Post by Deleted on Nov 20, 2014 17:29:25 GMT
“Always be yourself, express yourself, have faith in yourself, do not go out and look for a successful personality and duplicate it.”
As Nighthawk walks out of the front door of his row house in the Chicago neighborhood of Bridgeport to do some early-morning road work in the bracing wind and cold in advance of his match against John Henry Holliday one has to wonder if he feels any better about the idea that he gets the chance to prove himself in a 1-on-1 match as opposed to the 6-man tornado of ladders and wrestlers that he found himself in for his IWF debut, the type of match that must have felt like a horrible nightmare for someone who considers himself to be a “pure wrestler” with all of the responsibilities and skills that such a moniker entails.
But while he considers himself to be a “pure wrestler” and trains himself as such one has to wonder if he is in possession of skills that no one finds all that compelling or necessary to have anymore in an era of wrestling where, at least to the way of thinking of some, size and the amorphous concept of charisma is far more important than technical skill. Despite this opinion the self-styled “Wrestling Machine” continues on his path of mastery, ignoring that for so many the idea of mastering an outdated craft feels as necessary as someone perfecting every possible usage of a quill and ink, or a typewriter, might be.
But as the “Man of 1000 Holds” stops his run at a graveyard approximately 5 miles away from his home, leaning down in front of a specific tombstone, we see that which provides him with even more motivation than mastering his craft might, which is the grave of his father.
Nighthawk: “I know it’s odd to talk to you Dad, considering that you’re a ghost.. Truthfully, I also know that if you were here right now we wouldn’t be able to have the kind of talks that we have, largely because I'm not sure how much we’d actually be speaking. We didn’t have a great relationship when you were alive, and I think if we had all that to do again, we’d probably work a lot harder at creating one than we did. I think it was just jealousy and anger, but I'm happy that’s gone between us. All of the weeks that I've spent visiting you since you passed on, I treasure them all. But I came to just unburden myself to you, and see if maybe just telling you about what I'm doing with my career right now will help me solve my problems. I'm trying to do what you would have wanted me to do, you know. You never got a chance to be a champion, and I know just how much that ate at you and how much it changed you. I saw it in how you parented me. I don’t want that for me, or any kids I might have in the future, and I know you wouldn’t want it for me either. That’s why I'm pushing so hard. I want to be a champion for you, so that you can see me from wherever it is that you are and know that you weren’t a failure as a father. I love you, Dad, even when you gave me reasons not to. I'll see you again next week.”
Pulling himself up to a standing position, Nighthawk carefully and lovingly kisses the gray cement tombstone before heading off to finish his roadwork, placing his red in-ear headphones back in his ears as he continues his solitary run in an attempt to live up to the promises he’s spent a career trying to live up to.
A few hours later….
As Nighthawk pulls his USA Wrestling ring gear bag into the back of his pickup truck and prepares to head off to the airport, we see a change come over him for just a moment as he is apparently trying to find his center in anticipation of the war that he knows is coming. Clad in a black leather western-style duster, a black Chicago Blackhawks sweater, a black short-sleeved Bad Brains t-shirt, and black leather pants, the “Wrestling Machine” slowly opens his eyes and takes one long deep enervating breath through his nose.
Nighthawk: “I became a wrestler when no one wanted me to. My advisors in college told me it was probably a good idea if I got my masters and then my doctorate in History, because I would be a good teacher. My first trainer told me, with a cigar in his mouth the whole time, that he didn’t think he could train me because he had never trained someone so small before in his entire life. The first time I left the United States to wrestle in Japan, the head of the Dojo where I lived told me that he was going to beat on me and beat on me until he forced me to quit, because he loved breaking gaijin like me. And when I decided I didn’t just want to be a TV-friendly wrestler, which is what my trainer told me would be the limits of my abilities, people decided I had to prove that I could do that too. So I did. I went from country to country, each more obscure than the last, but I wanted to learn. I wanted to be taught, to know the feeling of outthinking an opponent. Why do I mention these parts of my history, you might be asking? The answer’s simple. Because, at every turn, this career of mine was something that I had to prove I didn’t just want, but that I had to prove that I deserved. And every step of the way, every night spent lying in a dingy bed in a dingy motel with ice packs on every inch of bare skin, I proved I deserved the right to call myself a wrestler. My opponent this week, though, has had to pay NONE of those dues. He doesn’t know what pain is. He doesn’t know that feeling of accomplishment that comes from beating someone who told you that you couldn’t do something. The reason for that, John Henry Holliday, is because all your life you have always been told you could be whatever you wanted, because money and power will do that for people. This week, when you step in the ring against me, none of that matters. This week, when you face me, I will break you down. I will make you tap. I will beat you.
