>What I’m going to need everyone to remember, is that I wanted this…
Nobody ever begged me to come to Sin City Wrestling. Nobody wanted me to become one of the best to ever compete in this company. I didn’t have anyone really standing in my corner and forcing me forward down this path. The only person that ever motivated me, was me. The only thing that ever drove me were my goals.
You can’t get too hung up on what everyone wants in this business. That was really hard for me to wrap my head around last time I showed up and shook Sin City to its core. I came back expecting some level of respect. Maybe I thought that I had earned a little more than everybody thought I did. A lot of people said that I didn’t have it anymore, and that my prime fighting days were behind me. Well, the greatest Mixed Tag Team Championship run in the history of the company, another solid win streak for my record, and a second World Heavyweight Championship reign later… I had proved my point.
I didn’t make it very many matches into the year before I realized that my mark had been made. There was nothing left to do. I was back in the same boat that I had been in before taking time off in the years before that. I decided that what I needed was a little bit of time off to recharge the old batteries. Behold though! The same people that had a problem with my sudden reappearance and subsequent takeover of Climax Control for the better part of a year were pissed all over again that I was gone.
Damned if you do. Damned if you don’t.
You know?
...but none of it really mattered. At least not to me. I was honest about what I was coming back to prove from the very beginning. I wanted to prove everyone wrong. I wanted to win the championships of a division that I felt had been made specifically for me and Mikah. I wanted to get back to the top just to prove that I could. Once I checked off all those boxes, the only one left was this match that we may or may not have brewing for High Stakes in just a few short weeks. There was nothing that I could do about that for months though, and the only thing that competing against scrubs every week was going to get me was some unforeseen injury.
I wasn’t going to let that happen.
I wasn’t going to let something like that ruin a match that has been built up for longer than any other match in the history of this company. This has been years in the making. Two of the best are finally going to step in the ring with one another for the first time….
...if it actually happens.
Right now, all of you all at home have as good of a guess as I do. Last time I asked, the only thing I got in response was some half-hearted attempt to make it seem like I wouldn’t show up. If there is anything that I have proven over the record-setting amount of titles that I have won in this company, it’s that I show up, and when I do, I win.
I’ll be showing in Atlanta to do it all over again.
…and I’ve added a few more boxes to that checklist for this time around.
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Tricking The Past Again
Hawaii
13 September 2021
OFF-Camera
Kris hadn’t been sold on going to Hawaii. It had never been part of the plan of coming back. It was just an opportunity that presented itself at first. The two of them had joked about it on a couple of occasions, but this offer had seemed legit. Last he and Mikah were in Sin City together, they had been keeping their distance from one another. Once upon a time though, they had been unstoppable. If his path was leading back to SCW, it only made sense to check up on the one person that he had been flawless alongside in the ring. It wasn’t just that though. The two of them had history, even if it was messy. There was a good chance that he could convince her to help with the professional stuff, but it was really the sliver of a chance at something else. That was what spurred him to jump onto a plane and make the trip, without knowing exactly what to expect. The Miracle had done what he could to occupy his mind and stop himself from dwelling on those thoughts during the flight. Unfortunately, no second rate monster flick was going to be able to totally distract him. The possibilities were the only things on his mind, even when he was walking through the terminal in Hawaii. They were weighing on his mind as he walked out of the security gate to find her sitting on a bench and looking down at her phone.
Kris: “Long time no see…”
He figured that her reaction to such a simple greeting would tell him enough about where they currently stood with one another. When she stands up and adjusts her short shorts before walking over to him with a smile, the worst of his fears ease.
Mikah: "It’s nice to see that you’re not dead. And that the plane didn’t crash into the ocean.”
With a smile, he shrugged his shoulders. It was Mikah-speak for being happy to see him, and he hadn’t expected anything else.
Kris: "You know I'm not going out in a plane crash. It'll be me that kills me eventually…."
He wasn’t going to waste any time dwelling on that thought though, and quickly shifted the focus back to her.
Kris: "Why Hawaii though? It's like a big ass volcano surrounded by the most dangerous ocean things. I feel like this is a death trap. Flying here was basically hell."
As he questioned her, the two made their way out of the airport and to her rental car. Even though she had bought the house and started to settle in, she hadn’t gone as far as actually buying a car. She fumbled for the foreign feeling set of keys as they walked.
Mikah: "Why not Hawaii? No snow here. And I don't get stuck on the mainland with all the people I don't like."
She flashed him a grin before popping the trunk for him to put his things into it.
Mikah: "...I'm just tired of people. And I think living on the beach is going to be my best decision yet."
