I don’t think I need to explain why I’m here one more time, not really. The chance to three-peat on the table, the opportunity to go one better than former partner Evie Jordan, clawing back at least a little bit of national pride for my fellow Englishmen too, after a whitewash in the Ashes…and cementing my place in Sin City Wrestling folklore in the process. It’s not enough for me to leave a trace. What’s the point? “Oh Mark Cross, yeah he was alright, good wrestler, pretty annoying” is absolutely not enough for me. I’m at the precipice of something that’s never been done before. It’s no mean feat of course, but that's why nobody’s ever done it before. It’s supposed to be fucking hard. I’ve stood at the top of the mountain for two of Sin City’s brands, I’ve held my prize aloft. Scaling steep and slippery slopes is thirsty work for sure, but I’ve done it time and time again, and I’ve packed plenty of Gatorade
I’m building a legacy. The next four matches are the next four blocks in the wall. Is anyone brave enough to bet against me? Really?
Part 1 - The Missing Piece
Miami, FL
I’d had a taste of it before, but never like this.
It’s hard to put into words the profound impact a single individual can have on your life. On a planet containing some 7.7 billion people…in a lifetime where I’d encountered quite literally thousands of them in one way shape or form, each one having varying levels of impact on it, for varying lengths of time…from the barista that made me a double espresso that saved the day when sleep deprivation was hitting hard, never entering my mind again as I moved to the next city…to my coach and my mentor, who I still speak to every day, and whose sage advice has formed me into the man I am in this business…yet each one pales in comparison because now, sitting top of the tree…
Well…then there was her.
I always thought it was a little creepy to just sit and watch someone sleep, honestly. I feel like I’d be able to sense those eyes burning into me, ya know, even while I was busy counting sheep. I wouldn’t want to subject anyone to that level of paranoia, at least up until now, when it felt too important. I never really understood it up until now, because with how my mind works…
“She’s so cute…I can’t believe she’s mine…she looks so peaceful when she sleeps…man, I should be doing something productive right now though…I need to watch the next episode of Snowpiercer…hey I could really go for a snack…what city am I meant to be in tomorrow? I've gotta go do something else, this is really kinda boring…”
Oh by the way - My mind’s a jumbled mess - Don’t read too much into it, but the thought of just watching someone while they did not-a-whole-lotta…or having them in my arms for hours on end while they did not-a-whole-lotta…almost felt like a waste of time somehow. I didn’t get the value of just…time together, however it came. Quality time I get, while we’re both awake, sure…that felt like a very worthwhile investment, but what changed things for me?
Her name was Dylan.
It started so…innocuous for lack of a better word, as these things happen to do…and just as dramatically as when I knocked her coffee out of our hand, our lives became interwoven in ways neither of us ever could have predicted. I offered to buy her a replacement, she wasn’t super angry at me for it, and as we went to find somewhere to sit and drink our new beverages, we got to talking. About teeny vampire novels, I think it was, as we idly whittled away some time chatting. The cold winter air got too much, and we retreated to the safety of a bar.
From something so modest came something so rare, and so real, and so life changing. Have you ever met someone who just gets ‘you’ so perfectly? Your quirks and theirs are the same, you have the same taste in books, in music, in movies…none of this pre-planned, just through conversation, discovering more about each other…and realising that your soul and theirs connect, as if chiselled from the same piece of marble. By no means perfect, each one unique, each vein working off in their own separate directions and if you looked at them as two entirely independent pieces, you might not see the likeness.
It’s only when you put them together that the parts become the whole, and everything makes a little more sense.
The fact of it is, we don’t have to be one and the same. We have our differences and you know what we have our conflicts too. I am far from perfect, I have my own shortcomings, and I’m not about to go and try and make you believe otherwise. It takes a lot for another human being to say “I still adore you even if you make me mad” and that kind of affection is only reserved for the very select few. We are flawed, but we adore those imperfections. We make mistakes, but we put them right. We have our dreams, we watch them come true for each other. We have our chequered pasts, so we jump two-footed into our futures.
It was in that bar, where Dylan told me her truth, opened up about her past, what little of it she remembers anyway. It was her…not so much a defence mechanism…more of a shit-test for lack of a better phrase. It was the story that made most run for the hills before they got remotely close enough to hurt her somewhere down the road.
