Post by Deleted on Jan 31, 2016 14:42:45 GMT
“So comes snow after fire, and even dragons have their endings.”
As Nighthawk finishes doing another round of up-downs and other assorted amateur wrestling drills in one of the practice rings at the gym he owns called the Wrestle Factory in the tony Morgan Park neighborhood of Chicago in advance of his 2-out-of-3 falls match against Alex Jones one can’t help but notice the way he’s carrying himself and notice just how vitally important this match is to him, and how deeply personal he is taking the challenge of beating the man who at one point was widely considered to be the Ace of IWF.
But while the Chicago native deeply understands the hierarchal concepts intrinsic in Japanese wrestling one has to wonder if he is looking forward to challenging Alex Jones as much to try to prove to himself that he still has the proverbial “right stuff” to be a world-class competitor as it is to earn the career-defining win that has, up until now, eluded him in his IWF run.
Despite the questions that have dogged him ever since this match was signed it is becoming clearer and clearer that the “Wrestling Machine” is training with the very real idea of victory in his mind and is willing to leave absolutely nothing to chance in order to ensure that he can get done what he knows himself to be capable of doing.
But as the “Man of 1000 Holds” sits down on the lip of the ring apron, drinking from a gallon jug of water as he checks off something on a nearby yellow legal pad, the door to the gym pops open and in walks his trainer Jorge Rivera. Taking one look at the man who everyone regards to be his very best student Jorge pulls his legal pad away and sits next to him.
(Author’s note: This conversation took place in Spanish.)
Jorge: “I have been where you are right now. All of your heroes have been where you are right now. You can see the victory in front of you, and you know what it is going to take to get you to that point. My only concern is that you do not plunge so deep into becoming the sort of man that you have to be to beat Alex Jones that you won’t be able to find your way back to being the sort of man that made everyone want to see you beat Alex Jones. Beating a man that good, and that talented, is going to require everything you have to give, every ounce of yourself. You know that, so do I and more to the point so does he. To beat that man, you have to be willing to become obsessed with him. My only fear is that you become so obsessed with him that you focus on nothing else.”
Nighthawk: “I need this, and I’m not going to lie and say that I don’t. That is not what is making me do this. Needing this, needing to define myself by beating him, has never been the problem. It’s hearing the whispers in the locker room, hearing people wondering if I was ever actually as good as they had heard or if I was just beating ‘lesser competition’, that’s really beginning to get to me. That’s why I am training as hard as I can and why I want to win this match as much as I do, because I want to show people just how good I actually am and that I’m not just a fluke. Killing that idea of me as a joke is why I am training this hard. I know I can beat Alex Jones. I have studied him ever since the first time that he and I shared a ring together, and I know every one of his tells. All I need now, the only thing, is the fair chance to do it.”
Jorge: “With an attitude like that, and with as hard as you’re working, I don’t doubt you’re going to get what you deserve. Now let’s see if your old trainer can help you get ready for one more big battle, one more match.”
And as Nighthawk smiles widely and openly for the 1st time in what seems like months, Jorge immediately begins directing his student to try yet more drills as they engage in a sotto voce conversation about Nighthawk’s line of attack before shooing us away.
The next morning….
As Nighthawk sits on the front steps of his row house, smiling and offering sotto voce words of thanks to the old Irish grandmothers who come to wish him good luck, we see the kid from the neighborhood shine through for just a moment in the man who has traveled the world. Continuing to sit on the steps, reading the Chicago Sun-Times and frowning when he gets to the sports section, the “Wrestling Machine” looks up from his paper and smiles wanly to himself as Lacy J. Banks, the aforementioned paper’s wrestling writer, stands in front of him seemingly looking for an interview.
Lacy J. Banks, wearing an impossibly ill-fitting suit that looks to have been made from the curtains in a no-tell motel: “Everyone who is going to order Metamorphosis is well aware that, in just about every way that matters, this is perhaps the biggest match of your career. Defeating a man with the skill set, and the accomplishments, of Alex Jones is a true accomplishment. With that said, you are also a true hometown hero of the sort that simply isn’t seen this days. My question for you is this: Considering how beloved you are in Chicago, have you given any thought as to what would happen if you returned home and didn’t have the victory you so openly seek under your belt? What would losing a match like that do for your reputation? Have you given that any realistic thought?”
