Post by Deleted on May 25, 2013 11:28:54 GMT -5
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Two matches and two wins. To say I was shocked was an understatement. It had been many a months since I had been successful two weeks in a row! You might not have literally seen it on FaceOff, but I was dancing right after I shook Terrell’s hand. Dancing on a cloud of euphoria and amazement. Had I really made it back? Had I really started the comeback I’d been so desperate for? When I shook his hand and looked him in the eye, I saw the respect that I’d longed for for quite some time.
And then ... then all of that was lost. Lost in an instance when Joe Reed decided to make his presence known to CRW.
I’m assuming he did what he did because no one had given him his welcome basket yet. If he’d just waited I could have given it to him. But, you know, it makes it a little difficult when you’re unconscious and all. Never mind, I’ll just give it to him when I next see him. I’m sure he’ll be more receptive and welcoming and enjoyable, right?
Nah, I didn’t think so.
Anyway, after the EMTs and some good samaritans thank tinker around backstage got me, first, to the doctors and, then, to the hospital for all the scans and checks that blind-sided people are subjected to ... I was given a clear later the next day and I was free to go about my business ... and check back if I reported any dizziness, nausea, or unexpected fatigue in the next forty-eight hours.
=============== 22/5/13 ===============
“Sally! Sally! Slow down!” Robb, the gruff trainer, screams out as Sally throws a flurry of fists at a ratty-looking punching bag. Tape holds the whole thing together, and it’s almost as if Sally is trying to destroy the poor thing. It’s withstood boxer, MMA fighters, but not this wrestler. Eventually, she throws three harder, stiffer punches, and comes to a panting stop. ”What th’ hell was that!?”
Sally shrugs and turns her back to Robb, pacing tight circles as her hands rest on her head. It’s now that we start to see some blood seeping through the tape that’s across her knuckles. It doesn’t seem to be noticed, with our darling wrestlers really only concentrating on getting her breath back. Probably to start the violent assault on the bag again.
” ’ey! I’m talkin’ to y’er missy!” Robb sort of stomps his way alongside Sally then not even remotely gently brings her arms down in front of her. He grabs her hands by the wrist and shows the bloody tape to her. ”What are we goin’ to do with this?”
Sally pulls her hands free and wides her brow. She leaves a red smudge.
”Hit the showers. We’re done.”
Sally doesn’t even argue. She looks angry. Really angry. She shoots a glare at her trainer, then turns to leave. Before she’s out, Robb has one last thing to say.
”You got to get y’erself under control. Yeah a blindside is shi ...”
”Is it? Is that what it is?” Sally shoots back as she walks out the door.
Robb lets out a sigh, then turns to start cleaning up the place. It’s his gym and he’s a tight-ass. He’s not about to start paying some cleaner to do something he’s perfectly capable of doing himself. But, he’s not alone for long.
”That’s it? You’ve not got something no say? No snide comment?” Sally storms back into the room, now ripping the tape off her hands. Not the conventional way, rather tearing it off from the base of the fingers.
”Y’er need to vent. I ain’t goin’ to stop y’er.” Robb shrugs, then starts picking up some of the stuffing that’s come out of the bag.
”That’s it? Sally looks confused, curious in fact.
”Better to be angry now than in the match.” Robb doesn’t even look up. ”Y’er should know that by now.”
Sally watches after Robb, who is now completely oblivious to Sally now. She waits ... and waits ... and gets nothing. She turns slowly, starts to head out again. One last look back at Robb and she leaves for the showers. But not before she slams the door as she goes.
Robb grins.
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To say I was a little angry with Joe Reed’s decision to make me his example would be an understatement of the highest degree. I hated it. I hated it more than anything that’s happened in a long time. I mean, I’ve lost matches, lost titles ... but not lost respect through all of it. At least, not until now. And then Reed comes along and does that? Lays me out with a cheap and ... well, pathetic attack? Where’s the respect there?