“I’m an amnesiac. I was found two years ago, washed ashore with a stab wound in my side. I don’t remember anything beyond that. Since then I’ve been trying to piece together my past, but I’ve never gotten very far”
She looked at me, expecting me to make my excuses, to get up and leave, walk out of her life as quickly as I entered it.
“Well in that case…maybe it’s time to start focusing on your future.”
With that, Dylan became my travel buddy, and started to accompany me to shows. En route, we’d stop off at as many landmarks and tourist attractions as we could. On our first night at my home in Miami, ready for an appearance in Tampa…we started talking about what intimacies we missed from a relationship, the kind of conversation you only got onto after a few too many glasses of wine, I figured. As she said fingers through her hair, and someone to cuddle up to at night…that’s exactly where we ended up. She didn’t say ‘a good fucking’ and that made me appreciate her even more. Tangled up in each other, her draped in one of my old t-shirts, my face buried in her endless flowing locks of chestnut brown hair, and we became more than just platonic.
Dylan is nothing like me, like Masque, like Bill. Sometimes she calls herself two years old and that perspective is SO refreshing to me. Imagine surrounding yourself with someone who doesn’t have twenty plus years of life’s bullshit weighing them down. Imagine seeing the sights, scents and sounds of a city I’ve been in more times than I’d care to count, through such a fresh, untainted pair of eyes. Some fifteen years ago, I chose Florida to be my home. I chose Florida again because I hadn’t chosen to be home in a long time. For once, a wizened old nomad like me grew sick of the road.
One short month, and exploration became more exciting than it had EVER been, and I’ve always loved an adventure.
I’d been in love before, but not like this. Love unrelenting. Love unabated. Love without judgement. Love without compromise. I have the cheat code to life, because when things get tough, all I have to do is hear her voice and all is right as rain. So I guess you might ask, if I have something so perfect waiting for me outside of the ring, why am I still wrestling? Where’s the draw to keep plugging away with something that’s hard work, something that’s a risk to my health, something that could decrease my quality of life for whatever years I have left, if things go wrong?
Freedom.
For the first time, I’m finally unleashed. I wasn’t always like this. Loud shirts and even louder personality, something that developed over time, as my skin got thicker, my confidence got higher, and those typical adult problems that blight most human beings faded away to nothingness. The teenage version of me was timid, shy, low on self-confidence, could barely even look people in the eye when I spoke to them. I spent my life faking-it-until-I-could-make it. With every match, with every win, but…
…with Dylan in my corner? I feel untouchable, invincible, indomitable. I don’t fear injury because nothing can get close enough to the cloud I float on. My adoration for her has me floating sky high. I walk taller, I feel taller, I’ve gained a literal inch in height since she came into my life, riddle me that, since nerds. How is that even possible? I feel younger, fitter, faster, stronger, lighter on my feet, more agile. I drink less coffee but I have more energy, and I get a full 8 hours sleep, as long as I have that girl wrapped in my arms every night. Which I do.
Dylan…the missing piece to my puzzle…the reason I can finally let loose. The reason I am more deadly. More dangerous. More better.
You saw what I did before. Twice. The last thing you need is me plus one.
It’s often frowned upon when you belittle someone else’s achievements in this business, and it’s poor form to trash a man or woman you’ve never faced in the ring. At least…that’s what I’ve told…although plenty will fly in the face of that all the same. I’ve seen it. I’ve been on the end of it, and I’ve never been one to stick to what I’m ‘supposed’ to do. As long as the wrestling business settles it’s scores in a ring? What I do outside of it is of very little consequence to anyone else.
Actions speak louder than words, after all.
Bill Barnhart has fallen to my sword at every time of asking. His Roulette championship proves nothing more than he’s the best-of-the-rest, wishing he could hang out in the VIP club. Everyone finds their level in the end. Sometimes that means accepting your place as the biggest fish in the smallest pond.
Blast from the Past is the great leveller. The bosses are too smart to send the likes of me after Bill’s budget title. Some matchups are nothing more than shooting fish in a barrel.
