Memories

[Roberto Verona]

{ Our scenes opens up in a finely decorated room, filled with various items of memorabilia from the career of Roberto Verona who stands at one end of the room look down at something in his hand. Hannah Reed walks in, her business attire scattered with the remnants of a few drops of rain as she walks towards him. }

Hannah Reed: What are you looking at?

{ Verona turns and looks up, smiling as Hannah approaches him and places her chin on his shoulder. He lifts the belt up to the light. }

Roberto Verona: My NCW X-Championship… it is the first belt I ever won.

Hannah Reed: What made you feel so nostalgic?

{ Roberto shakes his head. }

Roberto Verona: This is the first accomplishment I ever made in this business and I did it with a man who threw it all away.

{ Hannah opens her lips and mouths “ah” silently. }

Hannah Reed: So this is about Todd.

Roberto Verona: You know, I can still remember the first few months of my career, I walked into that company and people were hot and cold with me, they’d seen guy after guy show up, impress and then amount to nothing and the first real opportunity I had was to show my worth with Todd Williams, the same guy I watched win a Riot and World Championship. Now look at him.

Hannah Reed: That isn’t your fault.

Roberto Verona: Of course not, if anything it just reminds me of how far I’ve come. I pity men like him, men like Steve. Men who had everything the guys and girls on our roster can only dream of, but they threw it all away and for what?

{ Verona snorts contemptuously. }

Roberto Verona: A bigger resumé on IMDB?

Hannah Reed: That was their choice.

Roberto Verona: Quite right, and it has been ours to continue to placate them. Every dollar that exits our bank balance into their pockets is a wasted investment… yet it shouldn’t be. Say what you want about Todd, Steve and any of the other alumni who show up with a begging bowl but there’s a reason people remember them. And most of them are still in their prime, yet none of them are willing to apply themselves. Is it any wonder the new talent look at people like me and Spike with so much contempt when our contemporaries are content to just leech off the business and hog the spotlight they deserve?

Hannah Reed: I know when you’re somebody who is as driven as you are that it is difficult to understand but… some people are happy to settle. Maybe for them it is enough to simply hold on to the memories?

{ Verona’s brows furrow with contempt. }

Roberto Verona: Then they don’t belong here, I’m sick of being a charity.

{ Hannah lifts her head from his shoulder, resting her hand on the small of Verona’s back. }

Hannah Reed: This has really gotten to you, hasn’t it?

Roberto Verona:… Yes. Do you know how much of my life I have given to this business? How much of myself I have sacrificed to build this company? Think about all the moments you have watched me break myself to give people the opportunities I never had, all the pain I’ve put you through, the sleepless nights worrying as I lay knocked out with pain killers after a pay per view that went wrong. All of that was to build this company, to give people a platform…

{ Verona slams a fist down on the desk. }

Roberto Verona: Only to have smug self-assured bastards like Steve Awesome make a mockery of this business and bring this company into disrepute with his self-serving bullshit.

Hannah Reed: So what are you going to do about it?

{ Verona pauses for a moment, collecting himself before smiling sardonically and nodding. }

Roberto Verona: I’m going to beat some respect into Todd Williams to start with, then, if that grinning leech Steve Awesome wants to take off his head set and test my patience I’m going to show everybody in that locker room what the administration really thinks of people who see IWF as a welfare payment. I’m going to prove that everything I fought for, everything I sold them on wasn’t just a cheap parlour trick to pop the crowd and get them to sign on the dotted line.

{ Roberto turns to look at Hannah. }

Roberto Verona: I’m going to show them that it’s the lifeblood of this company.

{ Roberto walks past Hannah and exits the room, leaving her alone for a moment looking over her shoulder as he leaves. Hannah walks over to the cabinet, placing the NCW X-Championship back neatly in place before looking down at a photo beside it, her eyes lingering on the image of Todd Williams and Roberto Verona stood listening to Leonard Fox backstage before their fight all those years ago as our scene fades to black. }

It was inevitable, wasn’t it? Nearly a decade ago my path started with you in New Championship Wrestling and for the first time in years, you and I will share a ring together again.

You know, Todd, there was a time back when I was a lot more pretentious and didn’t understand this business where I genuinely couldn’t see the appeal in you. I used to look out from behind the curtains and listen to the baying arenas chant “Todd Means Business” along with you like trained sheep, they’d wave inflatable hands with your face on and they’d go nuts for you.

Yet, I wised up soon enough.

You were the ultimate every man, you were the kind of guy who wore his heart on his sleeve, was full of energy and they adored to live vicariously through you. You weren’t stuck up, you weren’t lost in a desperate attempt to come across as a ruthless killer, you embraced who you were and you want down to that ring, day in, day out, to live your dream.

I could see it in your eyes, when you and I went back and forth I could sense your total and unadulterated love for this business.

And so, we come to the crux of all of this… what the fuck happened to you? When did Todd Williams, the man whose heart and soul beat for professional wrestling, who lived for his moment to connect with audiences around the world… when did he just stop caring?

Was it when the daily grind just became too much to bear like so many men and women who’ve broken down? Was it when better men came and stole the spotlight from you and you became an afterthought? Was it when your personal life fell apart and the vacuous parasite you called a wife demonstrated that she was just using you all along?

Only you can answer that, Todd, but the reality is that the moment Xander tore that NCW World Championship from your grasp you became an empty shell.

You’ve never been the most reliable at the best of times, but even for your own standards you sank without a trace. Do you know how many house shows kids turned up to desperate to see their hero only to be left crippled with disappointment when Todd Williams lived up to the small print and became the very embodiment of “subject to change”? I’m a cold, heartless bastard in most people’s eyes but even my empty soul couldn’t help but feel for the men, women and children who walked into whichever arena we were in on any given night draped in your merchandise full of pure joy, only to see them slump out deflated by the entire experience.