There is none, and that’s what infuriated me. I can’t stand that. I mean, who thinks that they’re so much bigger and better than the fundamentals of this business? Apparently Reed thinks he is. Like, there’s an order to things. You don’t just walk in and beat the person down you want to match up with in four, five days time? Or is that just me and my sensibilities? Am I the only person who not only sees the disrespect in that ... but also the stupidity?
Then again, you just have to look at the guy and realise that, well, the IQ minimum for CRW had to be lowered. I mean, he doesn’t even do his own talking. Even Tobias Burden even talks for himself and, well, we all know how good he is at that! And if it’s being left up to this April Hunter ... thing ... to do the talking and the thinking then Reed really has laid all his cards on the table, and three of them are random business cards he pulled out of a lucky dip bowl!
Anyway, suffice to say that buffoon brought a lot of anger to the surface. Maybe it was all about what he did, maybe it was other things as well. Whatever it was, I needed that training session to start getting over it all. It would take two or three more to really get my head into gear, but eventually I got there.
=============== 24/5/13 ===============
”You’re all better then?” Matt takes Sally around the shoulders and leads her over to a waiting car.
”You’ve been talking to Robb then?” Sally looks a little worried that Matt thinks she’s still caught up in a hate-rage-a-thon.
”Robb? What?” He looks confused. ”No, I mean the doctors. They’ve cleared you for the big show?”
Sally looks slightly relieved. Last thing she needed was a pseudo-psychology session with her manager. ”Oh, right. Yes, they called last night. They said to take it easy ... but something tells me Mayhem isn’t going to be an easy night.”
The two climb into the car, Matt first so that he can scoot right over to the far side of the rear seat. When they’re both in and buckled up, they pull away from the curb, leaving the hotel that Sally’s staying in behind. The traffic isn’t bad for New York midday, though that could change at any moment.
” ... Sally? You listening?”
Sally, who was busy staring out the window oh-so longingly, snaps to, smiling at Matt. ”Of course I was. Please, go on.”
”Well, when we get there, there’s a lunch with the writer - what’s-her-name - and the editor-in-chief and some other importants. Then, after that, they’ll show you the cover which you can approve or ... well, reject.” Matt runs his finger down the front page of the clipboard he’s got on his lap. ”Ah yes. After that, then you have one final read of the piece before the whole thing is done.”
Sally nods. She thinks about the whole process: Vanity Fair calling for an interview, then it turning into a piece about going back home and whatnot, and now it’s the cover story. Not that it’s a big-noting thing; the reading circulation in the wrestling world isn’t nearly as big as it might be. But that’s never been something on Sally’s mind through all this; it’s all about the story. Her story.
”I’m sure they’ve done a good job. Kristy seemed like a ...” Sally stops, looks down at the floor. She’s thinking of the right word to use, ”... genuine person. Yes, she was a genuine person. Nice and caring. I’m sure she won’t be too harsh.”
”Well, if she is too harsh,” Matt pulls his iPhone out of his pocket, ”I’ve got the lawyers on speed dial.”
Sally shakes her head at that. Who has a lawyer on speed dial? Not even someone married to a lawyer would have that out of pure shame! Anyway, as time (and the car) passes, they hit the lights.
”Do you think someone had something to do with Reed?” Sally ponders, wonders, thinks aloud.
”Huh?”
”I mean ... how did he just walk in and get permission to do that? Didn’t they want to keep an eye on him when he signed up? Or even when he appeared?”
”Or when he started out to the ring?”
”Or when he was getting into the ring?” Suspicion takes over, a lingering curiosity. ”It’s all a bit strange that this was, well, allowed to happen.”
”Hmmm, yes. Very strange. Do you think Talon had something to do with it? Is he setting you up for something?”
”I don’t know,” Sally trails off, tapping her chin in deep thought, ”I mean, I don’t think I’ve given him a reason or anything. CRW is my life now. It’s all I’m working towards. Making it better, making it grow. Doing my bit, you know? If someone’s set Reed on me because they think ... they think I don’t care enough or something ...”
”I’ll look into it.” Matt taps away on his phone, making a note for himself. ”You’d better be on your toes, if that’s the case then. Who knows what they’ve got in store.”
”What if it was Veritas? Could they have been in on it?”
