Post by The Ace on Mar 18, 2014 0:29:14 GMT
"I have pushed many people away in my life, sometimes even unintentionally, one by one I've seen them all fall away from me at one time or another, all of them, lovers, fiancees, and friends. In the end they all fell away from me, so many names and numbers have tumbled in and out of my life and it would be extraordinarily naive of me to think that I was incapable of doing it all again."
There are few things in this life and in this business that fascinate more as a man than the idea that so many of us spend so much of our lives and our careers trying to separate ourselves from one another, in one way or another, and what is this Roulette match if not yet another attempt by so many men to separate themselves from their peers, to separate themselves from their kind?
Twenty nine of you will fight it out among yourselves to stand out as one of a kind among your fellow man, and rather than join the mad scrum with all of you, I see myself in this match as something quite different, something quite unique, an individual because I want something more than all of you do. This isn't about proving myself better than any of you, because frankly I don't need to do that, instead I will leave it up to time, patience, opportunity and the end result do that for me. I don't need to try and be any greater than history has already shown me to be.
I will not fall in line with the rest of the pack and make any premature declarations of victory, I will not stamp my place in the main event of the Anniversary Pay Per View just yet, if I am to declare anything at all as I prepare for this Roulette, it is simply my position. It is a position so many of you have always known me to hold and it is a position some of you still delight in throwing in my face to this day, more than a decade into my career.
To many of you, I am neither the top nor the bottom of the deck, to many of you The Ace is just some card lost somewhere in the middle of some poor magician's tired old trick, and even when The Ace is revealed as some grand finale, you, my peers, tut, roll your eyes, boo and absolutely insist that you know how this cheap trick card trick goes.
You've seen it all before and you don't need to see it all again.
There is no magic left to my name anymore, and so twenty nine of you will step forward to prove yourselves a better act than I have ever been, and some of you will be so confident and convinced of your own ability to do that because you've managed to upstage me before on some grand stage. And that is why I have never needed to separate myself from any of you, and I never will so long as you continue to cast me out.
It has always been easier to shun the truth and embrace the lie hasn't it?
Twenty-nine of you undoubtedly have your own opinion of me, your own skewed version of the truth of who I am. Some of you will be more informed than others, some of you will reach conclusions about me on your own, others of you will seek validation from somebody who claims to know all about just who in the hell I really am. I will never win any opinion polls, and I suppose its just as well, I didn't get into this business to make friends. I got in this business to make money, and I want to keep that money. I want to keep my stature and social standing in life, and I want to keep my wife and daughters in good stead. That's why I'm here. That's why I do what I do. There is nothing wrong with what I do, and there never has been.
But of course, opinion on that is as divided today as it was eleven years ago.
I divide people, I always have and I always will.
For what is The Apex of Evolution if not the ultimate divisive force?
Jake Conway squeezed the hand of his seven year old daughter, Solitaire, as she skipped along the path in the park, with Katherine Lockheart. Katherine carried her young son, James on her hip as the two former lovers walked along together.
Seeing them together, any of the onlookers would immediately assume that they were just another couple, probably husband and wife, just out enjoying some quality family time together.
It always amazed me how people could do that, jump to so many conclusions, that were just plain wrong, because they missed the details. Because they missed the little things that made all the difference in situations like this.
A keener eye and a sharper intellect would have spotted that we weren't holding hands with each other as we walked along with the kids. That should have been enough of a clue...
Jake's thoughts are interrupted as little Solitaire tugs on his hand, drawing his attention. She looked up to him.
Solitaire: Daddy?
Jake smiled as he looked down at her.
Jake: Yes? What is it pumpkin?
Solitaire: I'm tired...
Solitaire stops, bringing their walk to a halt. Jake Conway grits his teeth as he goes down on bended knee to look at his daughter straight in the eye, carefully, more carefully than he might have if he wasn't trying not to overexert himself just days before High Stakes. The knee was feeling better, but he knew it wasn't one hundred per cent yet.
He knew that he really should be taking it easy if he was to have any hope of making it in the Roulette match. He also knew, as he looked into his daughter's eyes that there was more to her story.
Jake: What's wrong, Soli? Come on you can tell me...I want you to tell me the truth...what is it? Aren't you having fun?
Solitaire slowly shook her head and she looked down as if she felt guilty for being so honest with her father who had taken the time away from getting ready for a big match to spend time with her.
