Post by Deleted on Apr 21, 2015 0:39:31 GMT
Tristan Patrick McDaniel. The name, in and of itself, sounds not terribly imposing and perhaps more like a bartender. Perhaps, even, if you figured out what it was that he did for a living, you might say that he had the name of a small-time dimestore hood or perhaps the leather jacket-clad and chain-smoking villain in a million Tom Clancy procedural thrillers.
But, if you thought nothing else about him, there could be no doubt that you would not think that he does what he does now. But that is perhaps to his benefit. For what he does he requires as just about very last bit of subterfuge that he can come up with. You see Tristan Patrick McDaniel is a shadow, a phantasm known only to his friends and family. To the rest of the world he is proud to say that he is the pro wrestler known simply as…. Nighthawk.
They say pro wrestling is fake. And to quite a lot of people, at least those who have never been inside that ring, it might be particularly galling to suggest that it is anything other than that. But to him, and to every Irish kid who grew up wanting to be and do everything that they wanted, that was not it at all. To him, to be a professional wrestler was the chance to finally be free… free from the potato-eater jokes he always heard.
In many ways you could say he was born for this. His father was a legend in his hometown, the pious voice of an entire city’s hopes and wishes. They called him simply the Spirit, a nod to the fact that to his devoted followers he seemed to appear only when he was asked for, when some force was just strong enough that nothing but him could stop it. But while to those who saw him only on television every Saturday he must have appeared to be superhuman; to his son he was nothing like that at all.
Instead, to his only son, he was something darker, almost demonic. You see Tristan’s father beat him routinely and as a matter of seeming routine. In retrospect the beatings might have been noticed by anyone who was looking. It was the way that Tristan cowered from his father every time he was in the same room with him, and how his usually angelic temper that he showed all the way through Chicago’s Catholic school suddenly became darker and more menacing at Hales Franciscan High School causing him to fight at the drop of a hat.
And, while most figured that the clear intimidation that he showed to his father would make him shrug away from anything that his father did, he chose to go into what is, for lack of a better term, the “family business”. His uncles did it; his nephews did it, and even just to be utterly contrary about the nature of gender roles so did a niece.
In the way that these things can happen, though, it was not the biological imperative that you might imagine. It was rather in this order: a girl, a TV, and a collegiate wrestling team. The girl was his first college sweetheart at the University of Michigan; a lanky Irish girl named Nicole. If you asked him later, in a private moment really since he has never been the type who would even imagine kissing and telling, he would more than likely be willing to admit that she was not the one for him.
But what she liked to do for fun… well that was a different story entirely. Despite what he thought was his own emotional impenetrability the son of the legend found himself transfixed by a fresh update on what his father’s old profession was, and found that despite himself, he felt the very beginnings of a biological imperative that he had tried so hard to deny.
But instinctively he knew that he was not about to be the sort of person who wanted to get a spot because of who his father was, largely because he hated everything that his father represented. So he did the next best thing that the “next big thing” could do….. he signed up for the Wolverines wrestling team at the weight he has always kept from that moment until this, 185 pounds.
And after a 4-year career which was typified by hard work and a grinding attitude to out-work and eventually defeat people that he should not have Tristan decided to become a pro wrestler, more because HE wanted to than because of some need to follow in the footsteps of his father.
This transformation from the only child of a local immortal into a man who shrugged off that yoke and built his own legacy started easily enough. A pair of royal blue & white wrestling boots began the transformation on the last day of his training, after his entire body was battered and bruised until you would not be far off to say that he, for the most part, resembled one big black and blue mark.
But when he got the boots in a crated box, perfectly fitted to his size and gleaming as though they had just been polished by the hand of Jesus himself, it was as though all of the pain and the agony had been worth it. Firstly he always loved the colors of royal blue and white, thought they looked regal and classy without seeming pretentious about it.
And bless his heart…. They were not green and white. Everywhere he went, once people heard that he was the son of the Spirit, they would do nothing more than show him how they had re-designed their notebooks or knapsacks with patches of green and white fabric in some attempt to be just like his father. It sickened him in a way that was indescribable.
But as his old goat of a trainer Pat Mack was only all too fond of letting everyone know, and this part at least was funny if only in a gallows-humor sort of way, a pair of “fancy-Dan” blue-and-white boots does not change the fact that he will always be the son of a legend, and no choice of new livery could ever change that by itself.
So he, totally unsure of what to do next, renounced his name in every sense but the legal one. Trying to figure out what to do next he scanned several magazines trying to come up with the thing that would represent what he wanted his life to be. Nothing came to him. It was not until he took a motorcycle trip with a few friends into the Black Hills that it came to him. He would be what his father could not be, did not want to be, and despite his lying about it, never really was. He would protect those who could not fight back for themselves. He would be like the bird he saw who chased off a wolf in the hills. He would be…. Nighthawk.
After renouncing his birth name in favor of a pseudonym he did what any good son did, or at least those who got tired of being good sons. He left town. Went to Mexico actually. And once he got there he was, well, out of place. A gringo raised and reared on a brawling style in the middle of these brilliantly skilled luchadores it was a difficulty that he was not willing to accept. And that is where the story diverges.
Did he A: Stay in Mexico for his whole life, carving out a niche as something of an anomaly but live happy that he was no longer known as the descendant to the Spirit and all that throne appeared to have possessed?
