Post by Roberto Verona on Jun 2, 2024 14:32:49 GMT
{ Our scene opens inside a darkened room where Roberto Verona sits at a large oak desk in an ornate chair, his hands clasped together as he looks directly into the camera. }
I’m not here to waste your time with the dramas of my personal life.
Allow me to make this abundantly clear.
I have absolutely no intention of winning the Joker in the Pack. My motives transcend my own personal accomplishments.
If I wanted a shot at the title I don’t need to create hurdles for myself.
No, I am here to ensure that the right person claims the briefcase.
Consider this a direct form of arbitration, I cannot be satisfied from merely observing from a distance, powerless to intervene in the course of history. I have never been a passenger, I don’t get swept away by the tides of history, I make it. Since day one, when I walked into New Championship Wrestling to the moment I founded the Imperial Wrestling Federation right through to today – I have done everything in my power to shape the course of the moments everybody watching at home cherishes.
I am the grand designer of their nostalgia.
And I am your final hurdle.
Each of you believe deep down inside yourselves that you are worthy of the opportunity to decide your own destiny. You wouldn’t be here and I wouldn’t have selected you if you were not confident in your own worthiness – but only one of you can prevail.
Will it be Madjinn? The reborn Mad Prince whose run with the Television Championship has reinvigorated a belt in stasis for the benefit of the future generations of IWF stars. Could it be Pax Stormcrow? The former champion brimming with potential and a score to settle and desire to prove that 2023 wasn’t just a flash in the pan ruthlessly stamped out by Dean Harper. Perhaps it will be Tytus Rost? An unstoppable Slavic force of destruction who has been dancing along the borderline of potential for far too long. Maybe it will be Cyrus Daniels? The ruthless mixed martial arts machine with a complete lack of empathy for the suffering of his opponents.
Or is it going to be Allen Chaney…
{ Verona’s lip curls with disgust. }
Let’s not stretch this out needlessly, we all know you’ve been waiting for me to address the Comedian.
How’s you head, Chaney?
{ Roberto smiles. }
For your own sake, I hope you answered the wake up call. It never needed to be this way, Allen. I’ve said it before – I like you. Not as a human being, but as a competitor? You’ve taken this company by storm since your revival. Undefeated in any contest requiring a pinfall or submission, the reality is that anybody attempting to deny you the opportunity to compete for the Joker in the Pack would be engaging in wilful ignorance. Your record speaks for itself and it alone is enough to qualify you for this opportunity.
And yet.
Like many men and women before you, you’re ability inside the ring is overshadowed by the insatiable sense of entitlement outside of it.
You came closer than anybody else to winning the Roulette and denying Warren Harper with his date with destiny and what did you do with that disappointment? Did you come to terms with the scales of fate narrowly tipping your gravity inches away from glory? Did you accept that you had an impressive showing worthy of continuing to cement your future opportunities?
Or did you throw an entitled tantrum and accuse my officials of incompetence – or worse, corruption?
That’s a rhetorical question – we all saw which path you decided to tread.
You cannot imagine the sense of disappointment that brought me, Allen. Contrary to your one dimensional strawman beliers of what I stand for and what motivates me, I actually do care. Every single action I take is because I care more about this company and the platform for success that it provides people than anybody else – no matter how much people may disagree with my methods.
So, you can imagine my dismay when another promising prospect decided to torch their well-earned goodwill in my estimations.
Do you know how many “almost-stars” I’ve nurtured only to find myself burned, Allen?
Hell – this applies to the rest of you as well.
Countless men and women have walked into my company with a determination to prove themselves and countless men and women have walked right back out of it when the realities of their current positions do not reflect their entitled visions of grandeur. Legions of belt collectors trying to ride on past glories have arrogantly demanded their release when things aren’t handed to them on a platter.
“Don’t you know who I am!?”
More than they know themselves.
Consider this a final clean slate, Allen. I provided you with a response to your behaviour last week, as far as I am concerned – we’re even. This week isn’t about bending the rules to prevent you from accomplishing your dreams… no…
This is about making you earn them.
I am the master of your fate in IWF – but I am a fair one. When a talent proves themselves worthy, I will open their path to glory entirely willingly. This week, on the biggest stage of all, you get to prove yourself. You get to demonstrate to me, face to face, that you’re bigger than a momentary lapse in frustration, that you can grow beyond your belief that you are worthy of a shot at the biggest prize in this business to proving that you are.
