Post by Deleted on May 31, 2015 15:32:41 GMT
“Continuous effort - not strength or intelligence - is the key to unlocking our potential.”
As Nighthawk wakes up in his office at the Wrestle Factory in Chicago, tapes and scouting reports strewn throughout the room as he tries to get himself in the right frame of mind to face Kyle Mason in a European Rounds match, one has to wonder if this almost obsessive level of preparation that he is going to put himself through in order to succeed in this match is actually going to make that success harder to come by.
But while the Chicago native is burning the midnight oil in an attempt to fell a man who has become a personal and professional rival it seems important to remember that the #1 contendership for the Man of Steel championship is also on the line, a prize both men seem to both want very passionately.
Despite the passion and competitive intensity that is evident to anyone who has dealt with the “Wrestling Machine” even for a moment it is clear that he is dealing with this challenge in a cool and calm manner, having apparently made the decision that the last thing that he wants is to allow his temper or any personal feelings to guide him to make mistakes against his opponent that might lead to his defeat.
But as the “Man of 1000 Holds” heads to his coffee pot and pours himself a cup to start the day, the door to the office yawns open and in wheels his trusted friend, confidant, and long-time trainer Jorge Rivera who is currently in a wheelchair due to recent and highly invasive back surgery for a herniated disk as well as spinal stenosis.
(Author’s note: This conversation took place in Spanish.)
Nighthawk: “Goodness, teacher. I spoke to your doctors. You’re supposed to be in bed recovering. What in the name of all things holy are you actually doing here?”
Jorge Rivera: “I don’t have many friends left from my time in the wrestling business. They’re either old men who want nothing more than to never again be reminded of what their old lives were, or are too punch-drunk and battered to actually remember any of it. The ones who don’t fit in THAT category are ghosts really, men consumed by drugs and alcohol. I never had a son I could pass my secrets down to, or anyone but the students I trained to remember me. And a lot of those students will stay in México for the rest of their lives, so my legacy outside out of my home country might die with me. In a lot of ways, Tristan, you’re it. You are the one who will remind everyone of everything that I’ve ever done once I’m too old, or too much of a ghost, to be able to do it for myself. I need you to beat Kyle Mason, Tristan, and I’ll do anything I possibly can to help you do it. It doesn’t matter if I’m on my hospital bed, in a wheelchair, or near-death. I’m going to help you.”
Nighthawk: “I don’t….. I don’t know what to say. I am beyond thankful for the help, Jorge, I really am. But I don’t want you to hurt yourself worse because of me. I couldn’t live with myself if I knew that you coming to help me with this was going to put you in a position where you hurt yourself worse out of some need to help me beat Kyle Mason. I’ll visit you in the hospital later today, and we’ll talk. I promise we’ll talk. But please, don’t do this right here right now.”
Jorge Rivera: “NO Tristan! If you ever respected me, if you ever thought me worthy of being not just the man who trained you but your friend, you will listen to me now. I don’t know who you are right now, and I don’t know what you want out of your career any more. You need to find the Nighthawk everyone WANTED to see in IWF, the guy who fought the Imperial Champion harder than anyone dreamed. Maybe it was the beating from Andrew Jacobsen. I get it. You didn’t see it coming, and it might have changed you. But the Nighthawk I traveled the world with, the guy everyone called the ‘Wrestling Machine’ because he knew more about the craft than anyone any of us had ever seen, would have taken help from anyone he could have. I am your trainer. If I can do nothing else with my life, if there’s nothing left, I want to be the guy who can help you do this. Please let me.”
Nighthawk: “Ok then. I’ll put on some more coffee.”
Shooing us away, Nighthawk pulls out the notepad he’s already got started as Jorge wheels himself over to his favorite student’s side.
A few hours later….
As Nighthawk walks into the pews of the Nativity of Our Lord Catholic Church and lights a few votive candles at the pew we see the steel slowly return to his eyes, only to be blinked away just as quickly as the Chicago native seemingly is trying to find the middle ground between the emotionless samurai he has been for his greatest successes and the personable sort he is trying to be when not actively locked in competition.
Nighthawk: “I thank you O God for giving me a body which is fit and strong, and for making me able to use it well. In my training, help me never to shrink the discipline which I know that I need and that I ought to accept. In my leisure and in my pleasure, help me never to allow myself any indulgence which would make me less fit than I ought to be. When I compete with others, help me, win or lose, to play fair. When I win, keep me from boasting; When I lose, keep me from making excuses. Keep me from being conceited when I succeed, and from being sulky when I fail. And help me always with good will congratulate a better man who beat me. Help me so to live that I will always have a healthy body, and a healthy mind. This I ask for Your love’s sake. Amen.”
