Post by Andrew Jacobsen on Nov 29, 2016 3:09:37 GMT
Hey there, IWF. It's been a while.
Three hundred and one days. Forty-three weeks. It's not the longest time I've been away from this place, but...this one feels different. I wasn't gone because I was hurt. I was gone because I did something I've made a career out of: I crossed the boss. Warren Kane put me down and out, and the moment the ref's hand hit the mat that third time...it was over. Turn in your badge, tickets back to Minneapolis, over. My contract was gone.
But I didn't give up. I pulled myself out of the ashes of my IWF career and I started fighting my way back up the ladder. I couldn't do it in America, and I couldn't do it in Europe. Roberto had too much pull there. So I looked to the east. I looked to Japan.
They weren't exactly rushing to welcome me with open arms. I didn't blame them. I had a history of injury and a tendency to stop believing in myself and collapse at the exact worst moment. But I wanted to re-earn the trust that I had lost, and I was willing to go through hell to do it.
I went up against some nasty opponents while I did my tour in the Land of the Rising Sun. Submission wrestlers that'd just as soon snap your leg as shake your hand, strikers that could kick your head into the upper decks and chop you so hard your chest goes concave...they didn't hold back. I didn't want them to. I deserved every hit I took, because every time I was able to get back up it meant that I was getting a little closer to who I used to be. Who I need to be again.
I know some people will never trust me again. I've burnt those bridges, and no matter how hard I try I'll never rebuild them the way they were. It hurts, but I put that on myself. But if I can get close, even for a moment, it'll be worth it. If I can move past my mistakes, refuse to let them define me, then all of the pain is going to have been worth it.
I've let myself fall prey to the same trap over and over again, and I never learned to spot it next time it came up. That's the trap of cynicism. I let myself believe that striving for more was futile, that it was so much easier to just fall into the mire...and it was easy. But I hated every second of it. I tried to be something I wasn't, I tried to play the villain, and I just got played as a fool.
But I'm not the only one. Am I, Kyle?
Andrew leans against the turnbuckles of one of the rings in IWF's training center, taking a deep breath and mopping the sweat from his brow. The trainee across from him, a young African-American man in exercise gear with an incredible physique and a confident, million-dollar smile, offers a handshake to Andrew.
"That was good stuff, man. I don't know why you're freaking out. From what I felt in there, you haven't lost a step."
Andrew nods, taking the man's hand and shaking it firmly. As the two stand across from each other, it's clear that Andrew has several inches of height on his training partner. He sighs, tossing the towel over the top rope, where it's promptly caught by Danielle Chase sitting on her laptop at ringside. Andrew cracks his neck, shaking out his right arm as the two men unconsciously begin to circle the ring.
"That's the thing about undermined confidence, Isaac. It only takes a moment to destroy years of work and leave you back at square one. I'm still relearning how to believe in myself."
The younger man nods, picking up the pace, and Andrew immediately moves to match him as the two weave back into another exercise. He grins at Andrew's reaction, nodding as he sizes the Minnesotan up.
"Well, you better learn fast, old dog, or new tricks are gonna leave you laid flat. Hell, don't even have to be new tricks."
As if to prove a point, he feints a high roundhouse kick at Andrew's head. Andrew crouches, and immediately Isaac ducks for a spinning sweep kick. Andrew uses his lowered center of gravity to handspring out of the way, coming to his feet and wincing slightly on the landing. The younger man is on top of things, though, and leaps up into a high dropkick that rocks Andrew back into the corner. Isaac can't help but laugh at Andrew, shaking his head and waving him off. Danielle can't suppress a snort at the display, and Andrew shakes his head, beckoning him in.
"Anyone ever tell you to respect your elders, kid? Talk trash about old tricks all you want, but sometimes it's hard to beat a classic."