”They seem pretty set on their members. That said, they need to find someone to replace that oaf Norcia now that he’s left with his tails between his legs.”
Sally smiles, snorts a laugh. Norcia. It’s been how many days since he said he’d beat Sally? She’s sure there’s ticking clock somewhere for the last person who actually has the time and effort for him. But its not Sally, and she couldn’t care less.
”It might be something to look into when we check in at Mayhem. But, until then ... let’s worry about what we should worry about. Preparation. Training is back in the swing and the doctors have signed off ... what else should we be doing?”
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There wasn’t much else that I could be doing, to be honest. The important wheels were in motion already, I just had to go through with them. Training, well, that’s a given. And getting the medical check cleared was fine. Everything else is just a periphery when it comes to preparation. It’s just what happens when training isn’t happening. It’s that simple when you’re a wrestler. You have to focus on the match. On the opponent. On yourself. Between those three things is a win.
Yeah, I’ll admit it: I was thinking about the win this time around. Last week, last match against Terrell, I was all about the match. About respect. About a good, honest match. But I knew I wasn’t getting that from Reed. I knew this wasn’t going to be about respect for him, nor about honesty. For him? It was going to be about sending a message. He was obviously feeling inadequate enough to come and attack me on FaceOff. But surely even he wasn’t ignorant enough to know that any real message - and real substance to him and his start here in CRW - was going to come from a match.
He was going to be thinking about the win. Which meant I had to think about it as well.
But thinking about the win is dangerous. It’s a real, real danger trap that you can fall in. You can get caught up in the ideas of glory and victory. Then you start to cut corners and you start to get lazy and you start to screw it all up. You cut corners the same way Reed cut corners to even get this match. He didn’t want to earn it, he didn’t want to work for it. He just wanted it and took it. He’s caught up the idea of victory and winning and glory. And now ... now he’s at the point where he’s about to screw it all up.
=============== 25/5/13 ===============
”Sally Talfourd, ladies and gentlemen!” Jasmine Locklear - Arizona’s favourite daughter and CRW’s hard-hitting reporter - is dolled up nice an fancy. She’s up on stage, microphone strapped to the ear running down to her mouth.
Onto the stage walks an equally dazzling Sally Talfourd, waving out to the mass of a crowd that’s assembled. We’re here at the Mayhem Fan’s Show, with performance, signings, and all sorts of things. This is the Q&A Panel - some of CRW’s best and most popular coming out for a brief question and answer with the fans. Sally comes over, kisses Jasmine on the cheek and then, with another wave, the two sit down in the chairs right at the centre of the stage.
”Thanks for coming Sally. These fans have been dying to see you,” Jasmine turns to look at the fans, ”Isn’t that right?”
The fans erupt into cheers and applause. Sally blushes with a smile, her head down. All this is embarrassing, even for someone as seasoned as Sally.
”Thank-you, thank-you,” Sally tries to shush them all down with her hands, ”Save it for Mayhem! For my match! I’m going to need it! Have you seen my opponent!?” Sally rolls her eyes, then blows out her cheeks, exaggerating her size with her arms.
Jasmine lets out a chuckle. ”Very funny,” She sits up, starting to look a little serious now, ”Let’s get started shall we?” Sally nods, Jasmine nods, then gets comfy in the seat. ”So this is your second pay per view here at CRW. Excited?”
”I get excited for every match I’m in, Jaz. But when pay per views come around ... I get a little extra excited, you know?” Big grin from Sally, a look out to the fans. ”I mean, there’s even more people watching, even more at stake, and even more action to deliver. How can anyone not be excited?”
Another eruption from the crowd. Safe to say they’re excited for the match. Jasmine nods, ”But this match. Sure it’s exciting. What’s it mean to you? What’s a CRW pay per view match mean to Sally Talfourd at this stage in her career?”
Sally stops to think, slowly nodding with a sort of deep thought process going on. ”Everyone know that a match here ... a match in CRW ... has an atmosphere and a feel unlike a match in any other company. At Mayhem, it’s got all this and even more. Yeah I’ve been in pay per view matches before, I’ve been on Vendetta here too. But right now, here in CRW, on the eve of Mayhem ... I realise how important this match is. How important this show is.”