Leaving the church, blowing out the candles as he does so, we see the beginnings of the steely-eyed determination that has served him so well returning to the eyes of the “Man of 1000 Holds”.
The next morning….
As Nighthawk heads home to pack up his suitcase and his gear bag for his cab ride to the airport, he walks in the front door and immediately sees his wife Sin sitting at the kitchen table eating lunch.
Smiling Nighthawk quickly wraps his arms around her upper chest as she smiles and is kissed on the lips.
(Author’s note: This conversation took place in Spanish.)
Sin: “I know you’re getting ready to leave, so I’ll make this quick. I know what you need to do to beat Kyle Mason, and so do you. Ever since what happened at Convergence, you haven’t been yourself. You’ve been hesitant, and cautious. I can see it. Jorge can, too. Pretty much everyone who has known you for longer than 15 minutes can see it. Bring back the old Nighthawk, the one who did the right thing for the right reasons, and I know you can beat Kyle. Show the world what they’ve been missing out on.”
Nighthawk: “I love you. I’ll call you when I get to my hotel room.”
And with that, the “Man of 1000 Holds” kisses his wife lovingly on the lips before heading out to the waiting airport van.
A few hours later….
As Nighthawk sits in the last row of coach on a Delta Airlines flight from Chicago to Washington, D.C., he slowly closes his eyes. Clad in a black Attack of Titan t-shirt, blue leather pants with orange and silver piping up and down each leg, and black work boots, the “Wrestling Machine” leans back with a look of complete beatific calm on his face before opening his eyes and staring straight ahead.
Nighthawk: “Throughout my career, I’ve only ever wanted to be one thing.
No matter where the roads took me, all I ever wanted to be was the best.
Every night that I have stepped into the ring, I have wanted to prove the belief that I have had in myself since the very first time that I ever laced up a pair of wrestling boots.
And time after time, whenever anyone asked me to prove it, I have.
The crowds all over the world that chant ‘Best in the World’ whenever they see me, I don’t see that chant as a burden.
I see it as an obligation that I have to live up to.
And this week, when I step in the ring against Kyle Mason for our European Rounds match, I live up to that obligation, and I prove his claims of superiority false all in the same night.
You see, Kyle, I take pride in respecting every man who has ever stepped into the ring with me.
This is not an easy job, Kyle.
Anyone who has stepped in the ring for a moment knows that to be true.
I respect every man and woman who laces up their boots.
But with you, that respect comes with an aftertaste that I’m tired of dealing with.
Simply put, Mr. Mason, you take shortcuts.
I don’t.
I train for matches that are clean, classy, and clever.
I doubt if I’m going to get one of those from you, so here’s my promise.
Play it straight, and I will too. We’ll really find out who’s the best that way.
But if you don’t, or perhaps more accurately if you can’t, then look into my eyes and hear this truth:
I will walk through whatever you have, take everything you’ve got left, and then I will coldly grind you down until the only way left that you can stop the pain is to surrender.
If you are foolhardy enough to believe that I can’t do it, that I’m too ‘nice’ to make that play, then I make one request:
Try me, and see what happens.
I compete with honor, true.
But I have broken the will of many.
If you don’t want to play it straight, if you don’t want to give me the match this dispute deserves, then you will find out what it means to be in the ring with a ‘Wrestling Machine’.
And when you learn that lesson, and when you tap out, I won’t look back.
I will walk through you.
Come hell or high water, I will walk through you.
Now you can tell the world that you’re going to tear me limb from limb.
You can make promises about how you’re going to clip every one of my feathers, and how I’m going to feel pain unlike anything I’ve felt before.
You can even tell me what I think I know about myself.
But if you know anything about me, Mr. Mason, it’s this: I will walk through whatever you have.
You see, Mr. Mason, when I wake up every morning I have to answer to me.
I have to answer to the guy who calls himself the ‘Best in the World’, and every night I have to prove it.
If you think, Mr. Mason, that a few threats are going to shake me from doing that you don’t know me well at all.
By the time this match is over, Mr. Mason, you will respect what I am, and what I can do.
And I will beat you.
These are not threats.
These are things I will walk through anything I need to in order to make happen.
Look in my eyes, Mr. Mason.
Look closely and hear the next sentence that comes out of my mouth.
You will lose.
Whether fast or slow, you will lose.
Get ready.
Do your worst.
Because as good as you think you are, this week, you’re about to learn that I’m better.