Then the cheques just got smaller and smaller didn’t they? At one stage Todd really did “Mean Business”, big business, Leonard and Kelly Fox used to make a fortune out of you but then, after a few months of flaky appearances and repeated attempts to restart your career the new t-shirt designs just started to dry up, the colour in your fans merchandise began to fade just like your stardom and instead of the respect a man who could call himself a former World Champion and Riot winner should have deserved, the most you could inspire was a tepid shrug.

The fans began to respond with about as much effort as you’ve been investing in your career for years.

And do you know what, Todd? That pisses me off. To have to share ringside with such a gigantic waste of potential like Steve Awesome is one thing, but to have to share the ring with somebody who I experienced, first hand, at his peak, who has completely pissed that away? Well, it makes me furious. You had it all… and you didn’t even have the decency to bow out gracefully, to give your supporters something to cherish. To give those people a lasting memory they could smile at nostalgically when they took their grandkids to see their first pro-wrestling show.

Instead, you left them with an insulting empty shell who continues to spit on their investment every time you lace up a pair of boots to cash in a pay check every couple of months.

Nobody wants to see their heroes call it a day, but it sure as hell is better than watching them become a deadbeat who leeches off of professional wrestling in sporadic bouts and consistently lets down the promotions willing to give him an opportunity. Somebody whose name has become the very definition of the term “unreliable.” I can’t even begin to count the number of bridges you have burned by failing to fulfil bookings and disappearing without leave, the amount of times you’ve been scheduled to appear and we wouldn’t even know if you were going to bother showing up only to waltz in five minutes before you match, unprepared and unmotivated.

The amount of times you’ve staggered in front of an IWF camera and stared at the lens with dead eyes and no passion.

Let me make this abundantly clear to you and hell, even that embarrassment of wrestler sitting at ringside this week, the only reason you even have a job here is because of a promise I made to management at New Championship Wrestling five years ago. I told them that IWF would always have a place for NCW alumni, for men like you and Steve Awesome to represent the proud, historic legacy of that great company.

Yet every time you lace up a pair of boots you piss over everything it accomplished.

Two of its biggest, brightest stars are nothing but ineffectual parasites banking their last bit of star power at the expense of the legacy of the company that gave them everything whilst men like me, men like Angel, men like Spike Kane, we continue to bust our asses day in, day out and prove to the world that it meant something, that all those moments we created weren’t just landmarks we could use to pay our rent and scrape by with as little effort as possible.

What makes it worse, Todd, is unlike Steve, I don’t even view you as a cynical money grabber.

I do think that every time you pick up that phone and you beg for another opportunity you do genuinely want to come back here and make a statement, to see your name up in lights once again and to hear the crowd chant your name. Yet… every time you slip back into old habits and before long you disappear, only to resurface when the rollercoaster that is your self-esteem is peaking again with motivation.

All that is left to ask is whether or not you ever plan to get off that ride and take control of your own destiny?

Because here we are, Todd, another round of the Tag Team World Cup and alongside you is a man who can’t rely on the starlight he built years ago to keep food on the table. Teddy Steele can’t just come and go when he pleases because the fact of the matter is nobody remembers who the hell he is enough to care. If you can’t find it in yourself to apply to this business, the least you can do is find it within you to not drag him down with you.

The fact is both of you have all the talent in the world, but only one of you is completely doomed to obscurity if his partner lets him down.

Make no mistake, this week, me and Cable will do everything in our power to leave the pair of your laying in your backs, writhing in agony and you could do what comes natural to you, Todd, and just give up, tuck your tail between your legs and come back begging for another opportunity in a months time…

Or you could dust yourself down, apply yourself and set an example Teddy can learn from.

He has his whole career left ahead of him, moments to create, memories to leave behind, but he isn’t ever going to do that if he’s consistently weighed down by a man who is purely content with merely existing. The fact is, Todd, that you have a responsibility to not drag him down to your level if you’re so intent on continuing to scupper your own legacy.

Don’t get me wrong, Teddy, you have to man up yourself and take some responsibility for your own career, but the reality is that we both know your momentum has consistently been undercut by your repeated association with Todd Williams and there isn’t a chance in hell that I am going to sit here and sugar coat things because Todd can’t handle the truth because as your boss, as somebody who is invested in your future, I have little time to coddle you.

Just like everybody else in that locker room, I want you to succeed.

But I can’t choose your associates, I can’t decide who you travel with and who you spend your time with in your personal life. I can’t purge negative influences from your life for you, nor can I take responsibility for your poor career choices. The reality is that you chose to give Todd another opportunity and it is up to you to make him realise the great debt he owes you because if he still hasn’t dragged his head out of the perpetual lethargy he has allowed himself to become enveloped by there’s only going to be one loser.

You.

Perhaps the pair of you are sat down right now with a fire lit under your asses, in which case, all the better. I hope you’re sat there feeling offended, I hope every stinging barb struck a chord in you because the fact is Todd, you’ve not cared about your career for far too long and you, Teddy, you’ve gone to bat for somebody who has let you down time and time again, just like he let all of the people watching at home.

When I get into that ring this Sunday I want to see the hate in your eyes, I want to see the fire to prove me wrong, to shut me and Cable up.

There are no question marks around CaBerto, Steve Awesome at ringside or not, we will do what we do every time we enter that ring and we will put on a show and we will do everything it takes to prove to the world that whilst the words “Age of Gods” may be on everybody’s lips right now that the real immortals will be standing across that ring from the pair of you at Dark Reign.

This week me and Cable Arcance are going to demonstrate why our legacies continue to burn bright.

The least you two can do is to not piss on yours.