I feel like I'm stuck in a bit of a time loop at the moment. It was only Climax Control 350, a big show in itself, that Miles Kasey and myself last shared a ring against each other and it was one on one again. Here we are now at Blaze of Glory XI and we're doing it all over again. I won't lie, I don't know why we're doing this again, there was no ill will towards each other, the guy showed that he has been improving constantly over the last months, so to me, we shouldn't be going at each other again.
I'm not sure why this is happening at all.
I've already gone the London Vs Manchester route, so this is stifling to have the same opponent two matches on the bounce. Yeah, two months passed but I haven't been exactly active, but in two months or so, same opponent, there's still a whole lot of creative block.
As I just mentioned there, two months and not being in the ring as much has helped me with other business adventures. It's allowed me to invest a little more time, money and effort not only in to the casino, but in to surrounding businesses too. Let's just say it helps with keeping money clean.
It's not a case of I go out there, look for stuff for sale, sometimes people approach me with some very strange things and that happened just last week. It's something I'm gonna tell you about while I get ready for my match against Miles Kasey, such a different style of opponent from my last opponent.... Well, maybe not.
Anyway, so about a week ago, there was a little birdie out there talking, trying to get a meeting with me and it's not so easy to just call my secretary and we put you in at two thirty on Tuesday. Names have to be checked, histories, affiliations with, well, let's just say government officials. This is Vegas after all, nothing is ever what it seems. Charley and Kenz looked in to the fella who approached us and he seemed very clean, so I has a little meeting with him a couple of days ago.
It doesn't really take away the focus I have against you Miles, I'll still be showing up to do what I need to do, results won't change, but business is business after all. - DM
Two days ago.
Daniel Morgan sat alone in his business office, in The Golden Ring Casino, not his personal office with meeting tables, sofa, private bar, just the run of the mill small office with no bells or whistles, just a normal everyday thing. People thought he was a little crazy for having two business offices in the same place, but he had his reasons. Not many people got to see the real inner workings of his businesses, the one he sat in was just for show. It was humble in it's an appearance, just a desk, with a computer on, various papers and pens and a coffee mug. It didn't scream casino owner, but it served it's purpose of distraction from the real operations.
He waited patiently as he sipped from the coffee mug, before a knock on the door diverted his attention.
"Come in." Daniel shouts out.
The door opens and Mackenzie walks in, leading in a man in his middle to late fifties, his grey hair long down the sides but balding on top.
"This is Mr Albert." She tells Daniel.
"Call me Phil." The man interjects as he puts his hand out for the rising Daniel to shake.
"Good too meet ya." Daniel says with a firm handshake.
Daniel turns his attention to Kenz and nods towards her. She turns and leaves the room as Daniel points to the chair opposite his desk. Daniel sits back in to his chair as Phil does the same.
"I've heard you've been very vocal about meeting up with me today about talking business." Daniel says from across the desk.
"I have." Phil replied
"As you can probably work out, I'm a busy man." Daniel told him with a slight nod.
"I know." Phil quickly says. "Running a casino and being a wrestler must take up a lot of your time, but I feel this is a great chance for all of us."
"Oh..." Daniel said and trailed off. "Then I'm all ears."
Phil clears his throat and looks across at Daniel.
"I own a few tanning salons in Las Vegas." He told Daniel. "A few low end ones and what I need is to level them up."
"I should stop you there." Daniel said with a raised hand. "I hate the term level up. It's a load of old bollocks. It's just a buzz word combo that makes people think they're getting more then they are when realistically, they're getting the same at most and less in other ways. We don't live in a computer game, there are no real levels to life, just stages."
Phil looked surprised by Daniel's words, but Daniel smiles as he knew this was just a trick of his to see how composed someone was by throwing them off their guard.
"But go on, continue." Daniel told him.
"I ummmm." Phil said flustered, his once confident demeanour now fading. "So, I need upgrades. There's bigger companies coming in and taking over and I need business partners to help me out, to become one of the best. We could even have one in the Casino."
"People don't come to a casino to get an all over tan and walk out looking like they've rolled in Doritos, Phil" Daniel said to the man. "They come to a casino to drink, to lose some money, to try and score a one nighter. They really don't come here to leave orange."