Jake: What? Why not, sweetie? Hey, look at me, baby...please.
Jake gently places a forefinger under her chin and guides her to look straight at him.
Solitaire: I'm tired. I want to go home. Can we go home, Daddy, please? I don't like it here without mommy...
Jake: Yes, of course we can go home.
Jake's voice drops to a whisper.
Jake: Thank you for telling me the truth, sweetie. Hey, do you want to hear a secret?
Solitaire nods and smiles as Jake leans in and whispers in his daughter's ear.
Jake: I don't like it here without mommy, either...
Solitaire's smile widens as she whispers back.
Solitaire: Don't worry daddy, you're secret's safe with me. I won't tell anyone, I promise. Can we fly home now?
Jake: We could if we had an aeroplane...do you see an aeroplane around here?
Solitaire shakes her head.
Jake: Well then, what can we do?
Solitaire: I can fly daddy!
Jake: You can?
Solitaire: Yes, I just need your help to reach the sky...will you help me daddy?
Jake: Always! I love seeing my little girl fly!
Jake then stands up and lifts his little girl onto his shoulders. She sits there and his arms strapped her in as he prepared to carry her home.
Jake: Chursh. Pilot to co-pilot, are we cleared for take off?
Solitaire: Yes!
Jake: Chursh. Roger that. Here we go!
Jake pushed any doubt of whether his knee would hold up under the weight on his shoulders as he ran with Solitaire on his shoulders. She giggled as she stretched her arms out either side of her, leaving someone else to worry about him as he was bound and determined to carry his most precious future all the way home, namely Katherine Lockheart.
As she watched father and daughter play, Katherine reflected on just how wrong she had been about just how much he had changed. He was not the same guy she knew in college, more than that he was not the same guy she once fell in love with.
No, he was more. Oh so much more.
Katherine smiled as she broke into a little jog of her own, carrying a yawning James with her, determined to keep up with the wonderful husband, father and man. As she followed in his footsteps, she couldn't help but reflect on how easily he kept a very clear line to divide his professional ambitions from his personal responsibilities. So many men had told her that family always came first, this was the first time she had seen a man actually step up and follow through.
Never in her wildest dreams did she ever think Jake Conway would be the man to prove her so wrong.
If you must insist on painting me as some middle of the road competitor, then fine, that's exactly what I will be. I will be the one to stand in the middle of twenty nine personal roads to glory. All roads must go through me, the fork in the middle of the road, and like any fork in the road, I will force you to make a choice when you reach me and for your sake I hope you make the right one. Know this, whichever way you choose to go from here, I will have abruptly changed your direction. I will lead you to your final destination, whatever that may be. Be it death or be it glory.
That's the gamble you take with me, that's the gamble you always take with me.
There's a reason you know my name, there's a reason you know me as The Ace and that reason is as plain as your ambition. You know, all twenty-nine of you know, and have always known that when you play me, I can change your fortunes. I can change your destiny because I force you to adapt, to change and to grow beyond what you were.
I change you in ways that only the most sincere of all truths can.
I change the game whether you choose to admit that or not, and most of you don't. I force you to confront all your lies, and I force you to become a better wrestler for it, a better wrestler than me. It's not really that difficult, is it? Twenty nine of you already believe you are a better wrestler than me, and apparently that belief is so important to you that you'll shout how much better than me you are at any opportunity you get.
Look at Spike Kane, so damn proud of making me tap out in the middle of his ring that the boasts of it even seeped into his work as a man outside the ring. I knew Spike Kane would be arrogant enough to throw it in my face, but to hear it from Mike Kane too, well I guess now we know the division between his two personas really has become blurred, hasn't it? Like any deep-seeded truth, I cracked the bloody tough exterior of the God of Xtreme and seeped under the skin of the man underneath.
That's what the most potent truth does. That's what I do. I blur the lines between the divisions people want to keep to keep their little lives nice and neat. I break down the cardboard walls of the little boxes they want to pack their little lives into, and when they feel that happening, well then they try to lump me into a nice neat little box too. A nice neat little box they like to mark as pathetic, even when they need only look back at history and they would see just how absurd the lines they paint to confine me really are.
I have done everything there is to do in one of these matches, everything except what so many of you consider to be the most important thing of all. The one thing I have never done in one of these matches is win, and if it makes you feel better about your chances to remind me of that, then knock yourself out, or better yet, allow me.