Goodnight Kyle. May sleep give you the courage to go on.”
As Nighthawk wakes up in his office at the Wrestle Factory in Chicago, tapes and scouting reports strewn throughout the room as he tries to get himself in the right frame of mind to face Kyle Mason in a European Rounds match, one has to wonder if this almost obsessive level of preparation that he is going to put himself through in order to succeed in this match is actually going to make that success harder to come by.
But while the Chicago native is burning the midnight oil in an attempt to fell a man who has become a personal and professional rival it seems important to remember that the #1 contendership for the Man of Steel championship is also on the line, a prize both men seem to both want very passionately.
Despite the passion and competitive intensity that is evident to anyone who has dealt with the “Wrestling Machine” even for a moment it is clear that he is dealing with this challenge in a cool and calm manner, having apparently made the decision that the last thing that he wants is to allow his temper or any personal feelings to guide him to make mistakes against his opponent that might lead to his defeat.
But as the “Man of 1000 Holds” heads to his coffee pot and pours himself a cup to start the day, the door to the office yawns open and in wheels his trusted friend, confidant, and long-time trainer Jorge Rivera who is currently in a wheelchair due to recent and highly invasive back surgery for a herniated disk as well as spinal stenosis.
(Author’s note: This conversation took place in Spanish.)
Nighthawk: “Goodness, teacher. I spoke to your doctors. You’re supposed to be in bed recovering. What in the name of all things holy are you actually doing here?”
Jorge Rivera: “I don’t have many friends left from my time in the wrestling business. They’re either old men who want nothing more than to never again be reminded of what their old lives were, or are too punch-drunk and battered to actually remember any of it. The ones who don’t fit in THAT category are ghosts really, men consumed by drugs and alcohol. I never had a son I could pass my secrets down to, or anyone but the students I trained to remember me. And a lot of those students will stay in México for the rest of their lives, so my legacy outside out of my home country might die with me. In a lot of ways, Tristan, you’re it. You are the one who will remind everyone of everything that I’ve ever done once I’m too old, or too much of a ghost, to be able to do it for myself. I need you to beat Kyle Mason, Tristan, and I’ll do anything I possibly can to help you do it. It doesn’t matter if I’m on my hospital bed, in a wheelchair, or near-death. I’m going to help you.”
Nighthawk: “I don’t….. I don’t know what to say. I am beyond thankful for the help, Jorge, I really am. But I don’t want you to hurt yourself worse because of me. I couldn’t live with myself if I knew that you coming to help me with this was going to put you in a position where you hurt yourself worse out of some need to help me beat Kyle Mason. I’ll visit you in the hospital later today, and we’ll talk. I promise we’ll talk. But please, don’t do this right here right now.”
Jorge Rivera: “NO Tristan! If you ever respected me, if you ever thought me worthy of being not just the man who trained you but your friend, you will listen to me now. I don’t know who you are right now, and I don’t know what you want out of your career any more. You need to find the Nighthawk everyone WANTED to see in IWF, the guy who fought the Imperial Champion harder than anyone dreamed. Maybe it was the beating from Andrew Jacobsen. I get it. You didn’t see it coming, and it might have changed you. But the Nighthawk I traveled the world with, the guy everyone called the ‘Wrestling Machine’ because he knew more about the craft than anyone any of us had ever seen, would have taken help from anyone he could have. I am your trainer. If I can do nothing else with my life, if there’s nothing left, I want to be the guy who can help you do this. Please let me.”
Nighthawk: “Ok then. I’ll put on some more coffee.”
Shooing us away, Nighthawk pulls out the notepad he’s already got started as Jorge wheels himself over to his favorite student’s side.
A few hours later….
As Nighthawk walks into the pews of the Nativity of Our Lord Catholic Church and lights a few votive candles at the pew we see the steel slowly return to his eyes, only to be blinked away just as quickly as the Chicago native seemingly is trying to find the middle ground between the emotionless samurai he has been for his greatest successes and the personable sort he is trying to be when not actively locked in competition.
Nighthawk: “I thank you O God for giving me a body which is fit and strong, and for making me able to use it well. In my training, help me never to shrink the discipline which I know that I need and that I ought to accept. In my leisure and in my pleasure, help me never to allow myself any indulgence which would make me less fit than I ought to be. When I compete with others, help me, win or lose, to play fair. When I win, keep me from boasting; When I lose, keep me from making excuses. Keep me from being conceited when I succeed, and from being sulky when I fail. And help me always with good will congratulate a better man who beat me. Help me so to live that I will always have a healthy body, and a healthy mind. This I ask for Your love’s sake. Amen.”