”What makes this more important? Why is this big, Sally?‘
”It’s big because it’s my next match. Every match is important, and the next one is always the most important. But beyond that. CRW is a new adventure for me. It’s my latest venture out into the wrestling business. And, given the shelf life of wrestlers these days, it may well be my last. So everything I do in CRW is going to get twice the attention, twice the scrutiny, twice the recognition or ridicule.”
Jasmine looks skeptical, ”That’s all? This match is big because it’s part of the final chapter of Sally Talfourd?
”Well, there’s always more. There’s the personal reasons that get caught up in a match, just the same as any other match. I mean, we all saw what Mr. Reed did to me at FaceOff right?” Sally looks out to the fans with earnest, at which point they all boo the whole series of events. ”Yeah, that’s what I think too. Anyway. What he did, it’s just disrespectful. Completely disrespectful. It’s the sort of behaviour that you expect from wrestlers in another company. Not CRW. CRW prides itself on integrity. On respect. On honour. Not on what Reed did.”
”So this match, it’s about getting that respect from Reed?”
”Well, trying to, at least. I know, deep down, that people like Joe Reed don’t respect no one. That they’re the sort of person who just does what they want, when they want it, and whatever they need to do to get it. I can try to get respect from him ... but I’ll doubt I’ll get anything more than a snort, a trumpet, and then a deathly fear of mice.” Sally giggles, picturing it all play out like a circus elephant. ”That said, there is a serious element to this match. I think we all know that too. I’m having to face off against someone who is twice the wrestler I am in just about every measurable facet.”
”I was hoping we would get to this. What’s going through your mind as you head into this match? Are you giving yourself a chance at winning?”
” You would think in these conditions, with this opponent, that a win is going to be hard to come by,” Sally goes from resting back in her seat to leaning forward on the edge, drawing everyone in to her insight, ”But it’s only a fool who forgets how fast and talented the woman standing across from Reed is. They’re a fool if they don’t think she can conjure up the moves and the skills to knock him off his feet. With this woman, anything can happen. You’ve just got to believe in magic.”
Jasmine laughs. ”Well, your handle is the Last Magician. And, by all accounts, you do make magic in the ring ...”
”I try to, I try to,” Sally smiles with a nod. She thinks back to FaceOff with Terrell, then Raab before that. Two matches where she certainly put on the magic. But, before she gets caught up in the nostalgia, her mind races back to the match at hand, and the seriousness that faces her. ” Having said that, there’s no doubt that the battle is going to be fought out in the middle of the ring. In the trenches. It’ll be physical. It’ll be brutal. The collision you’re all about to see will be violent. We wrestlers know how to push ourselves through the barriers of fatigue and pain. The fans will watch, they’ll cringe at the cruelty. But that’s what makes compelling viewing at the end of the day. No one will be able to look away from this match. No one. For Reed, his start is at risk here. For me? My reputation. Neither one of us can retreat right now. We’ve got nothing else to lose, and neither of us is willing to give it up.
“But even with nothing to lose, only one of us can advance. Only one of us can go forward from here. And when we meet in the middle of the ring, when we’re out of those trenches, we’ll both try and do whatever it takes. For Reed, looking at last week, it would seem he’s not the sort of man to take a backwards step. For me? I’m one of those people that keep pushing. Pushing. Pushing. But, like I said, only one of us will advance. Ony one of us will walk out the winner from our match and all the ... well ... accolades that are attached with that. Sure, there’s no titles on the line. But, like I said before: Respect is on the line. Only one of us will be respected when we walk out.”
”I imagine you’re refering to the respect of the fans when you say that, considering you’ve openly stated Reed isn’t the kind of guy who will ever respect you?”
