Post by The Ace on Mar 15, 2014 23:16:50 GMT
{Spike, for reasons unknown, drops down to his knees beside the Ace and drives the edge of his elbow right across his nose and cheekbones. The referee, stopping the count, moves in to issue a cease and desist to the former champion. Kane, having none of it, grabs the Ace’s arm and locks it and his head in place before leaning up and locking in All Hope is Lost. He has it locked on tight and The Ace is smack-dab in the middle of the ring. The referee leans in, checking on the Ace who doesn't think twice about fighting and immediately begins to tap out! Kane refuses to release the hold, the referee trying to pry free his hands when, finally, he relents and releases the Ace from his clutches.}
JJ Biggs: Spike picks up the victory in a match that could have gone either way for a while!
Willy Carter: Big? That was a huge victory for Spike tonight, JJ. He showed that it didn’t matter the kind of damage he took, you weren’t going to put him down when it counted.
JJ Biggs: Well, let’s hope he shows the same resilience when the High Stakes Roulette match starts!
****
"And so, it is with a heavy heart that I must march onto our battleground once more and thank you for showing me not how similar, but rather how different we really are. You truly will always be my mentor because I am still learning so much from you about what it is to truly waste a life away chasing the approval of people who have never given a shit about you whilst forsaking those that have always loved you."
There are those in this life and in this business who will insist, and insist absolutely, on seeing things purely as black and white. Everything they have ever known and everything they will ever know can be summed up in the simplest of terms, you either win or you lose, there is no middle ground, no shade of grey, or indeed any other colour in their world.
Do or do not, there is no try.
For these people, the Roulette is simply a wrestling match that can be taken to either of two extremes, for them only the two most obvious of logical conclusions exist, they either win the whole damn thing or they get tossed out on their piddly ass and lose. They think of the match in such simple terms, simply because the odds are more appetising that way. It is easier to think of something as fifty-fifty than it is to think of something in terms of one in thirty.
For these people, what they saw on Thursday night was exactly what they expected to see. Spike Kane once again beat The Ace, and beat me he did. Not for the first time either, and I'm sure it won't be for the last. For these people, there is nothing more decisive nor more definitive than what they saw at Battleground, a submission victory for Spike Kane, and a devastating loss for The Ace.
Victory.
Defeat.
Only those two possibilities.
Only those two extremes.
Nothing else matters, right?
The Ace shakes his head and sighs.
I remember when I too was that naive, but that's okay, a match like this makes us all a little naive, only some of you continually mistake your blissful naivety as unbridled confidence, and therefore wish to make a liar out of me. Prove me a liar, go on, I dare you. Throw my undeserving, over-rated worthless ass out of the ring, one of you surely can. One of you undoubtedly must.
One of you has no choice to make a liar and a fool out of the most honest man on the roster, so go on, deny me the truth, one of you, please, because if you cannot deny me everything, I will leave you all with nothing, and how poetic that is because that's how the fifty eight eyes and the fifty eight ears all watching and listening to me right now see this match.
All or nothing.
Victory or defeat.
Black or white.
But what my twenty nine colleagues - and yes, colleagues is the only way I can describe them because they damn sure aren't my friends in this match, fail to realise is that life nor this roulette is ever that simple. Once upon a time I would have looked upon this match as you all do, through the black and white vision of dogs, and that's all you are, dogs, twenty nine dogs, all hungry for a bone, the biggest bone you have seen in your career so far, and you look at me with hungry eyes with frothing mouths and you smell it. You smell the injury and so you are nipping at my heels because you are all hungry and looking to me to feed you.
You know I have the bone, only this time, I'm not going to do what you expect me to do.
I'm not going to throw it.
I'm not going to let you simply have it.
I'm not going to let you prematurely bury it or me in the garden.
You want it? You will have to earn it. You want the big juicy bone I have right here in the palm of my hand? Take it from me. What have I done to earn it? What makes me worthy to hold the bone over each of your barking heads?
Simple.
I hold your dreams and ambitions right here in the palm of my hand, not because I am a Champion, not because I am better than you, but because I am not a dog. I stand out from the pack not as a wild dog but rather as a wild card.
I am not a dog because I don't see the world as black and white.
I am a man because I see the world in glorious colour.
A five year old blonde boy walks into the kitchen and sees his mother sat at the table, tears in her eyes. It was the first time he had seen his mother cry. She was normally so happy. So optimistic. Always looking on the bright side of everything. The eternal optimist.
The little boy hopped up on the chair and sat next to his mother, he instinctively reached out his hand, and gladly, albeit with half a smile, all she could muster for her son right now, she reached across the table and took it. She squeezed it tightly, clung to it as if it were the only rock capable of keeping her afloat in the sea of emotions that welled up inside her right now.
