked for my help. He said he needed to get someone on his side that Spike would never see coming. He visited me in the hospital bed when he didn’t have to. So, for that matter, did Devlin. I know how wrestlers are, kid. We don’t want to admit that our friend, our peer, in the hospital bed could be us one day. Because they were willing to do that for me, because they were willing to face that fear to be there for me, I can’t look Andrew in the eyes and know that I can help him but choose not to. I just couldn’t.”
Siobhan, understanding her brother’s state of mind deeply: “I understand. Now what’s this favor you need, old man?”
Nighthawk: “Kid, I need a knee brace that doesn’t look like a knee brace. I got to the trainer’s room after that 6-man, and my knee was fine structurally. There wasn’t too much play in the joint, and there was no swelling, but I knew. If I have this <Nighthawk gestures to his knee brace and the scar it hides> this knee is going to always be a target, and while I can’t stop people from knowing about my injury, I can do the best I can to not make the bullseye any bigger than it must be. And if there’s any doctor in the city who I trust to do that, it’s you.”
Siobhan, smiling bashfully at the praise: “Thank you, old man. Let’s look at our options.”
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
As Nighthawk sits in the living room of his rowhouse in the Bridgeport neighborhood of Chicago, his USA Wrestling gym bag packed and sitting at his feet, he slowly closes his eyes and begins to slowly meditate. Clad in a orange Kenta Kobashi T-shirt, a orange-and-cream knee brace on his left knee which is currently covered up by orange-and-cream leather pants with royal-blue piping up and down each leg, and black work boots, the “Master of 1000 Holds” opens his eyes and grins widely, clearly excited to be back in his element.
Nighthawk: “Three Months. 91 Days. 2,190 Hours. And I spent all of them, every second, preparing for just this moment.
When I injured my left knee against Ryan Shane, I was sure that was it. Sure, I hadn’t accomplished nearly anything I wanted to in the IWF. And sure, that knowledge nagged at me like an itch you can’t reach. But as I lay writhing on the mat, in absolute pain, that knowledge was the least of my problems.
I was concerned about my wife, and being the husband and the man she deserved. I was concerned about my students, and whether or not I could train them to the standards they deserved to be held to.
My career? That was the absolute last thing I was thinking about.
And then, Spike Kane happened to me. Spike knew I was training his son, and he lashed out at me for it. This I knew was coming.
But his hands on my wife, who I have always tried to keep out of this line of work to the best of my ability, is the one sin Spike committed that I could not abide. But before I could do anything about it, fighting as I was on one leg, Spike threw me down a flight of stairs.
When I woke up, staples in the back of my head and my leg in a cast, I was told what happened. My friends came to visit. Some of them paid tribute to me by using the moves I had mastered to win championships. But all of that tribute, for how good it felt, was the emotional equivalent of a jelly donut. Filling for a time, but nowhere near as satisfying as it could have been.
And yet, in the cold and spartan rehab room, that feeling was about the best I could have hoped for. Rehabbing a knee injury is slow and painful work, and without something to properly motivate you, it is all the more Sisyphean. You see, I thought my wife would want me to stop, to become a trainer and a mercenary wrestling coach.
She didn’t.
I can remember, as clear as a day, her grabbing me by my shirt collar and informing me that I was going to come back to the ring, and I was going to avenge her, and myself, by returning to the ring.
And so, here we are.
Mr. Happy, I hold nothing against you personally. You are just the other name on a booking sheet, the other man standing across the ring from me.
But I will not lie to you. This week, when I step in the ring with you, I will make an example of you. I will tie you in knots so tight a master boy scout will go weak in the knees. I will hit you like a locomotive on nitrous oxide coming in front of a hillside shack in the middle of Harlan County. And when I make you tap, or pin your shoulders to the mat, I will wait for you to get up. And I will shake your hand. Because it was never personal.
See you in the ring, Mr. Happy. May sleep give you the courage to go on.”
But while his health, and more specifically the strength in his left knee, remains an open question the fire and lust for combat we saw him compete with in his return indicates that, in all the ways that matter, Nighthawk is truly ready for competition in his heart and soul. If his body, and his left knee more exactly, can keep up with that readiness is more of an open question.
But as the “Wrestling Machine” sits on the bench waiting to have his knee examined we see the way in which he is taking care to not sit with force and wonder whether the explosive in-ring style he showed glimpses of before his knee injury has been lost forever, or if the newly-discovered musculature he put on his frame while rehabilitating said knee injury will tell in increased explosiveness and perhaps the ability to trade blows with full-fledged heavyweights.