Part 2 - Standing at The Gates of Hell
I didn’t mind a change of scenery. After all…life on the road? Doing something you love day in, day out…I’m not going to say it’s ‘hard’ by any stretch…but it sure comes with a few challenges, and finding ways to stay in shape is definitely one of them. I’ve trained in worse settings, the sorry excuse for a hotel gym, the stairwell of the tallest of high-rise buildings I can find. Oh, and I’ve even resorted to chin-ups off the edge of a cruise-ship balcony for my first Summer XXXtreme appearance…sometimes you have to make do.
Plus, with the chance to link up with my partner, and to work out in her facility? It felt important to get some face-time in. I can’t say I’ve always had the best of relationships with my partners. Evie was very hot-and-cold. Only now, two years later, have we found a balance of equal respect that we both seem to enjoy. Ruby? Came across as a petulant child after our victory, I had little time for her after that. Extra advantage? Well…HellsGate was not only as well-equipped as I had back in Miami, aside from the Florida heat of course, it had a few extra tricks up its sleeve.
The benefits of cross-training were ingrained in me from very early on in my career. After all, some of my football routines still carried some stock in my new line of work, I still use a few of the footwork drills today. The MMA setup in particular piqued my interest, and anyone who came through this place, with the right guidance and the right motivation, had everything they could possibly need to come out well-rounded.
What are we doing, guests take the lead?
Kitty Kat Jones seemed to tolerate me, somehow. She took the matching shirts deal in good spirits, she welcomed me to her gym, to her home, and Chris was pleasant enough, even if I was a little too ‘extra’ for his liking, or so I could tell. We’d gotten some good work in, and with the nod, it was time for me to take centre stage.
I tend to kick these things off by addressing the elephant in the room. Better to rip the band-aid off nice and early, right? I may have made some bold claims. I may have become the first in Sin City history to win two consecutive Blast from the Pasts, and I was hungry for more. I wasn’t satisfied with just going on to win my first World Heavyweight title…I wanted to swing for the fences, I wanted it all, the first to join the #400club and throw my name in the hat for GOAT status…
…to fall at the first time of asking. Pretty embarrassing, huh?
Or at least, that’s the narrative that’s been spun. I've watched from afar, seen the comments and honestly I’ve let it slide because I have to accept…it wasn’t part of the plan. I had wounds to lick. I had a drawing board to return to, and for the first time in a decade or more as a Florida resident, I was really starting to miss the place, truly. Aside from dispatching multi-time champion Agostino Romano in short order…as if to provide further proof that if it doesn’t have ‘World’ in the name it’s not an achievement that particularly concerns me, I enjoyed a very different kind of time in the sun.
So why bring it up now?
Well - Every once in a while, in a combat sport like ours? Matches transition into all-out-wars, battles where both competitors put everything they possibly can into that contest. Some of us have been dropped on our heads too many times. Some of us are just downright fucking crazy honestly, but believe it or not a lot of wrestlers who run long in this business have a certain air of self-preservation about us and sometimes? It’s a smart decision to stay down and live to fight another day.
Sometimes, it’s too important.
I had to take The Bar three times before I went down…and we know for a fact I handed out more than a few receipts of my own. Close fall after big manoeuvre after close fall until it took a hell of a beating and 200% more than any normal human needed before I finally stopped getting up, and not by choice.
Matches like that come maybe what…four, five times in a career as long as mine, or Mac’s? Matches like that change guys. Often it’s short-lived but sometimes they just don’t come back the same, it’s like the beginning of the end for them, the fight melts away. Punch drunk, anyone? I wasn’t surprised to see an out-of-sorts Mac Bane ship the title to Alex Jones…because when someone brings your best performance in what, 6 or 7 years out of you, it’s hard to replicate anything close to that again right out of the gate.
I don’t begrudge Mac a victory for going to that hard with me. The World championship is supposed to be the zenith. Two opponents at the top of their game, bringing their absolute best, leaving it all out there. That is what this business is all about…
…although that isn’t what always happens. Float around long enough and you’ll get your real time in the sun. The incoming champion expends so much energy capturing their title, that it slips out of their grasp at the first time of asking, Mac. Worthy contenders abandon their rematch clause that NEVER FUCKING EXISTS IN THE CONTRACT PEOPLE, Mark, and go back to warmer climbs. Someone has to challenge, someone has to defend. Belt doesn’t go on the line? It loses all credibility. The bosses look around for capable volunteers…and find none…they just go for the willing, throwing them in as fodder for the paper champion who can’t believe their luck.