"But my other locations..." Phil stuttered out.
"So we're in Vegas Phil." Daniel reminded him. "It's hot here a bloody lot, if people want a tan, they can go sit outside in the sun."
"But that's the thing Mr Morgan, they don't." Phil said with a smile creeping back on his face. "They spend the nights in the casinos and the days recovering if they're tourists, but the locals live their lives as normal. They get up, they go to work, they do the school run, they don't have time to get a natural sun tan and the women here trying to score a rich guy from the casino floors have to look their best."
Phil gave Daniel a wink.
"So you're asking me to invest for the locals in a place that has more tourists then locals?" Daniel asked bluntly.
"I just need something to be better then the new competition." He told Daniel, his tone becoming a little more defeated.
"So you want me to pile money in to get deluxe tanning and that stuff, for what?" Daniel asked.
"For half the business." The reply came back.
Daniel leaned back in his chair, trying to think of any benefit to owning a place to offer fake tans in a climate such as Las Vegas. He could understand these places back home in England where the cold and rain through the winter months take away from a tan, and the weird obsession women seemed to have about getting a fake tan before going off on vacation - yes, this is a real thing - but Vegas? The thing playing in Daniel's mind was he was a businessman and believed if he couldn't turn around any business, then he could at least use it as a front for laundering money, or using it to store certain things.
"I need to get someone to look at the places you have, and then we'll talk money." Daniel told him.
No matter where Daniel has been in life, he's always wanted to help the local businesses. In a way it was like playing Monopoly, the more you own, the more chance someone is gonna land on your place and give you money.
"And it's a big if..." Daniel said with a tone of authority "that I do invest, there's a few things that need to be made clear. My group will be the only investors, no one else, working with too many people means too many chiefs and not enough Indians, so if you plan on getting rid of that other half of the business, it comes to us for first refusal. Also, a couple of spray machines and tanning beds are not gonna cut it. Needs to be an experience."
Phil looked confused by this comment.
"What do you mean?" He asked.
"Think bigger." Daniel told him. "Instead of just tanning beds, think spa, think beauty, think all that stuff. With my money, it's possible to do."
Phil looks surprised by Daniel's comments, not knowing there was already a plan formulating in his mind.
"I'll send someone around for the books and to have a look around, get some value for the place." Daniel told him. "And we'll go from there."
Phil looked delighted as Daniel pointed to do the door. Phil stood up and quickly shook Daniel's hand.
"Thank you so much." He said with a happy tone in his voice.
"No promises." Daniel reminded him.
With that, Phil made his way to the door and out of it. Just seconds later, Mackenzie reenters the room.
"I think you're fucking mad." She told Daniel. "I looked in to this guy, and he owns a few shitty tanning salons around town."
"I know." Daniel told her. "But of course, I have a plan. We upgrade them, put our name on it. We offer people in the Casino special offers to go there, and more importantly, we wash money through there. If we make it more spa then shitty tanning salons, a lot of money rolls through. We sell it to the wives and the bit on the sides to the high rollers to send them off there for the day while the rich people spend."
"You're mad." Mackenzie told him.
"Trust me." Daniel replied "We can make it work, or at least use it to our advantage. He stunk of desperation when he walked in the door and we're gonna get that for a lot less then he asks us for."
Mackenzie rolled her eyes before leaving the room.
"As Del Boy says." Daniel said to himself. "He who dares, wins."
And with that, the camera fades.
"Let's go round again." Daniel's voice can be heard saying.
The camera fades in to the real office of Daniel Morgan as he sits at the head of his meeting table.
"Familiar setting, familiar match." Daniel says with a tilted head. "A shoe horned on to the card match when frankly, both Miles and I could have gone on and done better things then to give you all a replay of what's been said and done, but some things are just out of our control a little bit and when you signed up to wrestle, you take on everyone put in front of you and Miles seems to be my road block again."
Daniel shrugs.
"You know one of the definition of insanity, right?" Daniel asks rhetorically. "It's to basically do something the same and expecting different results. I guess this means that I am nowhere near the levels of insane as most expect. This is the same old thing and yeah, Miles has got slightly better as a wrestler, but I haven't got any worse, which pretty much means the results will be the same as it was on Climax Control 350 when I walked out of there with a win. That bit doesn't change at all, cause the same is about to happen here too."