Leaving the church, blowing out the candles as he does so, we see the beginnings of the steely-eyed determination that has served him so well returning to the eyes of the “Man of 1000 Holds”.
The next morning….
As Nighthawk heads home to pack up his suitcase and his gear bag for his cab ride to the airport, he walks in the front door and immediately sees his wife Sin sitting at the kitchen table eating lunch.
Smiling Nighthawk quickly wraps his arms around her upper chest as she smiles and is kissed on the lips.
(Author’s note: This conversation took place in Spanish.)
Sin: “I know you’re getting ready to leave, so I’ll make this quick. I know what you need to do to beat Kyle Mason, and so do you. Ever since what happened at Convergence, you haven’t been yourself. You’ve been hesitant, and cautious. I can see it. Jorge can, too. Pretty much everyone who has known you for longer than 15 minutes can see it. Bring back the old Nighthawk, the one who did the right thing for the right reasons, and I know you can beat Kyle. Show the world what they’ve been missing out on.”
Nighthawk: “I love you. I’ll call you when I get to my hotel room.”
And with that, the “Man of 1000 Holds” kisses his wife lovingly on the lips before heading out to the waiting airport van.
A few hours later….
As Nighthawk sits in the last row of coach on a Delta Airlines flight from Chicago to Washington, D.C., he slowly closes his eyes. Clad in a black Attack of Titan t-shirt, blue leather pants with orange and silver piping up and down each leg, and black work boots, the “Wrestling Machine” leans back with a look of complete beatific calm on his face before opening his eyes and staring straight ahead.
Nighthawk: “Throughout my career, I’ve only ever wanted to be one thing.
No matter where the roads took me, all I ever wanted to be was the best.
Every night that I have stepped into the ring, I have wanted to prove the belief that I have had in myself since the very first time that I ever laced up a pair of wrestling boots.
And time after time, whenever anyone asked me to prove it, I have.
The crowds all over the world that chant ‘Best in the World’ whenever they see me, I don’t see that chant as a burden.
I see it as an obligation that I have to live up to.
And this week, when I step in the ring against Kyle Mason for our European Rounds match, I live up to that obligation, and I prove his claims of superiority false all in the same night.
You see, Kyle, I take pride in respecting every man who has ever stepped into the ring with me.
This is not an easy job, Kyle.
Anyone who has stepped in the ring for a moment knows that to be true.
I respect every man and woman who laces up their boots.
But with you, that respect comes with an aftertaste that I’m tired of dealing with.
Simply put, Mr. Mason, you take shortcuts.
I don’t.
I train for matches that are clean, classy, and clever.
I doubt if I’m going to get one of those from you, so here’s my promise.
Play it straight, and I will too. We’ll really find out who’s the best that way.
But if you don’t, or perhaps more accurately if you can’t, then look into my eyes and hear this truth:
I will walk through whatever you have, take everything you’ve got left, and then I will coldly grind you down until the only way left that you can stop the pain is to surrender.
If you are foolhardy enough to believe that I can’t do it, that I’m too ‘nice’ to make that play, then I make one request:
Try me, and see what happens.
I compete with honor, true.
But I have broken the will of many.
If you don’t want to play it straight, if you don’t want to give me the match this dispute deserves, then you will find out what it means to be in the ring with a ‘Wrestling Machine’.
And when you learn that lesson, and when you tap out, I won’t look back.
I will walk through you.
Come hell or high water, I will walk through you.
Now you can tell the world that you’re going to tear me limb from limb.
You can make promises about how you’re going to clip every one of my feathers, and how I’m going to feel pain unlike anything I’ve felt before.
You can even tell me what I think I know about myself.
But if you know anything about me, Mr. Mason, it’s this: I will walk through whatever you have.
You see, Mr. Mason, when I wake up every morning I have to answer to me.
I have to answer to the guy who calls himself the ‘Best in the World’, and every night I have to prove it.
If you think, Mr. Mason, that a few threats are going to shake me from doing that you don’t know me well at all.
By the time this match is over, Mr. Mason, you will respect what I am, and what I can do.
And I will beat you.
These are not threats.
These are things I will walk through anything I need to in order to make happen.
Look in my eyes, Mr. Mason.
Look closely and hear the next sentence that comes out of my mouth.
You will lose.
Whether fast or slow, you will lose.
Get ready.
Do your worst.
Because as good as you think you are, this week, you’re about to learn that I’m better.
Goodnight Kyle. May sleep give you the courage to go on.”
Well howdy there pardner.