Kris pulled the bag from his shoulder and tossed it into the trunk without regard for anything in it. He quickly removed his face mask, hat and glasses and tossed them all in on top of it. As soon as they were off he seemed to loosen up a bit.
Kris: "There are perfectly good beaches not surrounded by fire and sea monsters…"
He spun around on his heels, trying to orient himself to his new surroundings. He then pointed off in the opposite direction from the airport behind them.
Kris: "They're just a few thousand miles that way!"
He turned back to her and closed the trunk with a smile on his face.
Kris: "You're lucky we're friends. I wouldn't have come all the way out here for anyone else."
She raised an eyebrow at him, but pressed her lips together and bit her tongue for a moment. He caught the reaction, and felt a tinge of excitement about it. If she reacted that negatively to simply being called a friend, maybe that sliver of hope he had wouldn’t be for nothing.
Mikah: "Florida is too humid and California is overpopulated and still brings up bad memories."
Kris: “You couldn’t pay me enough to set foot in fucking Florida anyways. The whole place sucks. Never had an experience that wasn’t awful.”
She waved it off as they got into the car. She was familiar enough with a few of the islands that she didn’t even bother setting the GPS anymore.
Mikah: "You're worried about a little volcano? And what kind of sea monsters? I'm assuming you mean sharks..."
She asked him as if he was being ridiculous. She raised an eyebrow at him as she started to drive to Kaneohe, Hawaii a mere twenty-five minutes from Honolulu.
Mikah: "...but Cali has them too..."
He shook his head back and forth quickly. He had put a lot of thought into it on the plane, and would likely be thinking about it every time he tried to sleep for months.
Kris: "Nah, the water is deep out here. California is just a coast. This place is just lava rock floating where all the scary stuff lives. You all even have beaches with haunted sand and shit….."
He tried to shake the thoughts away, but had trouble.
Kris: "I've been terrified of this place since I was a kid. You know they have a whole language nobody speaks anymore? How does that happen? Everyone forget? Sounds like bad juju."
She couldn't help but chuckle at him as she drove.
Mikah: "This is amusing to me… but look… I'm sure you know how to swim, Kristopher. It's not like you to go into the water, you know."
He tried to force as much contempt into his facial expression as possible, but could barely keep the smirk off of his face.
Kris: "I'm glad you find my fear funny. You know, I quit SCW once because I didn't like flying over the ocean. This shouldn't be a surprise."
He backtracked off of that point immediately though.
Kris: "Then again… part of that was not wanting to be on a different continent from all the dealers I knew…."
It looked as if he tried to argue the conflicting theories out in his head, but stopped to offer her a little reassurance.
Kris: "Not that I have that problem anymore. I wouldn't have brought those kinds of problems down here to you. Going on like ten months without. Haven't gone a whole year in a long time. Maybe it'll happen."
She knew about his struggle with sobriety and she halfway understood. She couldn't remember what she had told him of her own struggles, but only because it wasn’t a topic that she let come up in conversation.
Mikah: "I'm sure you can make it a year. Only two months more to go, right?"
She thought about adding another little joke in there but she thought better of it.
Mikah: "...and it's paradise. There's a lot of other things to do and places to explore. You won't have time to even think about that stuff."
He looked around as she spoke, taking in the view. She wasn't wrong. Every inch of what they passed was as pretty as it had been sold to him his whole life.
Kris: "Paradise is nice to visit every now and again, but doesn't it get old?"
Almost as soon as the words left his mouth, he knew her answer.
Kris: "Nah, you haven't been here long enough to find out yet I bet. Then again, San Diego is still amazing to me thirty something years later. Maybe this is just where you belong. Bikini weather year round, and all the open air in the world."
As he spoke, he almost seemed to be coming around to it.
Kris: "Still out in the middle of the ocean though… What happens if some big storm hits? Nobody would even know! We could all just be gone. Who would tell the world?"
She laughed again, having gotten used to this over the years. He was always going to stress himself out about things that weren’t going to happen. There was still a weird charm about it though. The smile stayed on her face even after she stopped laughing, but she kept her eyes on the road.
Mikah: "Definitely seems like a problem for Future Mikah."
She turned quickly and winked at Kris as she drove, seeing the smaller town of Kaneohe come into view.
Mikah: "I'm not sure why you're not more open to small town life. Or even island life. If I remember correctly, you liked to be left alone… What could be more alone than this?”
He shrugged his shoulders. For all of its beauty, it didn’t seem a whole lot different from home.