Isaac accepts the invitation, shooting in to lock up with that same cocksure grin on his face. They only meet in the collar-and-elbow for a second before Andrew bears down on the smaller Isaac, slipping his foot behind the smaller man's vertical base and snapping him down with a modified judo throw. Andrew swiftly switches his grip to Isaac's leg and twists him into a drum-tight figure four leglock. Isaac struggles against the hold for a few moments before reluctantly tapping the mat. Andrew gets to his feet, offering a hand up. Isaac reluctantly takes it, shaking his head, and Andrew grins as he pulls the younger man to his feet, Danielle providing a round of applause at the technical display.
"Well done, Andrew. Now, do you want to tell your partner where he done goofed?"
Andrew nods back at his manager, looking to Isaac, who has an expression halfway between shamefaced and angered.
"You took the bait. I knew that dropkick wasn't going to put me down, but the danger of a good submission hold is that it can take you out of the game at any moment. All I needed was the chance to put you on the mat and take you out of your headspace. Like I said, confidence is a killer. The surest, really. It starves when taken from its native environment. The best solution is to breed many kinds of confidence, so that you'll never be without it."
Isaac chuckles, rapping on the side of his knee with his knuckles, and adjusts his kneepads, looking up at Jacobsen with the flickering beginnings of a smirk.
"Look, you don't get to go to Japan and start spouting off like you swallowed a Buddhist prayer book. Talk straight with me."
Andrew shrugs, nodding, and leans against the turnbuckle again with his own faint grin on his face.
"Alright, fair enough. You're a great striker. You're really agile. In a lot of ways, you're my opposite. But I've learned how to negotiate things back into my comfort zone, and not panic when knocked out of it. You thought you were on a roll after your strike display, and you carried that confidence in when I wanted to shift the battle to a grappling one. Instead of keeping the match where you wanted it to be and had seen success, you moved into a new field, one you knew or should have known I specialized in. You let your own hype blind you. Gotta work on that."
Isaac pauses, unable to keep from laughing slightly, and nods, exhaling slowly. He runs his hands along the sides of his head, flicking the sweat away, and bounces on the balls of his feet, nodding again.
"I get you. Dictate the terms of the fight, don't let someone else call it for you, no matter how hot you're going. Makes sense."
Danielle nods at the dissection, unable to keep a grin from her face.
"Hey, hear that? He can be taught."
Isaac grins at Danielle, shaking his head and letting himself rebound off the ropes slightly.
"I'm a fast learner, girl. Speaking of teaching, Andrew, I got a question for you."
Andrew nods idly, making an acknowledging noise as he stretches, and Isaac presses forward with his questioning.
"You ever think about taking up being a wrestling instructor? We've only practiced a few times, and I'm already learning a lot from you. I bet you could teach the other people here just as much."
Andrew pauses mid-stretch, straightening back up again, and exhales slowly. He nods to Isaac, affording him a sincere smile as he talks.
"I have. And yeah, someday I will. But I'm not done in the ring. There's something that I can't name inside me that tells me I can't be done yet. I've got so much to do, so much more to give there before I hang up the boots and make this place my home. I want to be more than I am. So yeah, I've thought about training. But only when I'm done, and I'm just getting started."
Isaac nods back, checking his wrists and grinning back at Andrew.
"Right. If you're just getting started, then get out of that corner and let me give you a little payback."
Andrew grins back, nodding, and flexes out his fingers as he walks out of the corner. Danielle shakes her head at the swaggering confidence rolling off of Isaac.
"Make sure you listen to your own advice, or it's your funeral."
Isaac just offers a wink and a grin in response before turning to focus on Andrew. The two men walk into the center of the ring, exchanging a quick handshake, and begin to circle each other as we fade to black.
I bet you've got words for me, Kyle.
You're pissed. You've always been pissed. You and I, we were supposed to be brothers. I wanted us to be brothers. Even if Body Count was ultimately about one man using others as tools to attempt to achieve success he didn't deserve, I wanted to do justice to what it COULD have been. We tried, didn't we? We gave all we could give to try to make it work.
