Survival of the Fittest

[Roberto Verona]

{ Our scene opens in the familiar setting of the office of IWF’s COO Roberto Verona as the aforementioned and his old friend Jake Conway walk through the main door in a jovial mood following the latter’s recent victory over Rob Diamond. Jake slumps into a nearby chair, relaxing his body from the pains of his recent bout as Verona opens a nearby liquor cupboard. }

Roberto Verona: Did you see the look on his face?

{ Roberto laughs as he slaps Jake on the shoulder, pouring the pair two glasses of champagne. }

Roberto Verona: I forgot how damn satisfying it is to personally wipe the smug grin off the faces of asinine little parasites like Rob. Then finishing him off with his own signature move?

{ Roberto smiles, offering Jake a glass. }

Roberto Verona: Everything worked out to plan.

{ Jake smiles, almost nervously. }

Jake Conway: Yeah… I won’t deny that but…

Roberto Verona: Come on, spit it out.

Jake Conway: As much as I will always enjoy putting Diamond in his place, are you sure it was wise to antagonise him with the Extinction Event coming up?

Roberto Verona: I admit, on the surface it appears like career suicide but you know me well enough, Jake, to realise that there’s more to this than foolishly antagonising Rob Diamond when I am going to be so reliant on him.

Jake Conway: Then what exactly is the plan?

Roberto Verona: Rob needed to be reminded what happens when he runs his mouth around the alpha males, We’ve lit a fire under his ass, he’s not going to lift a finger to help me, in fact he is going to go out of his way to deliberately avoid helping me.

Jake Conway: Isn’t that a bad thing?

{ Verona shrugs as he slinks down in his large leather chair. }

Roberto Verona: Normally, I’d agree. But Rob Diamond’s ego is going to be his undoing. He’s going to go out there to prove a point, whilst only tagging Warren in. I’ve essentially guaranteed that both of them are going to do all the leg work and wear themselves out in a futile attempt to get one over me. I’ll just sweep in a mop up the scraps. If they try to catch me out by leaving me out there I just so happen to have Alexis to tag me out on the apron and if they don’t take the bait, I have contingencies in place to light up their oh-so-suicidal passion.

{ Jake grins from ear more confidently. }

Jake Conway: I’ll never deny you’re a devious bastard.

Roberto Verona: Stop, you’ll make me blush.

{ The pair laugh as Roberto slowly begins to go silent, staring into space for a moment as Jake looks at him quizzically. }

Jake Conway: Is everything ok? I thought we were celebrating?

{ Roberto looks up, closing his eyes as he nods his head. }

Roberto Verona: Yes… we are. It’s just… this weekend isn’t going to be all about fun and games.

Jake Conway: Of course not, it’s an Extinction Event.

Roberto Verona: That isn’t what I mean.

{ Roberto pauses, looking around his office, his eyes drifting across an assortment of framed photos depicting his career and the foundation of IWF. Verona sighs before turning to look at Jake. }

Roberto Verona: Do you remember why I founded IWF?

Jake Conway: If I listened to the locker room, it was a rampant ego trip to get one over Leonard Fox.

{ Jake laughs before taking a sip of champagne. }

Jake Conway: I know you wanted to build somewhere that everybody had an opportunity to thrive in.

Roberto Verona: Then why do I get the distinct impression all we’ve done is pander to fragile egos and drama queens? We’ve been running a day care centre, not a wrestling federation for far too long now.

Jake Conway: What did you expect? Come on now, Roberto, you’re not naïve enough to be ignorant to the fact that everybody in this business is in it for themselves. They always believe their opinions trump other peoples, you simply can’t please everybody and they’re only interested in themselves.

{ Roberto shakes his head. }

Roberto Verona: Somewhere along the way we lost our way. IWF was always meant to be a place where everybody had equal opportunities to succeed, never about trying to give people crutches in a deceitful attempt to hold them up to the level of their betters. We went from rewarding those who were willing to take what they want to giving a platform to a bunch of divas and man children.

Jake Conway: That’s all well and good, Roberto, but how are we any better than them just sitting here and complaining about our lot?

Roberto Verona: You’re right, the time for talking is over, Jake. It’s time somebody did something to put this ship back on the correct course.