Sitting down on the bench, having rolled his jeans up to expose the left knee and the American-flag bedecked knee brace he wore to the doctor’s office, Nighthawk smiles when his doctor, who happens to be his sister Siobhan, enters the room.
Nighthawk, his Irish accent suddenly coming out stronger around his baby sister: “Hey, kid. I know I’m seeing you on short notice, and I already got cleared by the IWF doctors, but I need a favor.”
Siobhan, rolling her emerald-green eyes with a kind of familial love: “Of course, old man. What can I do for my baby brother, besides tell you how freaked out your orthopedic surgeon was when he saw you on IWF TV with a massive knee brace and being a part of a 6-man tag you didn’t tell him about?”
Nighthawk, bowing his head as though he knows he deserves this mild scolding: “I know, kid. I get it. But Andrew called me, and he asked for my help. He said he needed to get someone on his side that Spike would never see coming. He visited me in the hospital bed when he didn’t have to. So, for that matter, did Devlin. I know how wrestlers are, kid. We don’t want to admit that our friend, our peer, in the hospital bed could be us one day. Because they were willing to do that for me, because they were willing to face that fear to be there for me, I can’t look Andrew in the eyes and know that I can help him but choose not to. I just couldn’t.”
Siobhan, understanding her brother’s state of mind deeply: “I understand. Now what’s this favor you need, old man?”
Nighthawk: “Kid, I need a knee brace that doesn’t look like a knee brace. I got to the trainer’s room after that 6-man, and my knee was fine structurally. There wasn’t too much play in the joint, and there was no swelling, but I knew. If I have this <Nighthawk gestures to his knee brace and the scar it hides> this knee is going to always be a target, and while I can’t stop people from knowing about my injury, I can do the best I can to not make the bullseye any bigger than it must be. And if there’s any doctor in the city who I trust to do that, it’s you.”
Siobhan, smiling bashfully at the praise: “Thank you, old man. Let’s look at our options.”
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
As Nighthawk sits in the living room of his rowhouse in the Bridgeport neighborhood of Chicago, his USA Wrestling gym bag packed and sitting at his feet, he slowly closes his eyes and begins to slowly meditate. Clad in a orange Kenta Kobashi T-shirt, a orange-and-cream knee brace on his left knee which is currently covered up by orange-and-cream leather pants with royal-blue piping up and down each leg, and black work boots, the “Master of 1000 Holds” opens his eyes and grins widely, clearly excited to be back in his element.
Nighthawk: “Three Months. 91 Days. 2,190 Hours. And I spent all of them, every second, preparing for just this moment.
When I injured my left knee against Ryan Shane, I was sure that was it. Sure, I hadn’t accomplished nearly anything I wanted to in the IWF. And sure, that knowledge nagged at me like an itch you can’t reach. But as I lay writhing on the mat, in absolute pain, that knowledge was the least of my problems.
I was concerned about my wife, and being the husband and the man she deserved. I was concerned about my students, and whether or not I could train them to the standards they deserved to be held to.
My career? That was the absolute last thing I was thinking about.
And then, Spike Kane happened to me. Spike knew I was training his son, and he lashed out at me for it. This I knew was coming.
But his hands on my wife, who I have always tried to keep out of this line of work to the best of my ability, is the one sin Spike committed that I could not abide. But before I could do anything about it, fighting as I was on one leg, Spike threw me down a flight of stairs.
When I woke up, staples in the back of my head and my leg in a cast, I was told what happened. My friends came to visit. Some of them paid tribute to me by using the moves I had mastered to win championships. But all of that tribute, for how good it felt, was the emotional equivalent of a jelly donut. Filling for a time, but nowhere near as satisfying as it could have been.
And yet, in the cold and spartan rehab room, that feeling was about the best I could have hoped for. Rehabbing a knee injury is slow and painful work, and without something to properly motivate you, it is all the more Sisyphean. You see, I thought my wife would want me to stop, to become a trainer and a mercenary wrestling coach.
She didn’t.
I can remember, as clear as a day, her grabbing me by my shirt collar and informing me that I was going to come back to the ring, and I was going to avenge her, and myself, by returning to the ring.
And so, here we are.
Mr. Happy, I hold nothing against you personally. You are just the other name on a booking sheet, the other man standing across the ring from me.
But I will not lie to you. This week, when I step in the ring with you, I will make an example of you. I will tie you in knots so tight a master boy scout will go weak in the knees. I will hit you like a locomotive on nitrous oxide coming in front of a hillside shack in the middle of Harlan County. And when I make you tap, or pin your shoulders to the mat, I will wait for you to get up. And I will shake your hand. Because it was never personal.
See you in the ring, Mr. Happy. May sleep give you the courage to go on.”
Well howdy there pardner.