”Oh, yeah. I should qualify that: Only one of us will walk out with the respect that matters. The respect you earn from the fans. The fans who respect good wrestling. Who respect hard work. Who respect the kind of things i do and who loath the kind of things Reed does.” Sally gestures out to the fans, holds her hand out there for a pointed moment. ”They’re the people who matter. They’re the people who want to see two fit-and-proper wrestlers going at it. Not one fit-and-proper wrestler and one recovering from a savage and vicious beat down. Unfortunately, that’s what they’re going to get at Mayhem. But, fortunately, I’m not your average wrestler. I might be recovering from what Reed did to me ... but it’s been the kind of recovery you have when you’ve been sitting on your leg and it goes numb? You just have to walk it off for 30 seconds and then you’re ready to go!”
The crowd are hooting and hollering once again, excited at the prospect of getting a fully fit and fully fighting Sally. Sure she knows she’s got the medical clearance from the doctors, so she knows there’s nothing to worry about. And any of the smarks who’ve been following the rumour mill will have heard the same thing. But the element of surprise that she’s able to even build into this (setting a certain level of expectations that she knows she can beat) is just going to get more and more people drawn into the match.
“Let’s talk about motivation. What’s your motivation for Mayhem?”
”Motivation is the reason why we do the things we do. It’s motivation that affects the nature of our behaviour. The strength of our behaviour. The persistence of our behaviour,” She’s a mixture of concentration and deep thought here, digging into the essence of what it is to be a wrestler, “Its the strength of your motivation that will sustain you through the toughest matches. Tough matches like the one coming my way on Mayhem. I’ve got the motivation to get through a match like this. I’ve got it. I’ve always got it. I know why I’m here, I know why I wrestle. But every time a new opponent steps in the ring with me ... they’ve got to search for the same motivation as me. The same strength and the same perseverance. Sometimes they find it. Often they don’t.”
Jasmine goes to to ask another question, but that’s all we get to hear. The fans wrapped up in the moment, Sally divulging the mind of a wrestling, and Jasmine showing her strengths in the interviewing department. All in all, a successful event for CRW again, and one that would go on for a while more. Bang for buck there.
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That fan day, when I got to sit down and just talk where I was really in my element ... it was fun. It was really fun. I love getting a chance to be with the fans and while I wasn’t in a conversation with them, I really felt like was talking with them. It reminded me how important the fans are, and how important they’ve been to me through my career.
Most will tell you that the fans are the ones who can will you into a win. That their cheers and their roars are enough to inspire an army, much less one woman trying to defeat one man. Then there’s those unfortunate soles who never quite get how important the fans are. They never realise the power that the fans hold. And, through their whole career, they remain ignorant when they should be listening to them.
Joe Reed is someone who is ignorant. Ignorant of many a thing. But the main thing, the undeniable thing that he completely misunderstands is the fans. The fans ... sure, they probably want to see us go toe-to-toe in a match. I mean, there’s all the elements that you need for a good match. You’ve go the big versus the small. The power versus the technical. The slow versus the fast. There’s enough between us that we could put on a great match, Joe. But before you even thought about that ... you didn’t ask the fans how they wanted it.
Do you really think the fans wanted to see you come down to the ring and lay me out at FaceOff? Do you really think the fans wanted you to make an example out of me of what you can do when you have no regard or respect for the people you’re doing it to? Of course they didn’t. They don’t want that. They never want that. They want honest competition. They want competition that they can respect. They want competition that they can remember for a long, long time. What are you setting us up for, Joe? What sort of match are you setting up for? One where you dominate? One where you annihilate? One where you walk out with the easy win?
Be a man and admit that you are: Admit that that’s exactly what you’re trying to do. You don’t want competition. You don’t want a challenge. You don’t want ... respect. You don’t want my respect and you don’t want the fan’s respect. And, you know, you can go through your career without worrying about everyone’s respect. But you can’t go through ignoring the fans completely. You can’t ignore the fact that they want good, honest, and true wrestlers. They want both of us at 100%. They want both of us to be performing at our best. They want both of us kicking ass with everything we’ve got.
