Post by Roberto Verona on Aug 27, 2018 1:06:15 GMT
{ Our scene opens up again in the grand study of Roberto Verona, rain lashing against the window panes as the man himself stands looking out across the vast forest which envelops his estates. In one hand is a glass of red win whilst he clutches a newspaper in the other, the crumpled headline unintelligible although the picture of Spike Kane laying in the ring dying is clearly visible. All around him on the floor are scrunched up bundles of paper strewn all over which Jessica Reed navigates cautiously, kicking a few away with her feet and looking down long enough to see various letterheads from a number of IWF’s corporate sponsors. Verona doesn’t even flinch as she gets closer to him, instead continuing to stare out of the window and sipping from his glass. }
Jessica Reed: Hannah said I might find you here.
{ Verona remains silent. }
Jessica Reed: You know, my father used to tell me that I’d be a hermit if I spent any more time locked in my room with the curtains closed playing video games…
{ Verona lets out a disgruntled breath. }
Roberto Verona: What do you want Jessica?
{ Jess shrugs. }
Jessica Reed: World Peace? A new season of Firefly? Super powers?
Roberto Verona: Jess, I don’t have time for…
Jessica Reed: Time for what? Sarcasm? Interestingly you have all the time in the world to sit around beating yourself up, you do realise there’s a mile long queue of people who’d do that for you right?
Roberto Verona: Why are you here?
Jessica Reed: To forgive you.
{ Verona raises an eyebrow. }
Roberto Verona: To forgive me?
Jessica Reed. Yes. For not being able to protect me from Rowan.
{ Roberto bows his head. }
Roberto Verona: Oh.
{ Verona pauses for a moment and turns away. }
Roberto Verona: Thank you…
Jessica Reed: More importantly, I’m here to convince you to forgive yourself.
{ Verona suddenly stops, turning back around to face Jess. }
Roberto Verona: How can I?
Jessica Reed: Because you can’t hold yourself responsible for the choices other people make.
Roberto Verona: But I am responsible…
Jessica Reed: You’re no more responsible for Spike Kane walking down to that ring than you are for me choosing to pick a fight with a psychopath. There wasn’t anything you could do to stop me from doing everything in my power to get my hands on Rowan, no amount of security or planning could have prevented what happened to me.
{ Jess places a hand on Verona’s, causing him to hunch up his shoulders. }
Jessica Reed: And no amount of medical checks would have stopped Spike Kane getting inside a wrestling ring.
Roberto Verona: He would never have been in that God forsaken structure if we had…
Jessica Reed: If you’d what? Told him he wasn’t allowed to compete anymore? Roberto… if you’d denied him, he would have ended up finding the first disreputable scumbag looking for a big pay day and died in some rundown bingo hall miles away from any opportunity of medical treatment. At least he died doing what he loved surrounded by people who cared enough to save him, despite his commitment to destroying the very safety net which was always there to catch him when he fell.
{ Jess moves around to get in front of Verona, shimmying to prevent him from avoiding eye contact. }
Jessica Reed: Sometimes peoples propensity for self-destruction exceeds even the best of intentions. You can’t control what people do… no matter how hard you try. The best you can do is control the environment in which they have the best opportunity to avoid the most severe consequences of their choices.
{ Roberto closes his eyes and sighs. }
Roberto Verona: If only I had that… this war is engulfing everything I have built, even Cable has become a casualty.
Jessica Reed: Then fight for it.
Roberto Verona: I’m trying… harder than you know.
Jessica Reed: Then try harder. Let Hannah deal with the nuts and bolts like you promised and get your ass back out there in trenches where you belong. You won’t restore order wallowing in self-pity, you made a mistake, now it’s time to rectify it.
Roberto Verona: I’m capable of many things, Jess, but I don’t think necromancy is one of them.
Jessica Reed: Who said Spike was the mistake? I am talking about allowing yourself to become distracted from the real threat to this business. You took your eyes off the game when you had Cable to carry the burden alongside you, there’s no way the Pack and the Age of Gods would be in this position if the pair if you weren’t distracted by Steve Awesome’s tantrums.