Nighthawk: “You are not the first person to ask me that question, Lacy, and I doubt very much if you will be the last. The reason I have whatever reputation I have is for no other reason than because I’ve earned it, night in and night out. More than that, Lacy, I’ve fought until there was no more breath in me to keep going, night in and night out. If you want to see what being conservative and expending as much energy as you need to get the win looks like, look at Roberto Verona and Jake Conway and see if that’s a style that provides a great amount of interest for you. This week, when I step in the ring against Alex Jones, I will give an effort that every person in that arena, and every person watching on WGN here at home, will be proud to see. That is my reputation.”
Lacy: “I’m going to run with that quote, Tristan. Good luck to you.”
Smiling warmly again, Nighthawk sits back on his steps as Lacy hails a cab.
A few hours later….
As Nighthawk sits on a felt chair in the departures wing of O’Hare Airport, watching as the world moves quickly around him, the “Wrestling Machine” slowly closes his eyes. Clad in a blue hooded Kaientai Deluxe sweatshirt, black leather pants with blue and orange piping up and down the legs, and black work boots, Nighthawk opens his eyes and smiles again, as if knowing he is fully prepared for the battle in front of him.
Nighthawk: “Ever since I arrived in the IWF, my career has been marked by what I haven’t been able to do as much as by what I have. I have had title opportunities, and every single one of those I lost. Some in close heartbreaking fashion. It is with all of that history in the back of my mind that makes me relish the knowledge that comes from knowing that this week; I get a chance to define my career for what I can do. All that I have to do is beat Alex Jones, twice.
Alex, I am no fool. I know what your reputation here is, and what you have done. Now for many people, stepping in the ring with you and knowing that you are not the better man is daunting, and more to the point, something that they might not be able to conceptualize. Moreover, if my name was not in this match, I would expect to see you run roughshod over whomever it is that would have been opposite you. The only problem is that that is not the case here. Because I am in the ring opposite you. It will be my music that you hear when your opponent steps in the ring.
In addition, as long as that is true, as long as it is me, I don’t see you as the guy who was once the Ace of this company, and wants to prove he still is. All I see when I look at you is the same thing I see when I look into the eyes of Roberto Verona, or Jake Conway: arrogance. And it’s that arrogance, that belief that you so clearly have that I don’t belong in the same ring with you, that is going to be your downfall.
You see, Alex, I have been in the ring with you twice. You can forget this if you choose to, but I took you to your limits each one of those times. And every time, every defeat, I learned something about you. And I’ve kept tight to all of that knowledge, all of that information, for just this moment. And I’ll use it all, everything I’ve kept up with and remembered, to do what no one else but me thinks I can do. I know I can beat you, Alex, and that knowledge will keep me pushing forward.
However, I know what you will say to this.
You will tell me how I do not belong in the same ring with you, and that you are going to embarrass me at Metamorphosis. You will tell anyone who will listen all about how you are going to beat me in two straight falls, and send me back from whence I came. It will be another series of insults about how I have not ever proved myself here, more or less of the same sort of thing that you threw my way the last two times you and I were in the same ring together.
Before you do that, though, let me remind you of something important that you might very well have forgotten.
I have nothing to lose by coming after you with every ounce of talent and fight that flows through my veins.
I do not have a title to defend, or championship contention to legitimately worry about.
For me, this is a match signed to prove something to myself, to the fans in Tacoma at the arena and around the world watching at home, and to someone who I have never met.
Right now, at this exact moment, there is a wrestler training. And he’s going to watch Metamorphosis. Not from the back at the gorilla position, or even in the top row of the arena, but at home. He is doing that because of me, because we each sent in tapes to the IWF office and Roberto picked me over him. My hope is that someday, wherever I might lay my boots while on an IWF roster, whoever that wrestler is finds me and thanks me for doing the best with the chance that he surrendered as I could have.
And right now, I would be looking that man in the face and lying to him if I told him I had.
I am not about to stand in front of him, whoever he is and wherever he is, as a man after he handed me something and hand him back nothing. I would not be able to live with myself if I did that, so I am not going to be the sort of man who does it.
That is why, Alex, I have to win this match. Because I need to look that man in the eyes, and tell him that I truly did do something with his career that he could be proud of.
You might think you can send me back from whence I came, Alex, but you are about to learn that I am not going anywhere.
You might believe you can beat me in your 1st match back, but you are about to learn that I have always been as good as you. ALWAYS.
And when I beat you, when my hand is raised, you’ll know it too.