Now I know what you’re thinking. You’re probably sitting in your big house in Dallas, your manager Miss Styles by your side, and laughing when you hear this. I'm assuming you’re thinking that a guy who weighs 185 pounds after a good meal can’t possibly pose a threat to a big 290-pound guy like you. You’re probably betting on the idea that the first time you hit me, I'm going to crumble and shake, that I'm going to fall apart. I beg of you to work under this assumption. I plead with you to be the guy who thinks that just because I wasn’t blessed with your genetic advantages, I'm no threat at all. Because that way, when I hit you harder than you ever thought I could, you won’t see it coming. That way, when I put you in a submission created while you were still turning yourself into some bastard pastiche of J.R. Ewing and Jerry Jones, you won’t have prepared for an escape. You might talk about how rich you are, and how powerful that makes you, until you’re blue in the face. But the truth is that I’ve seen men like you before, wrestled a few of them too. And every time they couldn’t just put me away, couldn’t just hit me with their best shot and end it right there, they crumbled. They became less-confident, and I had them. That’s what’s going to happen to you, Mr. Holliday. You can hit me as hard as you like, as many times as you can find me to hit me, and I'll still stand there.
The reason why I'll be able to do that is simple. I'm not wrestling for me, not anymore. I'm wrestling for the memory of my father, who wanted to be a champion but never got the chance to do it. And as long as his blood runs through my veins, as long as I am his son, I will not stop until I earn the right to say that I can be a champion for him as much as for me.
Goodnight Mr. Holliday. May sleep give you the courage to go on.”
As Nighthawk walks out of the front door of his row house in the Chicago neighborhood of Bridgeport to do some early-morning road work in the bracing wind and cold in advance of his match against John Henry Holliday one has to wonder if he feels any better about the idea that he gets the chance to prove himself in a 1-on-1 match as opposed to the 6-man tornado of ladders and wrestlers that he found himself in for his IWF debut, the type of match that must have felt like a horrible nightmare for someone who considers himself to be a “pure wrestler” with all of the responsibilities and skills that such a moniker entails.
But while he considers himself to be a “pure wrestler” and trains himself as such one has to wonder if he is in possession of skills that no one finds all that compelling or necessary to have anymore in an era of wrestling where, at least to the way of thinking of some, size and the amorphous concept of charisma is far more important than technical skill. Despite this opinion the self-styled “Wrestling Machine” continues on his path of mastery, ignoring that for so many the idea of mastering an outdated craft feels as necessary as someone perfecting every possible usage of a quill and ink, or a typewriter, might be.
But as the “Man of 1000 Holds” stops his run at a graveyard approximately 5 miles away from his home, leaning down in front of a specific tombstone, we see that which provides him with even more motivation than mastering his craft might, which is the grave of his father.
Nighthawk: “I know it’s odd to talk to you Dad, considering that you’re a ghost.. Truthfully, I also know that if you were here right now we wouldn’t be able to have the kind of talks that we have, largely because I'm not sure how much we’d actually be speaking. We didn’t have a great relationship when you were alive, and I think if we had all that to do again, we’d probably work a lot harder at creating one than we did. I think it was just jealousy and anger, but I'm happy that’s gone between us. All of the weeks that I've spent visiting you since you passed on, I treasure them all. But I came to just unburden myself to you, and see if maybe just telling you about what I'm doing with my career right now will help me solve my problems. I'm trying to do what you would have wanted me to do, you know. You never got a chance to be a champion, and I know just how much that ate at you and how much it changed you. I saw it in how you parented me. I don’t want that for me, or any kids I might have in the future, and I know you wouldn’t want it for me either. That’s why I'm pushing so hard. I want to be a champion for you, so that you can see me from wherever it is that you are and know that you weren’t a failure as a father. I love you, Dad, even when you gave me reasons not to. I'll see you again next week.”