{ Verona looks down, mulling over his thoughts for a moment before he nods slowly. }
Roberto Verona: Maybe you’re right… maybe I was complacent. Maybe me and Cable were fighting the wrong war, perhaps I felt too secure I failed to see what was coming.
Jessica Reed: It isn’t too late to repair the damage, but IWF needs you… it needs a leader.
{ Jess smiles. }
Jessica Reed: IWF needs you.
{ She smirks. }
Jessica Reed: Even if you are a pain in the ass.
Jessica Reed: Hannah said I might find you here.
{ Verona remains silent. }
Jessica Reed: You know, my father used to tell me that I’d be a hermit if I spent any more time locked in my room with the curtains closed playing video games…
{ Verona lets out a disgruntled breath. }
Roberto Verona: What do you want Jessica?
{ Jess shrugs. }
Jessica Reed: World Peace? A new season of Firefly? Super powers?
Roberto Verona: Jess, I don’t have time for…
Jessica Reed: Time for what? Sarcasm? Interestingly you have all the time in the world to sit around beating yourself up, you do realise there’s a mile long queue of people who’d do that for you right?
Roberto Verona: Why are you here?
Jessica Reed: To forgive you.
{ Verona raises an eyebrow. }
Roberto Verona: To forgive me?
Jessica Reed. Yes. For not being able to protect me from Rowan.
{ Roberto bows his head. }
Roberto Verona: Oh.
{ Verona pauses for a moment and turns away. }
Roberto Verona: Thank you…
Jessica Reed: More importantly, I’m here to convince you to forgive yourself.
{ Verona suddenly stops, turning back around to face Jess. }
Roberto Verona: How can I?
Jessica Reed: Because you can’t hold yourself responsible for the choices other people make.
Roberto Verona: But I am responsible…
Jessica Reed: You’re no more responsible for Spike Kane walking down to that ring than you are for me choosing to pick a fight with a psychopath. There wasn’t anything you could do to stop me from doing everything in my power to get my hands on Rowan, no amount of security or planning could have prevented what happened to me.
{ Jess places a hand on Verona’s, causing him to hunch up his shoulders. }
Jessica Reed: And no amount of medical checks would have stopped Spike Kane getting inside a wrestling ring.
Roberto Verona: He would never have been in that God forsaken structure if we had…
Jessica Reed: If you’d what? Told him he wasn’t allowed to compete anymore? Roberto… if you’d denied him, he would have ended up finding the first disreputable scumbag looking for a big pay day and died in some rundown bingo hall miles away from any opportunity of medical treatment. At least he died doing what he loved surrounded by people who cared enough to save him, despite his commitment to destroying the very safety net which was always there to catch him when he fell.
{ Jess moves around to get in front of Verona, shimmying to prevent him from avoiding eye contact. }
Jessica Reed: Sometimes peoples propensity for self-destruction exceeds even the best of intentions. You can’t control what people do… no matter how hard you try. The best you can do is control the environment in which they have the best opportunity to avoid the most severe consequences of their choices.
{ Roberto closes his eyes and sighs. }
Roberto Verona: If only I had that… this war is engulfing everything I have built, even Cable has become a casualty.
Jessica Reed: Then fight for it.
Roberto Verona: I’m trying… harder than you know.
Jessica Reed: Then try harder. Let Hannah deal with the nuts and bolts like you promised and get your ass back out there in trenches where you belong. You won’t restore order wallowing in self-pity, you made a mistake, now it’s time to rectify it.
Roberto Verona: I’m capable of many things, Jess, but I don’t think necromancy is one of them.
Jessica Reed: Who said Spike was the mistake? I am talking about allowing yourself to become distracted from the real threat to this business. You took your eyes off the game when you had Cable to carry the burden alongside you, there’s no way the Pack and the Age of Gods would be in this position if the pair if you weren’t distracted by Steve Awesome’s tantrums.
{ Verona looks down, mulling over his thoughts for a moment before he nods slowly. }
Roberto Verona: Maybe you’re right… maybe I was complacent. Maybe me and Cable were fighting the wrong war, perhaps I felt too secure I failed to see what was coming.