I will throw everything in your way – and if you overcome them, then – and only then – will you be worthy of a shot at the IWF Men’s World Championship.
But if you fail?
Then it’s back into the race with everybody else.
That applies to every single one of you as well.
Whoever walks up that ramp backlit by fireworks and a snapshot in the history of this company will be worthy of the opportunity they clutch in their hands. There isn’t going to be any flukes, no excuses – it’s winner takes all.
Madjinn? I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again – you reinvigorated a stagnant championship that had been allowed to wallow in stasis for far too long in my absence. You’ve resurrected a belt that will now act as the first litmus test in future talent’s pathways to the biggest stages in this business.
No amount of your lack of grace in defeat can take that away from you or change observable reality.
You have a pedigree everybody outside of myself and Pax in this match lacks – you know what it takes to sit at the head of the table and carry the burden of the pressure that comes with that. It’s an experience which can prove invaluable.
None of this is unfamiliar to you.
And yet – perhaps that is a much bigger danger than you’re willing to admit.
It’s easy for former champions to become complacent when opportunities present themselves to return to the feast they’ve been starved from. When you allow yourself to believe that because you once had what it takes to be the very best that you are somehow excluded from the necessity to continue evolving.
Will you be just another arrogant former name clinging to that moment of infamy – or will you demonstrate that you are a member of a more elite and much more exclusive club of icons who do not create mere moments.
But legacies.
{ Verona pauses, allowing the question to linger. }
You know, there’s a reason I plucked you back from your promising MMA career, Cyrus.
I know the man you could become.
You embody everything a professional wrestler ought to be. You’re ruthless and willing to do anything to win. But… that doesn’t mean you’re the finished article – yet.
For all your ruthless brutality, sometimes you allow yourself to indulge your baser desires and lose sight of the bigger purpose. I will do anything it takes to win – no matter who it hurts – but you… you take pleasure in it. Others may judge you for that, but I do not. However, there comes a point where your desire to torture your selected victims takes your focus off the real prize.
A delectable moment of short-term sin isn’t worth the cost to your long term success.
There comes a point where you need to learn to put your prey out of its misery and claim your prize.
You and Tytus have set your sights on Pax Stormcrow – quite intelligently I may add – but are you capable of looking beyond inflicting more suffering on him to avoid looking down on his broken body instead of looking up to the skies where true glory awaits you?
I can only ask the same of you too, Tytus.
You’ve managed to largely operate under the radar of many of the so called “pundits” who obsessively rate and debate our professional careers. Wrongly, I must add. Whilst other’s have been ignorant to your potential – lost in their inability to remember what happened longer than two weeks ago – I have been well aware of just how far you could go.
If you are able to apply yourself and develop a ruthless streak.
This isn’t your first flirtation with success – but it is by far the biggest. Some would say that perhaps you should have sharpened your teeth in less vicious waters, but I wouldn’t have selected you for this match if I wasn’t sure that you’re ready to take a bigger step than others may have laid out before you.
Whether you do or not, is down to you.
To be the best in this business you have to show up week after week and perform, no excuses, no breaks.
Just irresistible and unstoppable momentum.
And then there is man whose life you both set out to make a living hell.
I won’t patronise you, Pax – we both know just how much of a talent you are.
Talent has never been what has held you back – far from it, it’s the reason why you’re a former IWF Men’s World champion, a Roulette record breaker and an Heir to the Throne. You do not accumulate the accomplishment that you have through sheer luck – it takes much more than that to makes the statements that you have.
The only problem is – they’re always flashes in the pan.
The issue isn’t when you’re faced with a date with destiny – it’s what happens when the momentum your talent creates veers off track.
Time and time again you have undercut yourself by retreating into wallowing self-pity, robbing yourself of the pathway you’ve built for yourself. The greatest lesson you need to learn is that a stumble isn’t the end of a journey – it’s a moment to learn how to not repeat your mistakes. Everybody loses – even I lose – but it’s about how you respond to those defeats that will define whether or not Pax Stormcrow will be an immortal name in this business…
Or just another temporary spark in a universe of stars.
This weekend is your opportunity to answer that.
It is the opportunity for every single one of you to prove whether you’re ready to operate at the top of the mountain – or if your climb is still a work in progress.
Your success – and failure – is all on you.
I’ll be there to witness who really has what it takes.
But I won’t be alone.
For We. Are. Many.