{ Verona smiles coyly. }

Roberto Verona: I have a proposition for you to consider.

What do Mohamed Al-Thani, Nighthawk and Andrew Jacobsen have in common?

None of them have a hope in hell of walking out this weekend with the Imperial Championship.

What? Were you expecting some sort of witty one liner? Some ridiculous banter to cover up me deep seated feelings of inadequacies? A few penis jokes? Sorry to be a huge disappointment, but I will leave the juvenile humour to the man who was left staring at the ceiling last week and simply stick to the facts.

And that, whether you like it or not, counts as one.

I am going to walk down that ramp with the Imperial Championship draped over my shoulder and regardless of what happens out there I will be walking back up it with my reign intact. It isn’t a slight on your individual talents, it isn’t a simple case of over-confidence and it isn’t an attempt to undermine your credibility.

It’s a recognition of that fact that there isn’t a single one of you out there who is going to be willing to do whatever it takes to win.

That is why regardless of what you attempt to do, I’m going to slither my way out of your grasp and land the killer blow I need to. As cliché as it may be, I am going to embody the very spirit of this entire pay per view and demonstrate exactly what Survival of the Fittest means.

All whilst you stick to the same routines that have gotten your absolutely nowhere besides indifferent performances, eternal disappointment and a linger sense of self-pity.

A statement that is no more personified than by you, Nighthawk.

Eternal hero.

Eternal disappointment.

Honestly, at this point I’m beginning to believe you’re on a personal mission to be more squeaky clean than Jesus of Nazareth. At this point the bookies would probably be offering better odd for the Son of God’s heel turn than you even considering possibly exploiting something for your own advantage.

Yet, let me ask you a question.

Where exactly has this nobility got you besides being laid on the floor as IWF’s personal doormat?

Doing the right thing is all well and good, Nighthawk, but there comes a point where being noble and upholding honourable principles becomes nothing more than an anchor around your neck, dragging you to a watery grave. Your morals may be lofty, hell they may even be admirable, but when you exist in a world of deceit, backstabbing and manipulation they rapidly become the cross upon which you are routinely martyred.

You have to learn to adapt to the landscape.

Or you’ll be consumed by it.

All of this will be hard for you to swallow, it goes against everything you believe in, everything you stand for but… sooner or later you need to learn that if you every want to achieve the lofty ideals you possess you have to sacrifice your own honour for the good of everybody else. It’s a path I had to go down too, Nighthawk, I had to dirty myself to achieve the greater world I dreamed of. I had to accept that utopia can never be accomplished without personal sacrifice.

That is why I am a wrestling icon and you’re not.

That is why you’ve had the opportunities you’ve had here in this company to pursue your career safe in the knowledge that your health wouldn’t be the commodity you had to gamble with to succeed, because I was willing to damn my own soul to provide a better home for professional wrestlers.

Because I did things that weren’t noble to accomplish the greater good.

I know you like to think that by sticking to your principles you’re somehow making a point, you’re showing the world that actually you’re a better man than everybody else on this roster because you will never abandon the principles that make you the person you are.

Yet, you’re more selfish than you ever truly realise. You’re happier to retain your purported dignity rather than give it up to accomplish the better world you so desperately want to be a part of.

If you ever want to exist in a world of noble competitors, you’re going to have to learn to sacrifice your own obsession with being a paragon of virtue or merely become a footnote in the history of IWF.

The man who did nothing wrong, yet equally accomplished nothing.

Then of course there is Mohamed Al-Thani.

The man who would be King by severing my head with the golden blade of his rich backers.

You’ve been quite vocal of late, haven’t you Mohamed? You seem to have this disingenuous and fallacious belief that you somehow deserve much better yet for some reason you’ve decided, rather than doing something about it, to hide behind this ridiculous anti-Western façade. You live in a perpetual cycle of shock value for shock value’s sake, all whilst playing the victim as you desperately hide the silver spoon behind your back and do the square route of fuck all to alter your predicament.

Week after week you cry foul.

Week after week you do absolutely nothing with all of the very obvious advantages you possess other than squander them.

For some reason you’re oddly content with merely flaunting your wealth and connections whilst lighting a fire under people’s asses with whatever creatively distasteful stunt you can dream up on a week to week basis instead of putting it to some use and furthering your career. You have all the resources that a professional wrestler could dream of with the kind of raw potential that most would try to hone but instead of perfecting your craft whilst covering your weaknesses with your ridiculous wealth what do you do?