Jessica Reed: It isn’t too late to repair the damage, but IWF needs you… it needs a leader.
{ Jess smiles. }
Jessica Reed: IWF needs you.
{ She smirks. }
Jessica Reed: Even if you are a pain in the ass.
You know, Xavier, I’m going to be blunt. Several weeks ago, you disappointed me.
Worst of all you disappointed yourself.
You had the opportunity to overcome your burdens and to finally make a statement by claiming my scalp and yet… you were still questioning yourself, tripping over your mental roadblocks and stumbling into a well-earned defeat. I was expecting more, hell, I was expecting something, anything, yet it was all over as quickly as it had begun. To say I was surprised is perhaps the biggest understatement of the year, I don’t use the term lightly, but you choked.
And I left you for dead.
Yet, there are many men who would have shrunk after a performance like that. I’ve seen them come and go, full of pomp and splendour only to turn and slink into irrelevancy with their tails between their legs when they finally realise they’ve overstepped the mark. They disappear with their deflated egos never to be seen or heard from again but you…
You refused to repeat the habit of a lifetime.
I say this with every sincerity but you earned my respect, Xavier. You failed, you failed spectacularly and abruptly in front of the eyes of the world and instead of hiding you knuckled down, regrouped and succeeded. People often look at me and they assume that I am the embodiment of wrestling perfection, that I simply need to show up and I will inevitably claim yet another victory, they’ve all conveniently forgotten the moments which helped define the man I became.
When I had my first opportunity at a world championship against Ricky Johnson, I choked. Three years of hard work, all down the drain in a single evening. When I declared war on the machine I was chewed up and spat out by Adam Knite and Kelly Fox on numerous occasions, even in one of my finest hours I when I ended the year long streak of Xander Famularo I had to suffer defeat after defeat before I finally accomplished my goal.
Hell, I was even pinned by Todd Williams once upon a time and Lord knows I’ve come close to enduring similar days of ignominy.
My point? For all the pontificating I’ve heard from you about myself, I didn’t become the man I am today by clearing every hurdle with consummate ease, I clipped my foot and fell flat on my face and suffered humiliations of my own, the only difference is once you become an icon people begin to conveniently cleanse your back catalogue from their memories. Each of those moments were just as pivotal in making me the ruthless and effective wrestling machine standing before you today and every single time I failed…
I got back up again.
That is why I am not underestimating the threat you pose to me this week, Xavier. If this was just another round of the tournament, I’d probably dismiss your victories as a minor recovery which would be swiftly and resoundingly nullified, but this is different. Not only did you pick yourself up, but you forged a path to the final of a major tournament, most men would have wavered, you didn’t.
That’s why I know that you have every opportunity of exorcising the demons of yesteryear and walking out of Legacy as the Heir to the Throne.
I meant everything I said to you when we first locked horned, Cross. You’re a lot more talented than people give you credit for and after years of wondering if you would ever fulfil your potential you’re a single match away from silencing all your doubters permanently. This is an opportunity for you to define your career, to demonstrate that you do have what it takes to be the competitor you’ve always threatened to be.
You finally have a chance to stop flattering to deceive.
This week we will find out just who Xavier Cross really is, and I will do so brutally… intimately. You have learned to pick yourself up when you stumble but the question is… are your prepared for the consequences of failure this week? It is one thing to fail when the stakes are minimal, when there is still an opportunity to correct course and keep moving towards the final destination, it’s quite another to have your finger prints on gold only to see it snatched away.
Are you ready to fail, Xavier?
Truly and utterly?
For a matter of fact, are you, Redcap? You’ve been earning yourself quite the reputation around here, quite warranted may I add, your entire career has been an upward trajectory, an inevitable march some would argue to moments like these. Each step bringing you one closer towards the conclusion of your journey to the promise land.
To immortality.
To justice.
You and I have more in common than perhaps many would care to admit, the insatiable drive to succeed to fulfil our own ideological end games, a single minded commitment to instigating justice, or at least justice as we see it… the unrivalled will to win in the name of a higher calling. Your commitment to you task is admirable, whilst I made myself a symbol of a greater purpose and indulged in a cult of personality, you have forsaken your own glory by hiding behind a mask.