Neither of them knew what had made her so damned emotional. She looked down at her developing baby bump and reasoned that it could be that.
"What's wrong, mummy? Why are your eyes watering?"
She smiled.
"Mummy's just feeling a bit sad darling...."
The boy cocked his head to the side.
"Why are you so sad, Mummy?"
She took a deep breath. She didn't know exactly how she was going to explain any of this to her son, he was much too young to really understand, but she loved him too much to keep him in the dark about the private sorrow and pain she had carried in her heart for all these years any longer.
"I am sad because I miss my daddy, I miss your grandpa."
"Why? Where did he go?
So many questions from a young inquisitive mind. She pointed up towards their kitchen ceiling.
"He went to Heaven, sweetie..."
"Where God lives?"
She nodded. Maybe she hadn't given her little boy enough credit. Maybe he would understand after all.
"When is he coming back?"
She frowned.
"He can't come back...that's what happens when people die."
"Is that why you are sad?"
She nodded again.
"I'm sad because I know you never got to see him, he died before you were born. And now your little brother or sister won't be able to see him either."
"How did he die?"
The question startled her, she wasn't expecting it, but equally she loved him too much not to answer him.
"He had too much to drink, so much it made him sick, very, very sick..."
"Is that why you always tell me not to drink too much pop, Mummy, because it makes me sick, and you don't want me to die?"
"No! No, honey, I never want to lose you...you're too precious to me. Always remember that, and yes I don't want you to drink after what happened to your grandpa. I had to stop your daddy from drinking for the same reason, I don't want to lose you both..."
"Daddy used to drink? Was he like grandpa too?"
"Yes Jake, yes I was..."
Mother and son turn their heads and see a loving husband and a loving father standing in the doorway. Jake smiled as he looked up to his father, in all the ways possible.
"But your mummy saved me..."
Father came and picked him up from the seat and placed Jake on his knee as he sat down.
"She rescued me. That's what good women do, Jake, they save us when we're lost, they bring us home no matter how far away we may wander...remember that son..."
Jake "The Ace" Conway sat in his XHF locker-room, with a pregnant Snowy looking very despondent as he sulked with a beer in his hand.
Snowy: Don't do this to yourself, Jake, don't drink yourself into an early grave over a loss. Think of our babies, they're going to need their father.
Suddenly Jake tossed the beer can and it hit the wall, spilling its contents across it as it lands on the floor. He was troubled by the same promises he had made to his mother as he heard her echo through Snowy.
"When you have kids, Jake, just promise me one thing, promise me that they'll see their father and you won't drink yourself to death."
I see the colours in my world because I know the difference between simply taking a loss and really reflecting on it. Learning from it. It took me a long time to learn my lessons in this life and this business, far longer than it probably should have if I'm honest, and several people have tried to break me through my stubborn resistance never to learn from those losses, most notably of course, my mentor, the man who beat me fair and square this past Thursday in the middle of the ring in one hell of a close match. I said before the match that I would thank him, and as I am nothing if not a man of my word...
The Ace looks dead into the camera.
Thank you, Spike Kane.
Thank you for the match.
Thank you for teaching me another painful lesson in your playground.
Thank you for letting me know just how unprepared I was for this Roulette, and how much better I'm going to need to be if I'm going to survive you and twenty-eight other mongrels all looking to rip this last bone away from me, because now I have about a week to reflect on the mistakes I made in that match, and if I can learn from them, I will not make them again when it is you or anybody else looking back at me from across the ring.
That is why I still consider you my mentor, Spike.
You will always be a teacher to me, but even you must realise that as great a teacher as you are in this business Spike, loss is even greater. Nothing imparts a lesson quite like a loss, a loss is the greatest teacher of all in this business, so many people experience it, yet few people actually learn from it, and I mean really learn from it.
Victory only grows one's ego, but it is defeat that grows one's wisdom.
And whether any of you want to admit it or not, it will take the greatest wisdom to survive a match like this, so whilst twenty nine inflated egos tell them victory is within their reach and that a loss is unacceptable, it falls to one man to impart the wisdom that for all but one of us that a loss is inevitable.
Twenty nine dogs are unleashed and set upon the one man in this match.The only man in this match. A man who knows all it takes to survive and adapt and evolve with the ever changing environment and circumstances in a match like this. I am that man. I am the Apex of Evolution. I have learned from my losses, just as I hope the twenty nine of you will when you're dumped out on your asses, and only then when you have proven yourself to be something more than a rabid dog chasing your own tales of immortality will you truly evolve into a man worthy of taking this bone from me and being the next Apex in the business.