Goodnight Alex. May sleep give you the courage to go on.”
As Nighthawk finishes doing another round of up-downs and other assorted amateur wrestling drills in one of the practice rings at the gym he owns called the Wrestle Factory in the tony Morgan Park neighborhood of Chicago in advance of his 2-out-of-3 falls match against Alex Jones one can’t help but notice the way he’s carrying himself and notice just how vitally important this match is to him, and how deeply personal he is taking the challenge of beating the man who at one point was widely considered to be the Ace of IWF.
But while the Chicago native deeply understands the hierarchal concepts intrinsic in Japanese wrestling one has to wonder if he is looking forward to challenging Alex Jones as much to try to prove to himself that he still has the proverbial “right stuff” to be a world-class competitor as it is to earn the career-defining win that has, up until now, eluded him in his IWF run.
Despite the questions that have dogged him ever since this match was signed it is becoming clearer and clearer that the “Wrestling Machine” is training with the very real idea of victory in his mind and is willing to leave absolutely nothing to chance in order to ensure that he can get done what he knows himself to be capable of doing.
But as the “Man of 1000 Holds” sits down on the lip of the ring apron, drinking from a gallon jug of water as he checks off something on a nearby yellow legal pad, the door to the gym pops open and in walks his trainer Jorge Rivera. Taking one look at the man who everyone regards to be his very best student Jorge pulls his legal pad away and sits next to him.
(Author’s note: This conversation took place in Spanish.)
Jorge: “I have been where you are right now. All of your heroes have been where you are right now. You can see the victory in front of you, and you know what it is going to take to get you to that point. My only concern is that you do not plunge so deep into becoming the sort of man that you have to be to beat Alex Jones that you won’t be able to find your way back to being the sort of man that made everyone want to see you beat Alex Jones. Beating a man that good, and that talented, is going to require everything you have to give, every ounce of yourself. You know that, so do I and more to the point so does he. To beat that man, you have to be willing to become obsessed with him. My only fear is that you become so obsessed with him that you focus on nothing else.”
Nighthawk: “I need this, and I’m not going to lie and say that I don’t. That is not what is making me do this. Needing this, needing to define myself by beating him, has never been the problem. It’s hearing the whispers in the locker room, hearing people wondering if I was ever actually as good as they had heard or if I was just beating ‘lesser competition’, that’s really beginning to get to me. That’s why I am training as hard as I can and why I want to win this match as much as I do, because I want to show people just how good I actually am and that I’m not just a fluke. Killing that idea of me as a joke is why I am training this hard. I know I can beat Alex Jones. I have studied him ever since the first time that he and I shared a ring together, and I know every one of his tells. All I need now, the only thing, is the fair chance to do it.”
Jorge: “With an attitude like that, and with as hard as you’re working, I don’t doubt you’re going to get what you deserve. Now let’s see if your old trainer can help you get ready for one more big battle, one more match.”
And as Nighthawk smiles widely and openly for the 1st time in what seems like months, Jorge immediately begins directing his student to try yet more drills as they engage in a sotto voce conversation about Nighthawk’s line of attack before shooing us away.
The next morning….
As Nighthawk sits on the front steps of his row house, smiling and offering sotto voce words of thanks to the old Irish grandmothers who come to wish him good luck, we see the kid from the neighborhood shine through for just a moment in the man who has traveled the world. Continuing to sit on the steps, reading the Chicago Sun-Times and frowning when he gets to the sports section, the “Wrestling Machine” looks up from his paper and smiles wanly to himself as Lacy J. Banks, the aforementioned paper’s wrestling writer, stands in front of him seemingly looking for an interview.
Lacy J. Banks, wearing an impossibly ill-fitting suit that looks to have been made from the curtains in a no-tell motel: “Everyone who is going to order Metamorphosis is well aware that, in just about every way that matters, this is perhaps the biggest match of your career. Defeating a man with the skill set, and the accomplishments, of Alex Jones is a true accomplishment. With that said, you are also a true hometown hero of the sort that simply isn’t seen this days. My question for you is this: Considering how beloved you are in Chicago, have you given any thought as to what would happen if you returned home and didn’t have the victory you so openly seek under your belt? What would losing a match like that do for your reputation? Have you given that any realistic thought?”