Pulling himself up to a standing position, Nighthawk carefully and lovingly kisses the gray cement tombstone before heading off to finish his roadwork, placing his red in-ear headphones back in his ears as he continues his solitary run in an attempt to live up to the promises he’s spent a career trying to live up to.
A few hours later….
As Nighthawk pulls his USA Wrestling ring gear bag into the back of his pickup truck and prepares to head off to the airport, we see a change come over him for just a moment as he is apparently trying to find his center in anticipation of the war that he knows is coming. Clad in a black leather western-style duster, a black Chicago Blackhawks sweater, a black short-sleeved Bad Brains t-shirt, and black leather pants, the “Wrestling Machine” slowly opens his eyes and takes one long deep enervating breath through his nose.
Nighthawk: “I became a wrestler when no one wanted me to. My advisors in college told me it was probably a good idea if I got my masters and then my doctorate in History, because I would be a good teacher. My first trainer told me, with a cigar in his mouth the whole time, that he didn’t think he could train me because he had never trained someone so small before in his entire life. The first time I left the United States to wrestle in Japan, the head of the Dojo where I lived told me that he was going to beat on me and beat on me until he forced me to quit, because he loved breaking gaijin like me. And when I decided I didn’t just want to be a TV-friendly wrestler, which is what my trainer told me would be the limits of my abilities, people decided I had to prove that I could do that too. So I did. I went from country to country, each more obscure than the last, but I wanted to learn. I wanted to be taught, to know the feeling of outthinking an opponent. Why do I mention these parts of my history, you might be asking? The answer’s simple. Because, at every turn, this career of mine was something that I had to prove I didn’t just want, but that I had to prove that I deserved. And every step of the way, every night spent lying in a dingy bed in a dingy motel with ice packs on every inch of bare skin, I proved I deserved the right to call myself a wrestler. My opponent this week, though, has had to pay NONE of those dues. He doesn’t know what pain is. He doesn’t know that feeling of accomplishment that comes from beating someone who told you that you couldn’t do something. The reason for that, John Henry Holliday, is because all your life you have always been told you could be whatever you wanted, because money and power will do that for people. This week, when you step in the ring against me, none of that matters. This week, when you face me, I will break you down. I will make you tap. I will beat you.
Now I know what you’re thinking. You’re probably sitting in your big house in Dallas, your manager Miss Styles by your side, and laughing when you hear this. I'm assuming you’re thinking that a guy who weighs 185 pounds after a good meal can’t possibly pose a threat to a big 290-pound guy like you. You’re probably betting on the idea that the first time you hit me, I'm going to crumble and shake, that I'm going to fall apart. I beg of you to work under this assumption. I plead with you to be the guy who thinks that just because I wasn’t blessed with your genetic advantages, I'm no threat at all. Because that way, when I hit you harder than you ever thought I could, you won’t see it coming. That way, when I put you in a submission created while you were still turning yourself into some bastard pastiche of J.R. Ewing and Jerry Jones, you won’t have prepared for an escape. You might talk about how rich you are, and how powerful that makes you, until you’re blue in the face. But the truth is that I’ve seen men like you before, wrestled a few of them too. And every time they couldn’t just put me away, couldn’t just hit me with their best shot and end it right there, they crumbled. They became less-confident, and I had them. That’s what’s going to happen to you, Mr. Holliday. You can hit me as hard as you like, as many times as you can find me to hit me, and I'll still stand there.
The reason why I'll be able to do that is simple. I'm not wrestling for me, not anymore. I'm wrestling for the memory of my father, who wanted to be a champion but never got the chance to do it. And as long as his blood runs through my veins, as long as I am his son, I will not stop until I earn the right to say that I can be a champion for him as much as for me.
Goodnight Mr. Holliday. May sleep give you the courage to go on.”
Well howdy there pardner.