Only when you have passed through me as all those who wish to evolve inevitably must, will I step aside. Only when I can leave this business safely in the hands of the next honest man, will I go home to my wife and kids. To be an honest man, you have to beat the honest man - and you will not do it through black and white lies. So be an honest man and learn from the greatest teacher of all. Learn from your mistakes, survive your losses, and open your eyes to the wonderful colours of truth.
For it stands before you now, every bit as simple and every bit as good as a real honest man.
Do or do not, there is no try.
For these people, the Roulette is simply a wrestling match that can be taken to either of two extremes, for them only the two most obvious of logical conclusions exist, they either win the whole damn thing or they get tossed out on their piddly ass and lose. They think of the match in such simple terms, simply because the odds are more appetising that way. It is easier to think of something as fifty-fifty than it is to think of something in terms of one in thirty.
For these people, what they saw on Thursday night was exactly what they expected to see. Spike Kane once again beat The Ace, and beat me he did. Not for the first time either, and I'm sure it won't be for the last. For these people, there is nothing more decisive nor more definitive than what they saw at Battleground, a submission victory for Spike Kane, and a devastating loss for The Ace.
Victory.
Defeat.
Only those two possibilities.
Only those two extremes.
Nothing else matters, right?
The Ace shakes his head and sighs.
I remember when I too was that naive, but that's okay, a match like this makes us all a little naive, only some of you continually mistake your blissful naivety as unbridled confidence, and therefore wish to make a liar out of me. Prove me a liar, go on, I dare you. Throw my undeserving, over-rated worthless ass out of the ring, one of you surely can. One of you undoubtedly must.
One of you has no choice to make a liar and a fool out of the most honest man on the roster, so go on, deny me the truth, one of you, please, because if you cannot deny me everything, I will leave you all with nothing, and how poetic that is because that's how the fifty eight eyes and the fifty eight ears all watching and listening to me right now see this match.
All or nothing.
Victory or defeat.
Black or white.
But what my twenty nine colleagues - and yes, colleagues is the only way I can describe them because they damn sure aren't my friends in this match, fail to realise is that life nor this roulette is ever that simple. Once upon a time I would have looked upon this match as you all do, through the black and white vision of dogs, and that's all you are, dogs, twenty nine dogs, all hungry for a bone, the biggest bone you have seen in your career so far, and you look at me with hungry eyes with frothing mouths and you smell it. You smell the injury and so you are nipping at my heels because you are all hungry and looking to me to feed you.
You know I have the bone, only this time, I'm not going to do what you expect me to do.
I'm not going to throw it.
I'm not going to let you simply have it.
I'm not going to let you prematurely bury it or me in the garden.
You want it? You will have to earn it. You want the big juicy bone I have right here in the palm of my hand? Take it from me. What have I done to earn it? What makes me worthy to hold the bone over each of your barking heads?
Simple.
I hold your dreams and ambitions right here in the palm of my hand, not because I am a Champion, not because I am better than you, but because I am not a dog. I stand out from the pack not as a wild dog but rather as a wild card.
I am not a dog because I don't see the world as black and white.
I am a man because I see the world in glorious colour.
A five year old blonde boy walks into the kitchen and sees his mother sat at the table, tears in her eyes. It was the first time he had seen his mother cry. She was normally so happy. So optimistic. Always looking on the bright side of everything. The eternal optimist.
The little boy hopped up on the chair and sat next to his mother, he instinctively reached out his hand, and gladly, albeit with half a smile, all she could muster for her son right now, she reached across the table and took it. She squeezed it tightly, clung to it as if it were the only rock capable of keeping her afloat in the sea of emotions that welled up inside her right now.
Neither of them knew what had made her so damned emotional. She looked down at her developing baby bump and reasoned that it could be that.
"What's wrong, mummy? Why are your eyes watering?"
She smiled.
"Mummy's just feeling a bit sad darling...."
The boy cocked his head to the side.
"Why are you so sad, Mummy?"
She took a deep breath. She didn't know exactly how she was going to explain any of this to her son, he was much too young to really understand, but she loved him too much to keep him in the dark about the private sorrow and pain she had carried in her heart for all these years any longer.
"I am sad because I miss my daddy, I miss your grandpa."
"Why? Where did he go?
So many questions from a young inquisitive mind. She pointed up towards their kitchen ceiling.
"He went to Heaven, sweetie..."
"Where God lives?"
She nodded. Maybe she hadn't given her little boy enough credit. Maybe he would understand after all.
"When is he coming back?"
She frowned.
"He can't come back...that's what happens when people die."
"Is that why you are sad?"
She nodded again.
"I'm sad because I know you never got to see him, he died before you were born. And now your little brother or sister won't be able to see him either."
"How did he die?"
The question startled her, she wasn't expecting it, but equally she loved him too much not to answer him.