{ Verona sits upright as several looming figures emerge from the darkness behind him as our camera gradually begins to fade. }
I’m not here to waste your time with the dramas of my personal life.
Allow me to make this abundantly clear.
I have absolutely no intention of winning the Joker in the Pack. My motives transcend my own personal accomplishments.
If I wanted a shot at the title I don’t need to create hurdles for myself.
No, I am here to ensure that the right person claims the briefcase.
Consider this a direct form of arbitration, I cannot be satisfied from merely observing from a distance, powerless to intervene in the course of history. I have never been a passenger, I don’t get swept away by the tides of history, I make it. Since day one, when I walked into New Championship Wrestling to the moment I founded the Imperial Wrestling Federation right through to today – I have done everything in my power to shape the course of the moments everybody watching at home cherishes.
I am the grand designer of their nostalgia.
And I am your final hurdle.
Each of you believe deep down inside yourselves that you are worthy of the opportunity to decide your own destiny. You wouldn’t be here and I wouldn’t have selected you if you were not confident in your own worthiness – but only one of you can prevail.
Will it be Madjinn? The reborn Mad Prince whose run with the Television Championship has reinvigorated a belt in stasis for the benefit of the future generations of IWF stars. Could it be Pax Stormcrow? The former champion brimming with potential and a score to settle and desire to prove that 2023 wasn’t just a flash in the pan ruthlessly stamped out by Dean Harper. Perhaps it will be Tytus Rost? An unstoppable Slavic force of destruction who has been dancing along the borderline of potential for far too long. Maybe it will be Cyrus Daniels? The ruthless mixed martial arts machine with a complete lack of empathy for the suffering of his opponents.
Or is it going to be Allen Chaney…
{ Verona’s lip curls with disgust. }
Let’s not stretch this out needlessly, we all know you’ve been waiting for me to address the Comedian.
How’s you head, Chaney?
{ Roberto smiles. }
For your own sake, I hope you answered the wake up call. It never needed to be this way, Allen. I’ve said it before – I like you. Not as a human being, but as a competitor? You’ve taken this company by storm since your revival. Undefeated in any contest requiring a pinfall or submission, the reality is that anybody attempting to deny you the opportunity to compete for the Joker in the Pack would be engaging in wilful ignorance. Your record speaks for itself and it alone is enough to qualify you for this opportunity.
And yet.
Like many men and women before you, you’re ability inside the ring is overshadowed by the insatiable sense of entitlement outside of it.
You came closer than anybody else to winning the Roulette and denying Warren Harper with his date with destiny and what did you do with that disappointment? Did you come to terms with the scales of fate narrowly tipping your gravity inches away from glory? Did you accept that you had an impressive showing worthy of continuing to cement your future opportunities?
Or did you throw an entitled tantrum and accuse my officials of incompetence – or worse, corruption?
That’s a rhetorical question – we all saw which path you decided to tread.
You cannot imagine the sense of disappointment that brought me, Allen. Contrary to your one dimensional strawman beliers of what I stand for and what motivates me, I actually do care. Every single action I take is because I care more about this company and the platform for success that it provides people than anybody else – no matter how much people may disagree with my methods.
So, you can imagine my dismay when another promising prospect decided to torch their well-earned goodwill in my estimations.
Do you know how many “almost-stars” I’ve nurtured only to find myself burned, Allen?
Hell – this applies to the rest of you as well.
Countless men and women have walked into my company with a determination to prove themselves and countless men and women have walked right back out of it when the realities of their current positions do not reflect their entitled visions of grandeur. Legions of belt collectors trying to ride on past glories have arrogantly demanded their release when things aren’t handed to them on a platter.
“Don’t you know who I am!?”
More than they know themselves.
Consider this a final clean slate, Allen. I provided you with a response to your behaviour last week, as far as I am concerned – we’re even. This week isn’t about bending the rules to prevent you from accomplishing your dreams… no…
This is about making you earn them.
I am the master of your fate in IWF – but I am a fair one. When a talent proves themselves worthy, I will open their path to glory entirely willingly. This week, on the biggest stage of all, you get to prove yourself. You get to demonstrate to me, face to face, that you’re bigger than a momentary lapse in frustration, that you can grow beyond your belief that you are worthy of a shot at the biggest prize in this business to proving that you are.
I will throw everything in your way – and if you overcome them, then – and only then – will you be worthy of a shot at the IWF Men’s World Championship.