The truth is that while yes, I have never won, I have record setting eliminations to my name, I have endurance records to my name, I have been the mystery entrant and I have even been the first out of the gate and made it to the final half dozen, so I am far from the pathetic little pissant that the self-proclaimed Gods in this company would have you believe.
Do not believe in any of these false idols, believe instead in the simple truth, and the simple truth is that I have a damn good chance, and that is what burns them the most. That is the one thing they cannot bring themselves to ever comfortably admit. The very idea that a man like me, a simple honest man, could toll in on one bad wheel and walk out with the unfulfilled and broken dreams of twenty nine other men who would be giants and Gods scares the hell out of you, doesn't it?
That's okay, it's supposed to. The truth can do that. The truth can leave an uncomfortable knot in the pit of your stomach and the truth can hurt, and when it hurts the most, well then people start painting you as a dirty liar and perceiving even the most honest of statements as an unwarranted personal attack, don't they, Spike?
Yes, you made me tap out, congratulations. You punished me for my humanity because I dared to show the world yours. It still doesn't change the fact that you look upon me with envy because I am at peace with who I am for the first time in over a decade, and you are not. You haven't been for almost two decades.
I challenged the divide you keep in your heart and your head and you punished me for it.
You are envious that I still have more in my life than you ever will. You are envious because you know the things I have will never be taken by you, no matter how many times you pin me, make my lame ass tap out or knock me out. The truth is that I have a more fulfilled personal life than you do, and it are these "sitcom" lives, that drive you nuts.
How dare I have something that you cannot, right Spike?
You enter this match as undoubtedly one of the most successful and accomplished men in this entire industry. You are a king, nay a God. Two decades on and you are one of the men to beat. You are the conqueror of many companies and of many divisions. In IWF alone you have conquered the Tag Team and Imperial divisions, and still you act like an impetulant little child, and why?
Why, Spike?
Is it because it is you who covets the life I lead and not the other way around? You are a phenomenal personal success, a sure favourite going into this match, you're one of the names we'd all like to eliminate, but on a personal level, as a man, you're an abysmal failure. It's sad, it really is. I once envied you for all the great divisions you managed to conquer with ease, and now as it turns out, it is you who envy me for conquering the greatest division of all. The one division you could never conquer.
The division between monster and man.
And you know, and twenty eight others know that if I can do that, there really are no limits to what I can do.
And if there are no limits to what I can do, I can conquer the Imperial division.
And that is the most honest of all truths, whether you accept it or not.
Twenty nine of you will fight it out among yourselves to stand out as one of a kind among your fellow man, and rather than join the mad scrum with all of you, I see myself in this match as something quite different, something quite unique, an individual because I want something more than all of you do. This isn't about proving myself better than any of you, because frankly I don't need to do that, instead I will leave it up to time, patience, opportunity and the end result do that for me. I don't need to try and be any greater than history has already shown me to be.
I will not fall in line with the rest of the pack and make any premature declarations of victory, I will not stamp my place in the main event of the Anniversary Pay Per View just yet, if I am to declare anything at all as I prepare for this Roulette, it is simply my position. It is a position so many of you have always known me to hold and it is a position some of you still delight in throwing in my face to this day, more than a decade into my career.
To many of you, I am neither the top nor the bottom of the deck, to many of you The Ace is just some card lost somewhere in the middle of some poor magician's tired old trick, and even when The Ace is revealed as some grand finale, you, my peers, tut, roll your eyes, boo and absolutely insist that you know how this cheap trick card trick goes.
You've seen it all before and you don't need to see it all again.
There is no magic left to my name anymore, and so twenty nine of you will step forward to prove yourselves a better act than I have ever been, and some of you will be so confident and convinced of your own ability to do that because you've managed to upstage me before on some grand stage. And that is why I have never needed to separate myself from any of you, and I never will so long as you continue to cast me out.
It has always been easier to shun the truth and embrace the lie hasn't it?
Twenty-nine of you undoubtedly have your own opinion of me, your own skewed version of the truth of who I am. Some of you will be more informed than others, some of you will reach conclusions about me on your own, others of you will seek validation from somebody who claims to know all about just who in the hell I really am. I will never win any opinion polls, and I suppose its just as well, I didn't get into this business to make friends. I got in this business to make money, and I want to keep that money. I want to keep my stature and social standing in life, and I want to keep my wife and daughters in good stead. That's why I'm here. That's why I do what I do. There is nothing wrong with what I do, and there never has been.