"He had too much to drink, so much it made him sick, very, very sick..."
"Is that why you always tell me not to drink too much pop, Mummy, because it makes me sick, and you don't want me to die?"
"No! No, honey, I never want to lose you...you're too precious to me. Always remember that, and yes I don't want you to drink after what happened to your grandpa. I had to stop your daddy from drinking for the same reason, I don't want to lose you both..."
"Daddy used to drink? Was he like grandpa too?"
"Yes Jake, yes I was..."
Mother and son turn their heads and see a loving husband and a loving father standing in the doorway. Jake smiled as he looked up to his father, in all the ways possible.
"But your mummy saved me..."
Father came and picked him up from the seat and placed Jake on his knee as he sat down.
"She rescued me. That's what good women do, Jake, they save us when we're lost, they bring us home no matter how far away we may wander...remember that son..."
That was the first time I can remember learning what it was to watch someone lose something that was really precious to them, to lose something greater than any wrestling match, title shot or title. I learned from it, it took me some time, but eventually I learned what I needed to from my mother's loss, she told me the story of grandpa's drinking many times over the years since then. She didn't want me to lose myself to similar vices, and for a while I almost did. For a while, I almost ended up disappointing the very first woman in my life who tried to save me from myself, way before I ever needed saving.
Jake "The Ace" Conway sat in his XHF locker-room, with a pregnant Snowy looking very despondent as he sulked with a beer in his hand.
Snowy: Don't do this to yourself, Jake, don't drink yourself into an early grave over a loss. Think of our babies, they're going to need their father.
Suddenly Jake tossed the beer can and it hit the wall, spilling its contents across it as it lands on the floor. He was troubled by the same promises he had made to his mother as he heard her echo through Snowy.
"When you have kids, Jake, just promise me one thing, promise me that they'll see their father and you won't drink yourself to death."
The Ace: Are you happy now, Alena?
But she wasn't, and that's why she left me soon after. I remember thinking then, what does it matter if I drink? My father was wrong, there was no woman out there to save me. I was at a loss, looking back I still regret not handling that differently. It would take several more losses, both professional and personal, before I would finally learn the lessons my parents tried to teach that five year old boy, and it is the lessons from those losses that I carry forward with me to this very day...
I see the colours in my world because I know the difference between simply taking a loss and really reflecting on it. Learning from it. It took me a long time to learn my lessons in this life and this business, far longer than it probably should have if I'm honest, and several people have tried to break me through my stubborn resistance never to learn from those losses, most notably of course, my mentor, the man who beat me fair and square this past Thursday in the middle of the ring in one hell of a close match. I said before the match that I would thank him, and as I am nothing if not a man of my word...
The Ace looks dead into the camera.
Thank you, Spike Kane.
Thank you for the match.
Thank you for teaching me another painful lesson in your playground.
Thank you for letting me know just how unprepared I was for this Roulette, and how much better I'm going to need to be if I'm going to survive you and twenty-eight other mongrels all looking to rip this last bone away from me, because now I have about a week to reflect on the mistakes I made in that match, and if I can learn from them, I will not make them again when it is you or anybody else looking back at me from across the ring.
That is why I still consider you my mentor, Spike.
You will always be a teacher to me, but even you must realise that as great a teacher as you are in this business Spike, loss is even greater. Nothing imparts a lesson quite like a loss, a loss is the greatest teacher of all in this business, so many people experience it, yet few people actually learn from it, and I mean really learn from it.
Victory only grows one's ego, but it is defeat that grows one's wisdom.
And whether any of you want to admit it or not, it will take the greatest wisdom to survive a match like this, so whilst twenty nine inflated egos tell them victory is within their reach and that a loss is unacceptable, it falls to one man to impart the wisdom that for all but one of us that a loss is inevitable.
Twenty nine dogs are unleashed and set upon the one man in this match.The only man in this match. A man who knows all it takes to survive and adapt and evolve with the ever changing environment and circumstances in a match like this. I am that man. I am the Apex of Evolution. I have learned from my losses, just as I hope the twenty nine of you will when you're dumped out on your asses, and only then when you have proven yourself to be something more than a rabid dog chasing your own tales of immortality will you truly evolve into a man worthy of taking this bone from me and being the next Apex in the business.
Only when you have passed through me as all those who wish to evolve inevitably must, will I step aside. Only when I can leave this business safely in the hands of the next honest man, will I go home to my wife and kids. To be an honest man, you have to beat the honest man - and you will not do it through black and white lies. So be an honest man and learn from the greatest teacher of all. Learn from your mistakes, survive your losses, and open your eyes to the wonderful colours of truth.
For it stands before you now, every bit as simple and every bit as good as a real honest man.
Well howdy there pardner.