But if you fail?
Then it’s back into the race with everybody else.
That applies to every single one of you as well.
Whoever walks up that ramp backlit by fireworks and a snapshot in the history of this company will be worthy of the opportunity they clutch in their hands. There isn’t going to be any flukes, no excuses – it’s winner takes all.
Madjinn? I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again – you reinvigorated a stagnant championship that had been allowed to wallow in stasis for far too long in my absence. You’ve resurrected a belt that will now act as the first litmus test in future talent’s pathways to the biggest stages in this business.
No amount of your lack of grace in defeat can take that away from you or change observable reality.
You have a pedigree everybody outside of myself and Pax in this match lacks – you know what it takes to sit at the head of the table and carry the burden of the pressure that comes with that. It’s an experience which can prove invaluable.
None of this is unfamiliar to you.
And yet – perhaps that is a much bigger danger than you’re willing to admit.
It’s easy for former champions to become complacent when opportunities present themselves to return to the feast they’ve been starved from. When you allow yourself to believe that because you once had what it takes to be the very best that you are somehow excluded from the necessity to continue evolving.
Will you be just another arrogant former name clinging to that moment of infamy – or will you demonstrate that you are a member of a more elite and much more exclusive club of icons who do not create mere moments.
But legacies.
{ Verona pauses, allowing the question to linger. }
You know, there’s a reason I plucked you back from your promising MMA career, Cyrus.
I know the man you could become.
You embody everything a professional wrestler ought to be. You’re ruthless and willing to do anything to win. But… that doesn’t mean you’re the finished article – yet.
For all your ruthless brutality, sometimes you allow yourself to indulge your baser desires and lose sight of the bigger purpose. I will do anything it takes to win – no matter who it hurts – but you… you take pleasure in it. Others may judge you for that, but I do not. However, there comes a point where your desire to torture your selected victims takes your focus off the real prize.
A delectable moment of short-term sin isn’t worth the cost to your long term success.
There comes a point where you need to learn to put your prey out of its misery and claim your prize.
You and Tytus have set your sights on Pax Stormcrow – quite intelligently I may add – but are you capable of looking beyond inflicting more suffering on him to avoid looking down on his broken body instead of looking up to the skies where true glory awaits you?
I can only ask the same of you too, Tytus.
You’ve managed to largely operate under the radar of many of the so called “pundits” who obsessively rate and debate our professional careers. Wrongly, I must add. Whilst other’s have been ignorant to your potential – lost in their inability to remember what happened longer than two weeks ago – I have been well aware of just how far you could go.
If you are able to apply yourself and develop a ruthless streak.
This isn’t your first flirtation with success – but it is by far the biggest. Some would say that perhaps you should have sharpened your teeth in less vicious waters, but I wouldn’t have selected you for this match if I wasn’t sure that you’re ready to take a bigger step than others may have laid out before you.
Whether you do or not, is down to you.
To be the best in this business you have to show up week after week and perform, no excuses, no breaks.
Just irresistible and unstoppable momentum.
And then there is man whose life you both set out to make a living hell.
I won’t patronise you, Pax – we both know just how much of a talent you are.
Talent has never been what has held you back – far from it, it’s the reason why you’re a former IWF Men’s World champion, a Roulette record breaker and an Heir to the Throne. You do not accumulate the accomplishment that you have through sheer luck – it takes much more than that to makes the statements that you have.
The only problem is – they’re always flashes in the pan.
The issue isn’t when you’re faced with a date with destiny – it’s what happens when the momentum your talent creates veers off track.
Time and time again you have undercut yourself by retreating into wallowing self-pity, robbing yourself of the pathway you’ve built for yourself. The greatest lesson you need to learn is that a stumble isn’t the end of a journey – it’s a moment to learn how to not repeat your mistakes. Everybody loses – even I lose – but it’s about how you respond to those defeats that will define whether or not Pax Stormcrow will be an immortal name in this business…
Or just another temporary spark in a universe of stars.
This weekend is your opportunity to answer that.
It is the opportunity for every single one of you to prove whether you’re ready to operate at the top of the mountain – or if your climb is still a work in progress.
Your success – and failure – is all on you.
I’ll be there to witness who really has what it takes.
But I won’t be alone.
For We. Are. Many.
{ Verona sits upright as several looming figures emerge from the darkness behind him as our camera gradually begins to fade. }
Well howdy there pardner.