But it was never going to work. We're just too different. We always knew that, at least I did. You thrived there. You were happy when you had a pretense to inflict violence. I believe that you took the offer to form Body Count because you saw something genuinely good. I can believe that you thought it was the right thing to do And I can even believe you tried to make us work as a unit. But, in the end, we didn't have anything in common besides being pulled in by a silver tongue and an empty promise.
I didn't go out back and burn everything that tied me to who I had been, but I definitely thought about it. I've given my all to make sure my epitaph in this company wasn't a string of missed opportunities and another flavor-of-the-week group. Deny it all you want, and I know I wanted to deny it for a long time, but we were never going to work. Need proof?
Justify Body Count. Tell me in one sentence what Body Count stood for.
You can't. Hell, I can't. We stood for nothing, and that's why we fell. You, me, Aaron...we all fell for the same lie. "I alone can make you great." It was always a lie...or at the very least, it wasn't my truth.
He couldn't make me great. You couldn't make me great. Hell, I couldn't make me great. You know who makes me great? Them. The people who see me reach out my hand to them and ask them to trust me, and reach back. The people who cheer, who call my name, who try to rally me when I'm at my lowest. That faith is worth more than any imagined glory some snake oil salesman can pitch me. You can buy gold. You can't buy faith.
Every time I've failed, it's because I walked away from the foundation of who I am. I was always taught to believe in respect, in hard work, and in honor. I walked away from respect when I signed on with the most bloated ego in professional wrestling. I walked away from hard work when I decided that gang beatdowns were a thing I was okay with. And I walked away from honor when I kicked the son of a bitch who gave me another chance in the face. Never again.
Man of Steel Rules. Last time we were in a match like this together, Rob Diamond snaked his way out with a victory. But there's no Rob this time, Kyle. It's just you, me, and the ghosts of my past. I'm ready to slam the door shut on this chapter of my career and start a new one. Are you?
You'll need to be. Let's go.
Three hundred and one days. Forty-three weeks. It's not the longest time I've been away from this place, but...this one feels different. I wasn't gone because I was hurt. I was gone because I did something I've made a career out of: I crossed the boss. Warren Kane put me down and out, and the moment the ref's hand hit the mat that third time...it was over. Turn in your badge, tickets back to Minneapolis, over. My contract was gone.
But I didn't give up. I pulled myself out of the ashes of my IWF career and I started fighting my way back up the ladder. I couldn't do it in America, and I couldn't do it in Europe. Roberto had too much pull there. So I looked to the east. I looked to Japan.
They weren't exactly rushing to welcome me with open arms. I didn't blame them. I had a history of injury and a tendency to stop believing in myself and collapse at the exact worst moment. But I wanted to re-earn the trust that I had lost, and I was willing to go through hell to do it.
I went up against some nasty opponents while I did my tour in the Land of the Rising Sun. Submission wrestlers that'd just as soon snap your leg as shake your hand, strikers that could kick your head into the upper decks and chop you so hard your chest goes concave...they didn't hold back. I didn't want them to. I deserved every hit I took, because every time I was able to get back up it meant that I was getting a little closer to who I used to be. Who I need to be again.
I know some people will never trust me again. I've burnt those bridges, and no matter how hard I try I'll never rebuild them the way they were. It hurts, but I put that on myself. But if I can get close, even for a moment, it'll be worth it. If I can move past my mistakes, refuse to let them define me, then all of the pain is going to have been worth it.
I've let myself fall prey to the same trap over and over again, and I never learned to spot it next time it came up. That's the trap of cynicism. I let myself believe that striving for more was futile, that it was so much easier to just fall into the mire...and it was easy. But I hated every second of it. I tried to be something I wasn't, I tried to play the villain, and I just got played as a fool.
But I'm not the only one. Am I, Kyle?
