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[Roberto Verona]

Three weeks ago…

{ The lamp omits a warm orange glow across a large oak desk where the COO of IWF, Roberto Verona sits, alone, only the company of the monotonous drone of the air conditioning to keep him company. Verona sifts through a pile of papers, organising them into a pile beside him, signing them liberally. Suddenly, the door flings open and Hannah Reed bursts into his office, her nostrils flared as she marches towards him. }

Hannah Reed: You put my sister in the firing line. Again!?

{ Hannah slams the door as Verona looks up towards her. }

Roberto Verona: Yes, you can come in.

Hannah Reed: Drop the attitude smart ass, what the hell were you thinking making Jessica a commissioner and throwing her at that deluded sociopath?

Roberto Verona: I though you wanted her to have a job during her recovery?

Hannah Reed: I meant working in my office, not being thrown into the snake pit to score points in some bitter little feud with that delinquent.

Roberto Verona: What precisely would she gain from getting you cups of coffee?

{ Hannah raises her eyebrows. }

Hannah Reed: Excuse me?

Roberto Verona: You asked me to get her a job that would give her a sense of fulfilment until she’s capable of competing full time again. That’s what I did. Wrestling is her passion, not filing through the mind-numbing tedious complaints we have to deal with on a weekly basis.

Hannah Reed: That isn’t the point, Roberto. You could have made her a Diamond’s Search judge, or a commentator. Something. Anything. Not this. You’re putting her in danger.

Roberto Verona: If Angel touches her I will terminate his contract and deprive him of the platform he craves so much…

Hannah Reed: And if he really hurts her? Will she just be collateral in some petulant clash of egos? You know she was lucky to be able to wrestle ever again as it is and she’s still not full recovered.

Roberto Verona: He won’t hurt her.

{ Hannah scoffs. }

Hannah Reed: Really? Please tell me how you can be so sure of that? That man has the moral compass of a serial killer.

Roberto Verona: Because Angel has nothing to gain from it. He can’t do any more damage by hurting her than he already has.

{ Hannah closes her eyes and sighs. }

Hannah Reed: That’s hardly a resoundingly convincing argument. You want me to be satisfied with the idea that he’s hurt her enough that he has no motivation to do it again? He wants to get under your skin, he’s too used to pushing his weight around under Simon’s protection, why would he temper himself? Do you really think he fears being viewed as a one trick pony?

{ Roberto shakes his head. }

Roberto Verona: That isn’t it, Hannah. He won’t hurt her because this time he isn’t playing games. He doesn’t want to rattle my cage just because he can, he’s lurching towards his end game. That involves my destruction, not Jessica’s. If he is going to lash out physically at anybody, it will be me. It isn’t in his interests to poke at that old wound when he wants to open my chest and rip out the beating heart of IWF.

Hannah Reed: Is that your way of making me feel better? Instead of beating my sister to a pulp, he’ll just crack your head open instead?

{ Roberto grins and laughs. }

Roberto Verona: I always assumed that possibility made everybody happier.

Hannah Reed: Don’t…

{ Verona shakes his head and reaches a hand over to Hannah’s, clutching it reassuringly. }

Roberto Verona: Don’t worry about me, or her. If Angel acts unpredictably it’s ok, Jess will never been far enough away from the security I have arranged for him to do anything and when, not if, he moves against me, I will be ready.

Hannah Reed: I’m still not happy about this…

Roberto Verona: I am not asking you to be happy, Hannah, I am just asking you to put it out of your mind. Jess gets to be involved in the career of her dream whilst she gets herself well enough to compete properly. In the meantime, I can torture Angel and keep his power in check.

Hannah Reed: If anything happens to her, Roberto…

Roberto Verona: Yes, yes, I will have a lot more to worry about than Angel Blake and Xavier Cross, I’m well aware. Just trust me Hannah, ok?

{ Hannah lets out a sigh of resignation as she slides her hand back to herself. }

Hannah Reed: Just… be careful, ok? You promised me that you wouldn’t let this business destroy our family. I will hold you to that.

{ Roberto nods solemnly. }

Roberto Verona: I understand… it’ll all be over soon.

Hannah Reed: For your sake, I hope so.

{ Hannah begins to turn away before looking backing. }

Hannah Reed: Before I forget, the papers from the police regarding the custody of Xavier’s child have arrived, what do you want me to do with them?

Roberto Verona: Validate them… it’s time to see what sort of man Xavier really is.

{ Hannah nods, turning away without looking back as she exits the room. Verona rubs his eyes, sighing himself as he leans back in his chair. }

Roberto Verona: Here’s hoping he’s learned his lesson…

{ Roberto pauses, lifting a finger to his lips. }

Roberto Verona: For all our sakes.

So here we are, the inevitable clash that was, legal status pending, always coming.

Xavier Cross vs Roberto Verona. A petulant, ungrateful employee against a reputedly malevolent employer. Down trodden hero against an oppressive revolutionary-turned-dictator.

And whatever else our marketing team feels the need to come up with.

Whilst it has certainly been refreshing to be the foot upon which the boot fits, the usual nagging problem has reared its ugly head once again, shoving its misshapen nose and worn features into the periphery.

Why, Verona?

Why did you attack Xavier?

Why are you “abusing your power”?