In many ways, I envy you.
Establishing myself as the living embodiment of everything I stand for has created unintended consequences, when professional wrestling faces a crisis the people call my name, their cries only satisfied by my ability to answer their pleas. By becoming the face of my movement I have indelibly cemented myself as the cure all to everybody’s ills. Without me there is no justice, at least the brand I have sold. For my message to succeed my presence is inextricably essential, I cannot rest, lest my accomplishments fade away.
I have nobody to pass my responsibilities… my burdens, onto.
You? You can pass on the mantle at any given moment, as long as somebody wears the mask, your march to justice never dies… never sleeps. You can forge your own path free from the responsibility of being the recognisable figurehead of a whole philosophy, safe in the knowledge that when you meet somebody worthy of the mask or when your mission is complete you can simply fade away…
Or step into the light.
The difference is, you have a choice, where I have none. You can reveal yourself on your own terms. I am utterly and totally responsible for everyone and everything in this company, no matter who I endow with the power to wield executive power the buck always and will always stop with me. To create IWF I had to become a household name, I had to place myself in a position where my opponents were completely incapable of resisting my will.
If my willpower wasn’t so resolute I would cherish the freedom you operate under.
Yet, question marks still remain around your own. Just how long can you hide behind the advantages which anonymity provides? How long can you operate in the shadows before somebody begins to cast light upon them? How committed are you… truly committed to your quest for justice when you can’t hide from it at any given opportunity?
What happens when the façade you’ve built around yourself crumbles and leaves you naked in front of the world… or worse, the pack of wolves waiting to devour you? Are you ready for the weight on your shoulders when you’re not merely a symbol anymore?
Have you even considered that you may inevitably have little to no say in the matter? If you succeed this week you will have a one on one date with destiny but if you fail? You will have done a great deal to get yourself noticed by people you have little to gain from gaining the attention of, people who revel with pick apart their victims piece by piece... tearing off the shroud which you wrap around yourself is nothing but child’s play for people who get their kicks pulling off the legs of insects.
Are your prepared to weather the storm when you no longer have somewhere to hide?
Mark my words, gentlemen, you can’t stand on the shoulders of giants if you aren’t prepared to risk plummeting to your death and that is what being on top of the mountain is truly like. There isn’t any permanence to immortality, your name may be up in lights but it is foolish to equivocate your position with invulnerability, the truth is the only way to succeed… to truly succeed is to embrace just how vulnerable you really are.
To realise just how close you are to failure.
I am a serial winner because I have learned, absolutely, how to lose just as much as I have learned how to win. When I look you in the eyes this week I will do so fully prepared to fail, regardless of the stakes involved. I will fight you with the freedom afforded to me by the fact that I realise just how precarious my mission to rescue this company truly is and I will fight you twice as hard as a consequence.
When you convince yourself that the only possible conclusion is an inevitable crowning glory you will rapidly find your hopes and dreams up on the scaffold waiting to feel the cruel justice of Lady Luck.
I stated, from day one, just how pivotal it was that I should succeed this week, that the entire fate of this company depends on my success. This was never about creating further accolades to accumulate around my person, this was always about aligning my head with my heart and creating an inescapable opportunity to topple one of the single biggest threats to this company in living memory, one which has already begun consuming us all.
It is the very weight of these stakes and the looming spectre of potential failure that will give me the drive required to move the odds in my favour.
The consequences of defeat are indescribable, the plague which has taken root in this company is already in the ascendency and once the rot takes hold I know how difficult it will be to rid IWF of this pestilence. If I should fail this week it is entirely possible that I simply will not be afford another opportunity to rectify that mistake, you can only reclimb the ladder in the foundations haven’t given way and the house has collapsed.
The potential for this eventuality is tangible.
It is my responsibility to do everything in my power to ensure that this week I dodge another bullet and live to fight another day and that I evade the unforgiving embrace of failure which hides in the shadows of all great men past and present.