But of course, opinion on that is as divided today as it was eleven years ago.
I divide people, I always have and I always will.
For what is The Apex of Evolution if not the ultimate divisive force?
Jake Conway squeezed the hand of his seven year old daughter, Solitaire, as she skipped along the path in the park, with Katherine Lockheart. Katherine carried her young son, James on her hip as the two former lovers walked along together.
Seeing them together, any of the onlookers would immediately assume that they were just another couple, probably husband and wife, just out enjoying some quality family time together.
It always amazed me how people could do that, jump to so many conclusions, that were just plain wrong, because they missed the details. Because they missed the little things that made all the difference in situations like this.
A keener eye and a sharper intellect would have spotted that we weren't holding hands with each other as we walked along with the kids. That should have been enough of a clue...
Jake's thoughts are interrupted as little Solitaire tugs on his hand, drawing his attention. She looked up to him.
Solitaire: Daddy?
Jake smiled as he looked down at her.
Jake: Yes? What is it pumpkin?
Solitaire: I'm tired...
Solitaire stops, bringing their walk to a halt. Jake Conway grits his teeth as he goes down on bended knee to look at his daughter straight in the eye, carefully, more carefully than he might have if he wasn't trying not to overexert himself just days before High Stakes. The knee was feeling better, but he knew it wasn't one hundred per cent yet.
He knew that he really should be taking it easy if he was to have any hope of making it in the Roulette match. He also knew, as he looked into his daughter's eyes that there was more to her story.
Jake: What's wrong, Soli? Come on you can tell me...I want you to tell me the truth...what is it? Aren't you having fun?
Solitaire slowly shook her head and she looked down as if she felt guilty for being so honest with her father who had taken the time away from getting ready for a big match to spend time with her.
Jake: What? Why not, sweetie? Hey, look at me, baby...please.
Jake gently places a forefinger under her chin and guides her to look straight at him.
Solitaire: I'm tired. I want to go home. Can we go home, Daddy, please? I don't like it here without mommy...
Jake: Yes, of course we can go home.
Jake's voice drops to a whisper.
Jake: Thank you for telling me the truth, sweetie. Hey, do you want to hear a secret?
Solitaire nods and smiles as Jake leans in and whispers in his daughter's ear.
Jake: I don't like it here without mommy, either...
Solitaire's smile widens as she whispers back.
Solitaire: Don't worry daddy, you're secret's safe with me. I won't tell anyone, I promise. Can we fly home now?
Jake: We could if we had an aeroplane...do you see an aeroplane around here?
Solitaire shakes her head.
Jake: Well then, what can we do?
Solitaire: I can fly daddy!
Jake: You can?
Solitaire: Yes, I just need your help to reach the sky...will you help me daddy?
Jake: Always! I love seeing my little girl fly!
Jake then stands up and lifts his little girl onto his shoulders. She sits there and his arms strapped her in as he prepared to carry her home.
Jake: Chursh. Pilot to co-pilot, are we cleared for take off?
Solitaire: Yes!
Jake: Chursh. Roger that. Here we go!
Jake pushed any doubt of whether his knee would hold up under the weight on his shoulders as he ran with Solitaire on his shoulders. She giggled as she stretched her arms out either side of her, leaving someone else to worry about him as he was bound and determined to carry his most precious future all the way home, namely Katherine Lockheart.
As she watched father and daughter play, Katherine reflected on just how wrong she had been about just how much he had changed. He was not the same guy she knew in college, more than that he was not the same guy she once fell in love with.
No, he was more. Oh so much more.
Katherine smiled as she broke into a little jog of her own, carrying a yawning James with her, determined to keep up with the wonderful husband, father and man. As she followed in his footsteps, she couldn't help but reflect on how easily he kept a very clear line to divide his professional ambitions from his personal responsibilities. So many men had told her that family always came first, this was the first time she had seen a man actually step up and follow through.
Never in her wildest dreams did she ever think Jake Conway would be the man to prove her so wrong.
If you must insist on painting me as some middle of the road competitor, then fine, that's exactly what I will be. I will be the one to stand in the middle of twenty nine personal roads to glory. All roads must go through me, the fork in the middle of the road, and like any fork in the road, I will force you to make a choice when you reach me and for your sake I hope you make the right one. Know this, whichever way you choose to go from here, I will have abruptly changed your direction. I will lead you to your final destination, whatever that may be. Be it death or be it glory.