Kris: "This place is just like San Diego for richer people it seems like. Maybe it's not so bad. I mean other than the evil sand thing. Let's not go to those beaches."
She frowned at him, but was ready for yet another wacky theory of his.
Mikah: "Evil sand? I'm not sure I follow you."
She gave him a look, not sure what kind of sand he was talking about. The multi-million dollar house she bought was on the beach and she had instant access to the ocean, but there wasn’t anything that felt evil about it.
Kris: "There's some beach with sand you're not supposed to mess with. Lots of people have stories about smuggling some home and bad things happened until they returned it. It's like black sand. Powdery lava stuff. Bad karma. And this place is apparently full of it."
He paused for just a second.
Kris: "Feels like I mess up everything easily enough on my own. Don't need that kind of help with it…."
He lingered on that thought for a second before something in his head clicked together. He turns to her, almost looking offended.
Kris: "...and it’s not that I like being alone. I don’t. That’s just extra time with me, and that guy is only good in small doses. It’s people that I don't like. At least not real people. Maybe three total that aren't family. Probably less than that within the family. If you're not a nameless, faceless fan screaming in the crowd, I don't care. And even if you are, I'd still rather you not breathe on me. It’s a personal space thing."
It was harsh, but the last year and a half had really drilled that into him.
Kris: "There's only three people in Hawaii I care to talk to and all of them live in one house."
She raised an eyebrow at him as she maneuvers the car through the streets of the smaller town.
Mikah: "Okay, so maybe I should have phrased that better."
She chuckled a little bit as she slowed down even more, seemingly knowing where the speed limit got slower. He didn’t hold it against her though. Not really. No matter where he went it always seemed like there was someone looking over his shoulder, waiting for him to slip up. Being on edge about society in general was just a side effect of that.
Kris: "Don’t worry about it."
It wasn't something that they needed to dwell on. They would have plenty of time for that on this trip. He just got here. It was time to keep things light and happy.
Kris: "...and you've done plenty of good things in your life, and at least one awesome thing."
His eyes widened when he finally saw the house they're headed towards.
Kris: "...who did you have to murder to pay for this?"
She gave him a disappointed look before pressing the button to open the gate to the place.
Mikah: "You really underestimated my financial situation. I've never claimed to not have money."
She winked at him as she drove the car up the long driveway and into the garage. She parked it and turned it off before moving to get out of the vehicle.
Kris: "All I'm saying is, you've been on vacation off and on for like two years. I own a gym and probably couldn't buy half of this house…."
As he exited the car, he looked around dumbfounded by what he saw.
Kris: "Life is unfair sometimes. How do you get more free time than me and nicer stuff? And you got to be better looking!"
She blushed just a little at his words.
Mikah: "I've always had money. I am a trust fund baby and all this money sat in an account since I was in the womb, I guess. And wealthy parents. And all that."
She waved it off as if it wasn't a big deal. She was never worried about money. That is where the two were different though. Mikah never competed just because it paid well, she did it because she loved the sport. Kris was more free-falling his way through life ass-first anyways, and collecting a paycheck for it made things all that much easier.
Mikah: "And I try not to flaunt the money too much. But I just figured you knew. We stayed in top tier hotels when we were sneaking around years ago..."
She laughed, as she led him inside.
Kris: "I thought you were billing Christian for all of that. I always did…"
He chuckled at the thought of the amount of Sin City money he had blown during his times with the company. Sometimes he had made ridiculous requests just to see what he could get away with.
Kris: "Several of the hotel rooms we destroyed in the process of… well… totally got billed to Christian or Mark…. Came as a cost of doing business with me."
They hadn't exactly been sneaky about any of it either. Their affair had been the worst kept secret in SCW history.
Kris: "Still baffles me that they didn't know. Even more that they didn't realize we were going to be the best team they ever had because of everything happening off camera."
She chuckled and shrugged her shoulders at him. She placed her keys up in their spot before leaning against the kitchen counter.
Mikah: "Look. We have plenty of time for all of that. I know you’re going back. I know that at some point you’re going to ask me about doing the same. Let’s just not get into it now. You just got here. We have missed a lot of time. Let’s catch up on that part first, and then we can work out the rest."
She gestured to the house around them, and his attention was pulled to the back windows, and the beautiful view of the beach.
Mikah: "I moved out here to get away from all that for a little bit, so just enjoy this for a day or two first, okay?"
She smiled before pushing herself off of the counter. Kris didn’t need very much convincing to let the subject go either. She was right. They could get to that at some other point in time. For the most part, he was just relieved that she wasn’t shooting the plan down outright. Even better, that meant that there were other parts of their relationship she wanted to hash out. Maybe that sliver of hope shouldn’t have ever been just a sliver. He wasn’t going to get his hopes up that high yet though.