I will become the Heir to the Throne.
Not for myself.
But for each and every one of you.
Heavy is the head which wears the crown and when I get my hands on Dean Harper…
Heads will roll.
Worst of all you disappointed yourself.
You had the opportunity to overcome your burdens and to finally make a statement by claiming my scalp and yet… you were still questioning yourself, tripping over your mental roadblocks and stumbling into a well-earned defeat. I was expecting more, hell, I was expecting something, anything, yet it was all over as quickly as it had begun. To say I was surprised is perhaps the biggest understatement of the year, I don’t use the term lightly, but you choked.
And I left you for dead.
Yet, there are many men who would have shrunk after a performance like that. I’ve seen them come and go, full of pomp and splendour only to turn and slink into irrelevancy with their tails between their legs when they finally realise they’ve overstepped the mark. They disappear with their deflated egos never to be seen or heard from again but you…
You refused to repeat the habit of a lifetime.
I say this with every sincerity but you earned my respect, Xavier. You failed, you failed spectacularly and abruptly in front of the eyes of the world and instead of hiding you knuckled down, regrouped and succeeded. People often look at me and they assume that I am the embodiment of wrestling perfection, that I simply need to show up and I will inevitably claim yet another victory, they’ve all conveniently forgotten the moments which helped define the man I became.
When I had my first opportunity at a world championship against Ricky Johnson, I choked. Three years of hard work, all down the drain in a single evening. When I declared war on the machine I was chewed up and spat out by Adam Knite and Kelly Fox on numerous occasions, even in one of my finest hours I when I ended the year long streak of Xander Famularo I had to suffer defeat after defeat before I finally accomplished my goal.
Hell, I was even pinned by Todd Williams once upon a time and Lord knows I’ve come close to enduring similar days of ignominy.
My point? For all the pontificating I’ve heard from you about myself, I didn’t become the man I am today by clearing every hurdle with consummate ease, I clipped my foot and fell flat on my face and suffered humiliations of my own, the only difference is once you become an icon people begin to conveniently cleanse your back catalogue from their memories. Each of those moments were just as pivotal in making me the ruthless and effective wrestling machine standing before you today and every single time I failed…
I got back up again.
That is why I am not underestimating the threat you pose to me this week, Xavier. If this was just another round of the tournament, I’d probably dismiss your victories as a minor recovery which would be swiftly and resoundingly nullified, but this is different. Not only did you pick yourself up, but you forged a path to the final of a major tournament, most men would have wavered, you didn’t.
That’s why I know that you have every opportunity of exorcising the demons of yesteryear and walking out of Legacy as the Heir to the Throne.
I meant everything I said to you when we first locked horned, Cross. You’re a lot more talented than people give you credit for and after years of wondering if you would ever fulfil your potential you’re a single match away from silencing all your doubters permanently. This is an opportunity for you to define your career, to demonstrate that you do have what it takes to be the competitor you’ve always threatened to be.
You finally have a chance to stop flattering to deceive.
This week we will find out just who Xavier Cross really is, and I will do so brutally… intimately. You have learned to pick yourself up when you stumble but the question is… are your prepared for the consequences of failure this week? It is one thing to fail when the stakes are minimal, when there is still an opportunity to correct course and keep moving towards the final destination, it’s quite another to have your finger prints on gold only to see it snatched away.
Are you ready to fail, Xavier?
Truly and utterly?
For a matter of fact, are you, Redcap? You’ve been earning yourself quite the reputation around here, quite warranted may I add, your entire career has been an upward trajectory, an inevitable march some would argue to moments like these. Each step bringing you one closer towards the conclusion of your journey to the promise land.
To immortality.
To justice.
You and I have more in common than perhaps many would care to admit, the insatiable drive to succeed to fulfil our own ideological end games, a single minded commitment to instigating justice, or at least justice as we see it… the unrivalled will to win in the name of a higher calling. Your commitment to you task is admirable, whilst I made myself a symbol of a greater purpose and indulged in a cult of personality, you have forsaken your own glory by hiding behind a mask.
In many ways, I envy you.