You piss, bitch and cry about just how bad you’ve got it.

You can keep playing the victim card whilst squandering your potential if you like, Mohamed, or perhaps you can grow a spine, stop blaming other people for your own shortcomings and put your wealth of privileges to your own advantage and take what you want instead of trying to buy it with whimpering pleas of oppression and piss poor deception tactics.

Money can buy you a lot things, but it sure as hell isn’t going to buy you any dignity.

If you ever want to fulfil your dreams and stand with your foot on the throat of men like me you need to learn to be more ruthless, more calculating and most of all willing to do everything it takes to be victorious. Hiding behind pantomime villain acts to get under the skin of the fans whilst simultaneously claiming victimhood hasn’t got you anywhere, Al-Thani, it’s time for you to step the fuck up and put all that money where your mouth is.

It’s time for Mohamed Al-Thani to act like the rich arrogant pearl of the Gulf instead of the welfare sucking leech who wants everything for nothing. Watch and learn this weekend, Mohamed, I’m going to give you a lesson in what it takes to be a ruthless, pitiless monster who does everything it takes to get the job done.

If you’re a wise man, you’ll take it on board and finally adapt.

And not repeat the mistakes of your final partner, the eternal good guy who finally sold his soul.

Andrew Jacobsen.

Only… you sold it for far cheaper than I ever dream you would. You got conned by a snake oil salesman instead of going the whole hog and truly investing all that made you admired as a paragon of virtue into somebody who could finally elevate you to the level you deserve.

Let’s be honest, you sold out and all you got in return was a lousy “Body Count” branded t-shirt.

A mere sideshow in the greater story of a man who you only ever shared your initials with, never his calculating ability to exploit everybody around him for his own benefit.

You know Andrew, I was never disappointed in you for betraying your morals, I’m not so simple as to see men in the restrictive columns of “good or evil”. No, what disappointed me the most was that when you finally determined to turn your back on the ideals that had gotten you absolutely nowhere, you were content with continuing to be a follower instead of finally grasping the cold hard facts.

Only you can be the master of your own destiny.

You’ve spent your entire career being somebody else’s pawn, be it another colleague in a faction or the unwittingly “hero” of the masses. You’ve never truly taken control of your own destiny and when you joined Body Count you were seemingly content with repeating a pattern that has restricted your career to being nothing more than the story of a man who came so close to glory, but just never quite had it in him to commit to prolonging it.

When is Andrew Jacobsen finally going to stop being manipulated by everybody else and stand up as his own man?

I’ve been waiting years to see your grasp your own destiny instead of simply being a part in somebody else’s larger puzzle. When I saw you join Alex Jones somewhere, deep down inside me, I hoped that when he inevitably proved to be an ineffectual and incompetent leader due to his desire to serve himself that you’d take the bull by the horns and assert control of the collection of misfits.

I hoped that finally you’d stop letting everybody else speak for you and let your message be heard.

Yet… you did nothing. You showed signs of self-determination by declaring just how insidious Renee was and you were man enough to put your neck on the line to do something about it, even if you did fail and I can completely respect that. You stepped up, you put yourself in the firing line and then…

Then you slinked back like a scolded child into line behind your comrades.

Well, Andrew. It’s time for you to make a choice. You can continue to be somebody else’s cannon fodder, constantly selling yourself short for little short or long term gain, or you can finally decide on the man you want to be, shed the influence of others and start putting yourself first. It’s selfish, maybe, but this business is about to get a whole lot harsher.

You’re only going to survive if your finally start to put Andrew Jacobsen first.

Nighthawk is only going to survive if he finally starts to put Nighthawk first.

And Mohamed Al-Thani is only going to survive is he started to but Mohamed Al-Thani first.

The question is, are you three capable of doing what it takes to be the men you could be? Are you willing to wade knee deep in the visceral and get your hands bloody if it achieves your ends? Will you finally stop hiding behind your habits and perpetual failings to emerge as dominant talents?

Or will you simply go extinct with a whimper?

The next few months, the landscape is going to change.

Only the strongest will survive.