Daniel puts up his finger.
"But something did change after that match Miles." Daniel says as he waves his finger. "My respect levels for you."
Daniel pauses for a second.
"Respect is a big thing in my life." Daniel says as he looks down the camera. "You can have all the good looks, you can have all the fancy things, all the money in the world, but none of that means a single thing if people don't respect you. If people don't have the common decency and respect for you as a person, then you're nothing. If people do not respect what you leave to this world, what you show the world while you're still breathing in it, well you have nothing at all. I guess this means you are something Miles, because I do respect you."
Daniel looks deep in to the camera.
"Before our match, you was just the good solid hand that could work with anyone and help them look great." Daniel says. "But after that match, I saw you was much, much more then that. I saw potential in you that made me sit there and think that there's still so much more to come from you, more then most people see in you and given the chance, you could be something special. I actually respect the fact that you take the knocks and you keep coming back, I respect the fact that in the time between us facing each other, you've become more real, more true, more motivated to be bigger and better. That mate, is worth respecting."
Daniel looks serious.
"But there's a fine line between giving more respect then needed and the right amount, especially in our game." Daniel says with a slight sigh. "In our game, giving too much respect leads to complacency, leads to you being happy for your opponent if you lose and it throws you off your game, it leads you away from what your end goal is, it takes you away from your targets. I don't let myself become complacent, it's not part of my nature to let myself become that guy who is complacent, so you will be getting respect from me when I step in that ring with you Miles, but not enough to give you any kind of advantage."
Daniel shakes his head and smiles.
"You earned my respect but it doesn't change what I can do in that ring, what I am more then capable of doing Miles." Daniel says with a serious look on his face. "I know what I'm capable of and I know I'm stagnant, the same Daniel J Morgan that returned, and with this new and improved Miles, I see this as a chance, an opportunity to open a few eyes around here, to show people what I can be all about, to show people that I have what it takes to beat some of the best. Now your star is rising Miles and that makes you a trophy these days. Any win over you is an eye opening one these days, that's how quickly you've rose up in a lot of people's opinions."
Daniel leans back in the chair.
"And that's what I want for people to sit there and take me more seriously." Daniel says, pressing his fingers together. "I need to either piss or get off the pot as we like to say back home, and with the eyes of the world on me at one of SCW's biggest shows of the year, it's time to make my mark against one hell of a solid fella opposite me. I see opportunity in everything Miles and I see it in this match, and I'm gonna take it."
He leans forward again.
"You're a different kettle of fish these days Miles." Daniel says with respect. "but nothing changes when we step in to that ring. Us ripping it up again, nothing changes, the fact that you're much more active then I am, again, still, nothing changes, because I'm going for back to back wins against you and I'm gonna get that. I seem to always get what I want and come Sunday, I get what I want again."
Daniel pauses for a few seconds.
"It's absolutely nothing personal against you." Daniel admits. "You know I'm a businessman, and this is nothing but business. I'm paid to do something, then I'm gonna do something. In this case, I'm being paid to beat you, and that is what's gonna happen, it's all just business Miles, nothing more, nothing less."
He runs his hand under his chin.
"You'll bounce back, I have zero doubt about that." Daniel says with a reassuring nod. "You'll get to the top at some point so take this one as a learning experience, because there is a hell of a lot to learn getting in the ring with a guy with my training and instincts. That's the best way you can look at it because I'm in a teaching mood and you have a lesson to learn."
Daniel smiles.
"That lesson?" He starts. "Lightning will strike twice, this is not a revenge or vengeance story because not everyone gets that vengeance, not everyone can be redeemed and get the happy ending that they want. Not everyone can rise above and look like the hero. This is not your hero arc, this is not where you get that winning feeling because this is about me getting two on the spin. Don't worry, it happens and at some point, you will rise again, but Sunday will not be your night to do that."
Daniel shakes his head.
"But don't worry, as usual, beers on me afterwards." Daniel says with a slight nod. "I will see you on Sunday Miles, the match won't be great for ya, but the after party just might be."
Daniel takes a deep breath.
"That's just facts." Daniel says with a smile. "And I only deal in facts."
And with that, the camera fades to black.