Nighthawk: “You are not the first person to ask me that question, Lacy, and I doubt very much if you will be the last. The reason I have whatever reputation I have is for no other reason than because I’ve earned it, night in and night out. More than that, Lacy, I’ve fought until there was no more breath in me to keep going, night in and night out. If you want to see what being conservative and expending as much energy as you need to get the win looks like, look at Roberto Verona and Jake Conway and see if that’s a style that provides a great amount of interest for you. This week, when I step in the ring against Alex Jones, I will give an effort that every person in that arena, and every person watching on WGN here at home, will be proud to see. That is my reputation.”
Lacy: “I’m going to run with that quote, Tristan. Good luck to you.”
Smiling warmly again, Nighthawk sits back on his steps as Lacy hails a cab.
A few hours later….
As Nighthawk sits on a felt chair in the departures wing of O’Hare Airport, watching as the world moves quickly around him, the “Wrestling Machine” slowly closes his eyes. Clad in a blue hooded Kaientai Deluxe sweatshirt, black leather pants with blue and orange piping up and down the legs, and black work boots, Nighthawk opens his eyes and smiles again, as if knowing he is fully prepared for the battle in front of him.
Nighthawk: “Ever since I arrived in the IWF, my career has been marked by what I haven’t been able to do as much as by what I have. I have had title opportunities, and every single one of those I lost. Some in close heartbreaking fashion. It is with all of that history in the back of my mind that makes me relish the knowledge that comes from knowing that this week; I get a chance to define my career for what I can do. All that I have to do is beat Alex Jones, twice.
Alex, I am no fool. I know what your reputation here is, and what you have done. Now for many people, stepping in the ring with you and knowing that you are not the better man is daunting, and more to the point, something that they might not be able to conceptualize. Moreover, if my name was not in this match, I would expect to see you run roughshod over whomever it is that would have been opposite you. The only problem is that that is not the case here. Because I am in the ring opposite you. It will be my music that you hear when your opponent steps in the ring.
In addition, as long as that is true, as long as it is me, I don’t see you as the guy who was once the Ace of this company, and wants to prove he still is. All I see when I look at you is the same thing I see when I look into the eyes of Roberto Verona, or Jake Conway: arrogance. And it’s that arrogance, that belief that you so clearly have that I don’t belong in the same ring with you, that is going to be your downfall.
You see, Alex, I have been in the ring with you twice. You can forget this if you choose to, but I took you to your limits each one of those times. And every time, every defeat, I learned something about you. And I’ve kept tight to all of that knowledge, all of that information, for just this moment. And I’ll use it all, everything I’ve kept up with and remembered, to do what no one else but me thinks I can do. I know I can beat you, Alex, and that knowledge will keep me pushing forward.
However, I know what you will say to this.
You will tell me how I do not belong in the same ring with you, and that you are going to embarrass me at Metamorphosis. You will tell anyone who will listen all about how you are going to beat me in two straight falls, and send me back from whence I came. It will be another series of insults about how I have not ever proved myself here, more or less of the same sort of thing that you threw my way the last two times you and I were in the same ring together.
Before you do that, though, let me remind you of something important that you might very well have forgotten.
I have nothing to lose by coming after you with every ounce of talent and fight that flows through my veins.
I do not have a title to defend, or championship contention to legitimately worry about.
For me, this is a match signed to prove something to myself, to the fans in Tacoma at the arena and around the world watching at home, and to someone who I have never met.
Right now, at this exact moment, there is a wrestler training. And he’s going to watch Metamorphosis. Not from the back at the gorilla position, or even in the top row of the arena, but at home. He is doing that because of me, because we each sent in tapes to the IWF office and Roberto picked me over him. My hope is that someday, wherever I might lay my boots while on an IWF roster, whoever that wrestler is finds me and thanks me for doing the best with the chance that he surrendered as I could have.
And right now, I would be looking that man in the face and lying to him if I told him I had.
I am not about to stand in front of him, whoever he is and wherever he is, as a man after he handed me something and hand him back nothing. I would not be able to live with myself if I did that, so I am not going to be the sort of man who does it.
That is why, Alex, I have to win this match. Because I need to look that man in the eyes, and tell him that I truly did do something with his career that he could be proud of.
You might think you can send me back from whence I came, Alex, but you are about to learn that I am not going anywhere.
You might believe you can beat me in your 1st match back, but you are about to learn that I have always been as good as you. ALWAYS.
And when I beat you, when my hand is raised, you’ll know it too.
Goodnight Alex. May sleep give you the courage to go on.”
Well howdy there pardner.