That's the gamble you take with me, that's the gamble you always take with me.
There's a reason you know my name, there's a reason you know me as The Ace and that reason is as plain as your ambition. You know, all twenty-nine of you know, and have always known that when you play me, I can change your fortunes. I can change your destiny because I force you to adapt, to change and to grow beyond what you were.
I change you in ways that only the most sincere of all truths can.
I change the game whether you choose to admit that or not, and most of you don't. I force you to confront all your lies, and I force you to become a better wrestler for it, a better wrestler than me. It's not really that difficult, is it? Twenty nine of you already believe you are a better wrestler than me, and apparently that belief is so important to you that you'll shout how much better than me you are at any opportunity you get.
Look at Spike Kane, so damn proud of making me tap out in the middle of his ring that the boasts of it even seeped into his work as a man outside the ring. I knew Spike Kane would be arrogant enough to throw it in my face, but to hear it from Mike Kane too, well I guess now we know the division between his two personas really has become blurred, hasn't it? Like any deep-seeded truth, I cracked the bloody tough exterior of the God of Xtreme and seeped under the skin of the man underneath.
That's what the most potent truth does. That's what I do. I blur the lines between the divisions people want to keep to keep their little lives nice and neat. I break down the cardboard walls of the little boxes they want to pack their little lives into, and when they feel that happening, well then they try to lump me into a nice neat little box too. A nice neat little box they like to mark as pathetic, even when they need only look back at history and they would see just how absurd the lines they paint to confine me really are.
I have done everything there is to do in one of these matches, everything except what so many of you consider to be the most important thing of all. The one thing I have never done in one of these matches is win, and if it makes you feel better about your chances to remind me of that, then knock yourself out, or better yet, allow me.
The truth is that while yes, I have never won, I have record setting eliminations to my name, I have endurance records to my name, I have been the mystery entrant and I have even been the first out of the gate and made it to the final half dozen, so I am far from the pathetic little pissant that the self-proclaimed Gods in this company would have you believe.
Do not believe in any of these false idols, believe instead in the simple truth, and the simple truth is that I have a damn good chance, and that is what burns them the most. That is the one thing they cannot bring themselves to ever comfortably admit. The very idea that a man like me, a simple honest man, could toll in on one bad wheel and walk out with the unfulfilled and broken dreams of twenty nine other men who would be giants and Gods scares the hell out of you, doesn't it?
That's okay, it's supposed to. The truth can do that. The truth can leave an uncomfortable knot in the pit of your stomach and the truth can hurt, and when it hurts the most, well then people start painting you as a dirty liar and perceiving even the most honest of statements as an unwarranted personal attack, don't they, Spike?
Yes, you made me tap out, congratulations. You punished me for my humanity because I dared to show the world yours. It still doesn't change the fact that you look upon me with envy because I am at peace with who I am for the first time in over a decade, and you are not. You haven't been for almost two decades.
I challenged the divide you keep in your heart and your head and you punished me for it.
You are envious that I still have more in my life than you ever will. You are envious because you know the things I have will never be taken by you, no matter how many times you pin me, make my lame ass tap out or knock me out. The truth is that I have a more fulfilled personal life than you do, and it are these "sitcom" lives, that drive you nuts.
How dare I have something that you cannot, right Spike?
You enter this match as undoubtedly one of the most successful and accomplished men in this entire industry. You are a king, nay a God. Two decades on and you are one of the men to beat. You are the conqueror of many companies and of many divisions. In IWF alone you have conquered the Tag Team and Imperial divisions, and still you act like an impetulant little child, and why?
Why, Spike?
Is it because it is you who covets the life I lead and not the other way around? You are a phenomenal personal success, a sure favourite going into this match, you're one of the names we'd all like to eliminate, but on a personal level, as a man, you're an abysmal failure. It's sad, it really is. I once envied you for all the great divisions you managed to conquer with ease, and now as it turns out, it is you who envy me for conquering the greatest division of all. The one division you could never conquer.
The division between monster and man.
And you know, and twenty eight others know that if I can do that, there really are no limits to what I can do.
And if there are no limits to what I can do, I can conquer the Imperial division.
And that is the most honest of all truths, whether you accept it or not.
Well howdy there pardner.