Why is the sky blue?

You know, Xavier, I’m quire accustomed to people questioning my motives, trying to psycho-analyse me in a futile attempt to find some form of hidden meaning behind everything I say and so, normally in an attempt to undermine my claims to desiring a level playing field and to say I am not surprised this has proven to be the case once again is an understatement.

The irony is I’m a much simpler man than people have even given me credit for.

Why did I attack you after your match with Laszlo all those weeks ago? It’s quite simple really, I’m a professional wrestler, I ironically don’t take too kindly to being thrown off stages on the biggest stage of them all, pun completely intended. That’s not to say all of this is some petty quest for vengeance, but so many people have been quick to try and construct this giant straw man in my image and apply whatever warped vision of reality they have to it that the reality of our little dilemma has become lost, as per usual, in a bunch of hearsay and convoluted conspiracy theories.

I broke you on one of the biggest nights of the year because you stuck your nose into my business on mine. An eye for an eye, justice right?

Only what I saw in the dispensing of this more than earned revenge was a far bigger injustice, one which has gone on for far too long. Confused? Allowed me to elaborated.

I’m talking about your wasted potential.

Shocking as it may be for some, and I know it’s hard for people to abandon their own skewed sense of entitlement to understand, but I don’t feel so threatened by other people’s talent that I can happily stand idly by and watch somebody piss theirs down the drain. It is my job as the head of in-ring talent in this company to personally intervene when I see somebody whose own devotion to hitting their inner self-destruct buttons on a consistent basis are not only depriving themselves of the opportunities their talents deserve, but the company of the full extent of their talents.

When I watched Mike Laszlo dispatch you and claim his place as the Heir to the Throne, I saw a man finally fulfil the potential I always knew he had, but in that same moment I watched another continue to squander his.

Then it hit me, ironically whilst I was hitting you, that unless somebody gave you a timely slap of reality, you’d never open up your eyes and realise that you were wasting your career. Your hot-headed irrationality, your full-blooded impetus… all of it has been holding you back for far too long, you have allowed your heart to rule your head for years.

You always act, you never think. You lash out before ever considering the consequences of your actions and whilst your erratic behaviour might be highly entertaining for the audience, it is highly detrimental to your development as a professional wrestler. It’s a powder keg that constantly ignites when you’re almost at the peak of your abilities, leading to yet another predictable break down, followed by burn out and a few month of tedious malaise where you just go through the motions before somebody bothers to light a fire under your ass again.

Let’s just say when I kicked you in the head, I was tending to a fire that you irresponsibly allow to burn out after you fail.

People are quick to jump to the predictable accusations that I am abusing my power to torment you and that I have turned my back on everything I preached for so long, but I don’t place much stock in the idle rambling of simpletons.

Everything I have done to you was for your benefit not mine. It’s a fallacious assumption to make that I have placed you in precious positions purely for my own benefit because it works on the faulty hypothesis that I need to place you at a disadvantage to beat you. It also perpetuates the falsehood that this is all about winning or losing, and not about

I have placed you in situations to provoke the rage deep inside you to show you that bravado alone isn’t enough to achieve the potential your possess. I have screwed you, over and over, to show you that it’s isn’t about how hard you hit, or how hard you can get it, it’s about whether or not your can anticipate what your opponent will do next and exploit or the ability to overcome odd’s through ingenuity.

When I placed you in handicap matches it wasn’t so I could watch you get beaten to a pulp, it was to show you that blind rage alone in a futile defiance would accomplish nothing. When I tied your hands behind you back it wasn’t so that you were helpless to the mercy of your opponent, it was so you had to learn to evolve and adapt when you’re strongest weapons, your fists, were suddenly removed from your arsenal.

Every single screwjob has been a lesson, Xavier. It hasn’t been a juvenile exercise in abusing my position and going back on everything I have said, it has been a mission in maximising the powers available to me to help my talent achieve their potential and not be resigned to a bitter retirement, with a broken body and a lingering guilt over what may have been. I have no qualms playing the villain to help bring out the best in each and every one of you; inequality doesn’t even come into it.

The question is, Xavier, are you ready to learn the lessons you require to become a better wrestler?

Will you finally see that allowing your rage to rule your head is why you keep flying headlong into situations and coming out defeated? Will you finally recognise that until you can control your own emotions, you will always be easily manipulated by those around you? Will you finally accept that to be the best, you have to be able to out-think them, not just swing your fist and live on a prayer?

Only you can answer that.

I have done everything in my power to ensure that you can see the errors of your ways and to enable you to adapt and finally fulfil your potential, to become a man who isn’t out of place in the Imperial Championship scene. This weekend I am giving you access to ultimate object of your disdain and granting you the opportunity to prove that you’re not just a weak man ruled by his passion, that you can truly harness your emotions and channel them into accomplishing your ambitions.

It’s up to you to prove that you’re capable of accepting your own faults and moulding them into strengths.

If you don’t? Then you will face the ignominy of defeat and the predictable downward spiral that has defined your career from the beginning. You’ll go back to your self-destructive patterns that have held you back only this time, nobody will be around to toss you a rope to pull you from the cesspit you’ve crawled back into. This time, there will be no coming back.

Only one burning question, etched into your psyche until the day you finally depart this world.

What could have been?