Andrew leans against the turnbuckles of one of the rings in IWF's training center, taking a deep breath and mopping the sweat from his brow. The trainee across from him, a young African-American man in exercise gear with an incredible physique and a confident, million-dollar smile, offers a handshake to Andrew.
"That was good stuff, man. I don't know why you're freaking out. From what I felt in there, you haven't lost a step."
Andrew nods, taking the man's hand and shaking it firmly. As the two stand across from each other, it's clear that Andrew has several inches of height on his training partner. He sighs, tossing the towel over the top rope, where it's promptly caught by Danielle Chase sitting on her laptop at ringside. Andrew cracks his neck, shaking out his right arm as the two men unconsciously begin to circle the ring.
"That's the thing about undermined confidence, Isaac. It only takes a moment to destroy years of work and leave you back at square one. I'm still relearning how to believe in myself."
The younger man nods, picking up the pace, and Andrew immediately moves to match him as the two weave back into another exercise. He grins at Andrew's reaction, nodding as he sizes the Minnesotan up.
"Well, you better learn fast, old dog, or new tricks are gonna leave you laid flat. Hell, don't even have to be new tricks."
As if to prove a point, he feints a high roundhouse kick at Andrew's head. Andrew crouches, and immediately Isaac ducks for a spinning sweep kick. Andrew uses his lowered center of gravity to handspring out of the way, coming to his feet and wincing slightly on the landing. The younger man is on top of things, though, and leaps up into a high dropkick that rocks Andrew back into the corner. Isaac can't help but laugh at Andrew, shaking his head and waving him off. Danielle can't suppress a snort at the display, and Andrew shakes his head, beckoning him in.
"Anyone ever tell you to respect your elders, kid? Talk trash about old tricks all you want, but sometimes it's hard to beat a classic."
Isaac accepts the invitation, shooting in to lock up with that same cocksure grin on his face. They only meet in the collar-and-elbow for a second before Andrew bears down on the smaller Isaac, slipping his foot behind the smaller man's vertical base and snapping him down with a modified judo throw. Andrew swiftly switches his grip to Isaac's leg and twists him into a drum-tight figure four leglock. Isaac struggles against the hold for a few moments before reluctantly tapping the mat. Andrew gets to his feet, offering a hand up. Isaac reluctantly takes it, shaking his head, and Andrew grins as he pulls the younger man to his feet, Danielle providing a round of applause at the technical display.
"Well done, Andrew. Now, do you want to tell your partner where he done goofed?"
Andrew nods back at his manager, looking to Isaac, who has an expression halfway between shamefaced and angered.
"You took the bait. I knew that dropkick wasn't going to put me down, but the danger of a good submission hold is that it can take you out of the game at any moment. All I needed was the chance to put you on the mat and take you out of your headspace. Like I said, confidence is a killer. The surest, really. It starves when taken from its native environment. The best solution is to breed many kinds of confidence, so that you'll never be without it."
Isaac chuckles, rapping on the side of his knee with his knuckles, and adjusts his kneepads, looking up at Jacobsen with the flickering beginnings of a smirk.
"Look, you don't get to go to Japan and start spouting off like you swallowed a Buddhist prayer book. Talk straight with me."
Andrew shrugs, nodding, and leans against the turnbuckle again with his own faint grin on his face.
"Alright, fair enough. You're a great striker. You're really agile. In a lot of ways, you're my opposite. But I've learned how to negotiate things back into my comfort zone, and not panic when knocked out of it. You thought you were on a roll after your strike display, and you carried that confidence in when I wanted to shift the battle to a grappling one. Instead of keeping the match where you wanted it to be and had seen success, you moved into a new field, one you knew or should have known I specialized in. You let your own hype blind you. Gotta work on that."
Isaac pauses, unable to keep from laughing slightly, and nods, exhaling slowly. He runs his hands along the sides of his head, flicking the sweat away, and bounces on the balls of his feet, nodding again.