Establishing myself as the living embodiment of everything I stand for has created unintended consequences, when professional wrestling faces a crisis the people call my name, their cries only satisfied by my ability to answer their pleas. By becoming the face of my movement I have indelibly cemented myself as the cure all to everybody’s ills. Without me there is no justice, at least the brand I have sold. For my message to succeed my presence is inextricably essential, I cannot rest, lest my accomplishments fade away.
I have nobody to pass my responsibilities… my burdens, onto.
You? You can pass on the mantle at any given moment, as long as somebody wears the mask, your march to justice never dies… never sleeps. You can forge your own path free from the responsibility of being the recognisable figurehead of a whole philosophy, safe in the knowledge that when you meet somebody worthy of the mask or when your mission is complete you can simply fade away…
Or step into the light.
The difference is, you have a choice, where I have none. You can reveal yourself on your own terms. I am utterly and totally responsible for everyone and everything in this company, no matter who I endow with the power to wield executive power the buck always and will always stop with me. To create IWF I had to become a household name, I had to place myself in a position where my opponents were completely incapable of resisting my will.
If my willpower wasn’t so resolute I would cherish the freedom you operate under.
Yet, question marks still remain around your own. Just how long can you hide behind the advantages which anonymity provides? How long can you operate in the shadows before somebody begins to cast light upon them? How committed are you… truly committed to your quest for justice when you can’t hide from it at any given opportunity?
What happens when the façade you’ve built around yourself crumbles and leaves you naked in front of the world… or worse, the pack of wolves waiting to devour you? Are you ready for the weight on your shoulders when you’re not merely a symbol anymore?
Have you even considered that you may inevitably have little to no say in the matter? If you succeed this week you will have a one on one date with destiny but if you fail? You will have done a great deal to get yourself noticed by people you have little to gain from gaining the attention of, people who revel with pick apart their victims piece by piece... tearing off the shroud which you wrap around yourself is nothing but child’s play for people who get their kicks pulling off the legs of insects.
Are your prepared to weather the storm when you no longer have somewhere to hide?
Mark my words, gentlemen, you can’t stand on the shoulders of giants if you aren’t prepared to risk plummeting to your death and that is what being on top of the mountain is truly like. There isn’t any permanence to immortality, your name may be up in lights but it is foolish to equivocate your position with invulnerability, the truth is the only way to succeed… to truly succeed is to embrace just how vulnerable you really are.
To realise just how close you are to failure.
I am a serial winner because I have learned, absolutely, how to lose just as much as I have learned how to win. When I look you in the eyes this week I will do so fully prepared to fail, regardless of the stakes involved. I will fight you with the freedom afforded to me by the fact that I realise just how precarious my mission to rescue this company truly is and I will fight you twice as hard as a consequence.
When you convince yourself that the only possible conclusion is an inevitable crowning glory you will rapidly find your hopes and dreams up on the scaffold waiting to feel the cruel justice of Lady Luck.
I stated, from day one, just how pivotal it was that I should succeed this week, that the entire fate of this company depends on my success. This was never about creating further accolades to accumulate around my person, this was always about aligning my head with my heart and creating an inescapable opportunity to topple one of the single biggest threats to this company in living memory, one which has already begun consuming us all.
It is the very weight of these stakes and the looming spectre of potential failure that will give me the drive required to move the odds in my favour.
The consequences of defeat are indescribable, the plague which has taken root in this company is already in the ascendency and once the rot takes hold I know how difficult it will be to rid IWF of this pestilence. If I should fail this week it is entirely possible that I simply will not be afford another opportunity to rectify that mistake, you can only reclimb the ladder in the foundations haven’t given way and the house has collapsed.
The potential for this eventuality is tangible.
It is my responsibility to do everything in my power to ensure that this week I dodge another bullet and live to fight another day and that I evade the unforgiving embrace of failure which hides in the shadows of all great men past and present.
I will become the Heir to the Throne.
Not for myself.
But for each and every one of you.
Heavy is the head which wears the crown and when I get my hands on Dean Harper…
Heads will roll.
Well howdy there pardner.