Or, perhaps, was it B: did he adapt to his surroundings, and travel the world more and more, going everywhere that he could until he was sure that he had beaten back every last memory that everyone had ever had about his father?
Well the answer to that is simple. What would you do?
But, if you thought nothing else about him, there could be no doubt that you would not think that he does what he does now. But that is perhaps to his benefit. For what he does he requires as just about very last bit of subterfuge that he can come up with. You see Tristan Patrick McDaniel is a shadow, a phantasm known only to his friends and family. To the rest of the world he is proud to say that he is the pro wrestler known simply as…. Nighthawk.
They say pro wrestling is fake. And to quite a lot of people, at least those who have never been inside that ring, it might be particularly galling to suggest that it is anything other than that. But to him, and to every Irish kid who grew up wanting to be and do everything that they wanted, that was not it at all. To him, to be a professional wrestler was the chance to finally be free… free from the potato-eater jokes he always heard.
In many ways you could say he was born for this. His father was a legend in his hometown, the pious voice of an entire city’s hopes and wishes. They called him simply the Spirit, a nod to the fact that to his devoted followers he seemed to appear only when he was asked for, when some force was just strong enough that nothing but him could stop it. But while to those who saw him only on television every Saturday he must have appeared to be superhuman; to his son he was nothing like that at all.
Instead, to his only son, he was something darker, almost demonic. You see Tristan’s father beat him routinely and as a matter of seeming routine. In retrospect the beatings might have been noticed by anyone who was looking. It was the way that Tristan cowered from his father every time he was in the same room with him, and how his usually angelic temper that he showed all the way through Chicago’s Catholic school suddenly became darker and more menacing at Hales Franciscan High School causing him to fight at the drop of a hat.
And, while most figured that the clear intimidation that he showed to his father would make him shrug away from anything that his father did, he chose to go into what is, for lack of a better term, the “family business”. His uncles did it; his nephews did it, and even just to be utterly contrary about the nature of gender roles so did a niece.
In the way that these things can happen, though, it was not the biological imperative that you might imagine. It was rather in this order: a girl, a TV, and a collegiate wrestling team. The girl was his first college sweetheart at the University of Michigan; a lanky Irish girl named Nicole. If you asked him later, in a private moment really since he has never been the type who would even imagine kissing and telling, he would more than likely be willing to admit that she was not the one for him.
But what she liked to do for fun… well that was a different story entirely. Despite what he thought was his own emotional impenetrability the son of the legend found himself transfixed by a fresh update on what his father’s old profession was, and found that despite himself, he felt the very beginnings of a biological imperative that he had tried so hard to deny.
But instinctively he knew that he was not about to be the sort of person who wanted to get a spot because of who his father was, largely because he hated everything that his father represented. So he did the next best thing that the “next big thing” could do….. he signed up for the Wolverines wrestling team at the weight he has always kept from that moment until this, 185 pounds.
And after a 4-year career which was typified by hard work and a grinding attitude to out-work and eventually defeat people that he should not have Tristan decided to become a pro wrestler, more because HE wanted to than because of some need to follow in the footsteps of his father.
This transformation from the only child of a local immortal into a man who shrugged off that yoke and built his own legacy started easily enough. A pair of royal blue & white wrestling boots began the transformation on the last day of his training, after his entire body was battered and bruised until you would not be far off to say that he, for the most part, resembled one big black and blue mark.
But when he got the boots in a crated box, perfectly fitted to his size and gleaming as though they had just been polished by the hand of Jesus himself, it was as though all of the pain and the agony had been worth it. Firstly he always loved the colors of royal blue and white, thought they looked regal and classy without seeming pretentious about it.
And bless his heart…. They were not green and white. Everywhere he went, once people heard that he was the son of the Spirit, they would do nothing more than show him how they had re-designed their notebooks or knapsacks with patches of green and white fabric in some attempt to be just like his father. It sickened him in a way that was indescribable.
But as his old goat of a trainer Pat Mack was only all too fond of letting everyone know, and this part at least was funny if only in a gallows-humor sort of way, a pair of “fancy-Dan” blue-and-white boots does not change the fact that he will always be the son of a legend, and no choice of new livery could ever change that by itself.
So he, totally unsure of what to do next, renounced his name in every sense but the legal one. Trying to figure out what to do next he scanned several magazines trying to come up with the thing that would represent what he wanted his life to be. Nothing came to him. It was not until he took a motorcycle trip with a few friends into the Black Hills that it came to him. He would be what his father could not be, did not want to be, and despite his lying about it, never really was. He would protect those who could not fight back for themselves. He would be like the bird he saw who chased off a wolf in the hills. He would be…. Nighthawk.
After renouncing his birth name in favor of a pseudonym he did what any good son did, or at least those who got tired of being good sons. He left town. Went to Mexico actually. And once he got there he was, well, out of place. A gringo raised and reared on a brawling style in the middle of these brilliantly skilled luchadores it was a difficulty that he was not willing to accept. And that is where the story diverges.
Did he A: Stay in Mexico for his whole life, carving out a niche as something of an anomaly but live happy that he was no longer known as the descendant to the Spirit and all that throne appeared to have possessed?
Or, perhaps, was it B: did he adapt to his surroundings, and travel the world more and more, going everywhere that he could until he was sure that he had beaten back every last memory that everyone had ever had about his father?
Well the answer to that is simple. What would you do?