"I get you. Dictate the terms of the fight, don't let someone else call it for you, no matter how hot you're going. Makes sense."
Danielle nods at the dissection, unable to keep a grin from her face.
"Hey, hear that? He can be taught."
Isaac grins at Danielle, shaking his head and letting himself rebound off the ropes slightly.
"I'm a fast learner, girl. Speaking of teaching, Andrew, I got a question for you."
Andrew nods idly, making an acknowledging noise as he stretches, and Isaac presses forward with his questioning.
"You ever think about taking up being a wrestling instructor? We've only practiced a few times, and I'm already learning a lot from you. I bet you could teach the other people here just as much."
Andrew pauses mid-stretch, straightening back up again, and exhales slowly. He nods to Isaac, affording him a sincere smile as he talks.
"I have. And yeah, someday I will. But I'm not done in the ring. There's something that I can't name inside me that tells me I can't be done yet. I've got so much to do, so much more to give there before I hang up the boots and make this place my home. I want to be more than I am. So yeah, I've thought about training. But only when I'm done, and I'm just getting started."
Isaac nods back, checking his wrists and grinning back at Andrew.
"Right. If you're just getting started, then get out of that corner and let me give you a little payback."
Andrew grins back, nodding, and flexes out his fingers as he walks out of the corner. Danielle shakes her head at the swaggering confidence rolling off of Isaac.
"Make sure you listen to your own advice, or it's your funeral."
Isaac just offers a wink and a grin in response before turning to focus on Andrew. The two men walk into the center of the ring, exchanging a quick handshake, and begin to circle each other as we fade to black.
I bet you've got words for me, Kyle.
You're pissed. You've always been pissed. You and I, we were supposed to be brothers. I wanted us to be brothers. Even if Body Count was ultimately about one man using others as tools to attempt to achieve success he didn't deserve, I wanted to do justice to what it COULD have been. We tried, didn't we? We gave all we could give to try to make it work.
But it was never going to work. We're just too different. We always knew that, at least I did. You thrived there. You were happy when you had a pretense to inflict violence. I believe that you took the offer to form Body Count because you saw something genuinely good. I can believe that you thought it was the right thing to do And I can even believe you tried to make us work as a unit. But, in the end, we didn't have anything in common besides being pulled in by a silver tongue and an empty promise.
I didn't go out back and burn everything that tied me to who I had been, but I definitely thought about it. I've given my all to make sure my epitaph in this company wasn't a string of missed opportunities and another flavor-of-the-week group. Deny it all you want, and I know I wanted to deny it for a long time, but we were never going to work. Need proof?
Justify Body Count. Tell me in one sentence what Body Count stood for.
You can't. Hell, I can't. We stood for nothing, and that's why we fell. You, me, Aaron...we all fell for the same lie. "I alone can make you great." It was always a lie...or at the very least, it wasn't my truth.
He couldn't make me great. You couldn't make me great. Hell, I couldn't make me great. You know who makes me great? Them. The people who see me reach out my hand to them and ask them to trust me, and reach back. The people who cheer, who call my name, who try to rally me when I'm at my lowest. That faith is worth more than any imagined glory some snake oil salesman can pitch me. You can buy gold. You can't buy faith.
Every time I've failed, it's because I walked away from the foundation of who I am. I was always taught to believe in respect, in hard work, and in honor. I walked away from respect when I signed on with the most bloated ego in professional wrestling. I walked away from hard work when I decided that gang beatdowns were a thing I was okay with. And I walked away from honor when I kicked the son of a bitch who gave me another chance in the face. Never again.
Man of Steel Rules. Last time we were in a match like this together, Rob Diamond snaked his way out with a victory. But there's no Rob this time, Kyle. It's just you, me, and the ghosts of my past. I'm ready to slam the door shut on this chapter of my career and start a new one. Are you?
You'll need to be. Let's go.
Well howdy there pardner.