You’re trying to deprive the fans of all that, Joe. You’re trying to make this into a spectacle, not a sport. You’re trying to take away the talent and the skill and the revere that wrestling should be priding itself on. You’re the lowest common denominator, Joe. You’re the LCD and you know it. And because of that, you try and drag us all down to your level. You can’t compete at the higher level and ... well ... you want to destroy that. You want to destroy that and any wrestlers who can wrestle at that level. That way, there’s no one to show up your weakness. There’s no one to show how inept you are. There’ no one to show just how ... how ... how average you are. I’m sure you can bring the fight and all. But fighting is, like, half the match. Heck, it’s probably only about one-quarter of the match. Half of everything we do is a mind game.
And, when it comes to that, I’ve got twice as much weapon as you’re coming to this match with.
At the fan’s Q&A, I said that this match is going to be a battle. But it’s never just a physical battle. It’s a battle of bodies and a battle of minds. It’s a battle of training and a battle of skill. It’s hard to convey to a rookie starting out in the business this. Someone this new won’t know what a match like this is going to be like. Heck, most won’t know what to expect until after they’ve been though it. But those who have been there before - people like me who have had to fight a battle like this before where you’re completely out-matched that you’re struggling to plot out a tactic and strategy - will know exactly how this will play out. It will be the law of the jungle: Only the strongest will survive. I’ve seen it enough times to know what to do. Reed has seen it ... zero times.
Reed, you’ve not been in a CRW match. You’ve not been in a CRW pay per view match. You’ve not had to lay all your cards down for this place and, well, see if you’ve got a winning hand. I’m sure you think you’ve got a winning hand here. Either than or you’ve got a pretty good bluff. But, either way, I’m throwing in and I’m calling your bluff. I know how to play this game. I know what cards win and what cards lose in this game. And I know I’ve got the winning cards. I know I’ve got what it takes to win a match like this. You? What do you know about a match like this? What do you know about wrestling someone like me? What do you know about wrestling? Were all about to find out ... and watch you find out. And it couldn’t happen any better than what we’re getting.
The stars have certainly aligned for my match at Mayhem. It’s come down to this: A brute, a beast of a man and a knocked down, but not out, woman looking to even the score. No one - not me, not you Reed, not the fans - could ask for anything better. It’s a match between a rookie and a veteran. A known and an unknown. For one of us, this is the fight for recognition. For the other, it’s a fight for survival. When a match like this comes along, when you have a rookie starting out, it’s a battle for recognition. For acknowledgement. For notice. And when you have a veteran of the ring, it becomes a battle for survival. For relevance. For affirmation. Veterans rarely get their substance tested, but I had mine on FaceOff. Now? Now I’m out to prove that I’m not the person who was so easily laid out.
I need to prove this to remind everyone that my time isn’t passed. That my glory days are right now, not right before now. You know, people often ask me when my time will end. And, honestly, I can’t tell you. The only ones who could tell you are the wrestlers who take to the ring with me. My opponents. They are the ones being tested, not me. I’ve staked my claim. My reputation is renowned. For someone with no reputation, with no career, they are the ones being tested. When I stop being a test, then I guess my time will be up.
But I can promise you this, Joe: I will be testing you at Mayhem. When our match comes and we’re there eye-to-eye, you’ll realise in an instance that what you did at FaceOff was completely the wrong thing to do. You’re going to get exactly what you were trying to prevent from coming into our match: A wrestler ready to take it to you. A wrestler who isn’t afraid of you. A wrestler who can match your strength and brute force with skill and speed and intelligence. You’ll get a quick education about what a wrestler should be like, and you’ll quickly realise you’re nothing like that. You’ll realise that cheap shots are no way of getting to the top; that getting through the hard times requires hard work and dedication. And this is a hard time, even I recognise that. It’s tough and difficult and made no easier when you’re thrown in a match with me.
Joe, the start of your career is tough. It should be tough. But just because things are tough, it doesn’t mean you get to cheat your way through. Anyone who tries that ... karma comes to bite them. Trust me, I’ve been around long enough to know that. The good thing about you, Joe, is that you’re not going to have to wait that long to learn your lesson. A week turn-around for you. Some unfortunate people have to wait months. You only have to wait a handful of days. And then you’ll realise that there’s a right and wrong way to get ahead.
You chose the wrong way. And at Mayhem ... I’ll show you the right way.