Kris: "You’re right… there’s no way that I’m leaving here for fucking Florida. We have at least another week. What can we fill it with?"
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>We were eight days into the year last time I beat Caleb Storms…
We have come an awful long way to end up in the exact same place, haven’t we, Caleb?
I mean, we were the headliners for the first Climax Control of the year! I was walking into the arena as a dual-champion for the second time in my career. I had dominated the Mixed Tag Division. I had given the world a reprieve from the weird championship obsessions of Jack Washington. I climbed all the way to the very top of this company one win and a time while everyone screamed at me that it couldn’t be done. I proved every single one of those people wrong, and walked into the main event of Climax Control to fight the Internet Champion….
I guess I shouldn’t really say that you are in the same place now that you were then Caleb. That would be selling you unnecessarily short. Right now you are the legitimate Sin City Wrestling Internet Champion. Back then you were just a guy that was handed a championship as a joke. You hadn’t earned anything, and that rubbed me the wrong way at the time. Of course, you lost that match to me, and then dropped that sham title not too long after that. It was probably the best thing that you could have done for yourself. How did it feel to win that championship for real? Twice! Had to be better than when it got handed to you, right? What about now that you’re the only person in this company to have ever held it three times? At this point, you’ve been more successful with that championship than I have ever been. That is a long way to have come from a championship you didn’t deserve.
...so even though you’ve upped your game, Caleb, we find ourselves slipping down the card a little bit this time around. We managed to kick off the year with a hell of a main event last time, but this time we’re hovering around the upper middle. I can’t say that I blame you for it. We’ve been over that. You’ve made things happen for yourself in my absence. I wouldn’t dream of being anything but complimentary about that fact because first and foremost, I’m honest. The reason we are sliding down the card is because nobody really knows what to expect out of me. Am I going to show up as the Kris Ryans that was the face of the company? Is this the Third Coming of The Miracle?
No….
At the same time, am I going to be walking down to the ring with the blind confidence that I had before Bill Barnhart beat me in my first match back last time around?
Absolutely not.
There’s no way that I am going to lose focus like that ever again. I learned my lesson. I may be one of the best to ever come through this company, but that doesn’t mean that everyone on the roster is some kind of cakewalk. Everyone can beat anyone if the time is right. Nothing is guaranteed. That was something that I apparently needed to learn the hard way, and it only took that one match to pull my head out of my ass. I don’t just show up and expect to be great. I put the work in because I know that I’m great already. I don’t have to go out and prove that. I don’t have to walk around reminding people of it. The only thing that I need to do is go out and do exactly what has gotten me to the top of this company on more than one occasion.
...and at this point, there is absolutely nothing miraculous about it. Nobody is surprised when I go out there and win. Nobody is surprised to see that I can still do amazing things in the ring that nobody else is dumb enough to even try. It is just who I am, and what I do. But that’s not exactly chaos that you can put at the top of the card without giving it an eye test first, is it? That’s not the type of person that you would allow to have one of the biggest matches in the history of High Stakes, is it? So no matter who I am, or what I’ve done… I have to come back home. I have to come back to Climax Control. I have to remind Mark and Christian exactly who I am apparently.
So in a way, I’m back to square one. Yet still standing across the ring from Caleb Storms.
The beginning of the next chapter of my career here is going to be written with the exact same words as the start of my 2021.
Kris Ryans defeats Caleb Storms.
Nothing more. Nothing less.
However, it is not because he is unworthy. It is not because he is untalented. He has proven all of those words wrong in the short time that I have been away. He has turned himself into a real contender. He is a champion in this company, and Mark and Christian will always see their champions as the real measuring sticks. They want to see how I stack up against Caleb now that he has some momentum on his side. I’m sure they haven’t forgotten how, last time around, I laid him out with Godspeed and he still somehow found the willpower to kick out and keep a main event crowd glued to the edge of their seats.
That’s the kind of thing that is always going to make people want to see two stars go for a second round. No doubt it would have happened already had I not taken a vacation for half the year.
Maybe they know that no matter the result, this is going to be one of the can’t miss matches on the card just because our styles are so captivating.
Maybe it’s all of the above, or even more.
Personally, it doesn’t matter to me what reason anyone needs to watch it, as long as they are paying attention when my music hits. I’m not coming back to mess around. There are things that I want. A match at High Stakes is just the tip of the iceberg.
...and this match will eventually just get lost in a highlight reel in a few months time.