One more easy week.
Long title reigns include a whole lot of filler. The beans and pulses that pack out a meal. The bubble wrap protecting your latest impulse buy. They play their role, keep you fed, keep your shit safe, but a mere cliff note when it comes to a title reign, an also-ran who’s meagre challenge is very rarely talked about, unless it’s a show of how not to do it…
The kind of times when a Bill Barnhart gets opportunities to step up, probably in some champion vs champion bullshit that sounds great on a poster. I remember the first time I faced Bill. I think it was one of my first matches pulling double duty for Sin City Wrestling and for Underground. A ‘stern test’ for the man from the ‘budget brand’ against a ‘highly experienced practitioner’ or whatever similar words got thrown out in the write-up. I don’t think anyone was really surprised about the result… just another victim to throw on the pile…and at the second time of asking? We see the same all over again.
Never have I met someone so completely unchanged. You’re not different, Bill. You’re just the same as you always were. You’re the same parrot, regurgitating facts with no point, no conclusion. It’s like you’re reading a Mercedes Vargas Primer segment from a teleprompter like some Ron Burgundy motherfucker, but you don’t further the discussion, just throw it out there and hope someone else draws their own conclusions. It matches your wrestling, there’s no cutting edge. Nothing to make me give the slightest flying fuck about you. I don’t need to scam you, I can legitimately beat you, straight up. Some dogs are too old to learn new tricks. Some are just…too…limited.
The great thing about wrestling…or not so great, if you’re on the wrong side of it, is that our glass ceiling works a little differently here. Wrestling isn’t a more traditional example. Our ceilings are largely skill-based, and it has to be, because of where and how we throw down. A certain level of experience earns you respect. Time in the industry gives you authority. A title run or two gives you credibility and you think you are something, think you mean something, look up at the same old names riding the revolving door for their World title shots and you know what? You might even believe that’s where you belong too. You wait for Blast from the Past to roll around to finally get the opportunity to put yourself in the shop window because for some reason, even after all of your efforts the top brass continue to overlook you for the big time.
Let me give you a lesson.
They keep you under the ceiling for your own protection. Give your prized pedigree house cat a ball of yarn to play with so they don’t get tempted to venture out of their own yard, only to get royally FUCKED UP by the first grizzled street cat it runs into. You, Bill Barnhart are the prized pedigree cat. You’re coddled and babied like one. You’re fed your opponents cut up into little pieces so you don’t choke…all smooshed up with a fork for good measure. You may look like you’ve seen it and done it all but you’ve got all the fight of someone who’s never worked a day in their damn life, you know that right? You’re like an endangered species, because mangement can’t handle the lawsuit for animal cruelty.
You’re not World Champion material pal, so you’re not Blast from the Past material either. Andrea couldn’t carry you. Masque can’t carry you and heaven fucking FORBID the blood bath that would ensue if she did. You wanna take The Bar three times Bill? Is that really what you want for yourself because if it happens to you? It’ll be proving a point, that you never should have been in there in the first place. A warning to never come back.
You are NOT on the right level to match up with me. You know it. I know it. The history books know it. Your partner knows it, and so does mine. In the best teams, both parties take their turns in doing the heavy lifting, and I’m perfectly happy for Kat to leave this one down to me and you. I’m sure she won’t complain about Masque over-stretching, hanging in there longer than she should to keep me off your ass? Either/or, you two play right into my hands.
This result will not be decided by you pinning my shoulders, 1-2-3. That I promise you, and the only person who could come to your rescue? Well…they can’t touch me, can they?
Your partner is in a bit of a tough spot, so let’s talk about her. I’ve been thinking a lot more about star signs lately, for reasons I won’t go into right now. I realise at times, just how fitting mine is for me. A Capricorn will hang onto your every word, just to see if your words match up to your actions. I’ve spent a whole decade or more in this business waiting for opponents to pony up, put some weight behind what spills out of their mouth. Guaranteed if you’re matched against me, I will watch what you say, and analyse what you do harder than any opponent you will ever come across. It’s written in the stars. Most every win on my record has come off the back of someone talking a good game, and producing none of it.
Then - We have Masque, an entirely different animal, and certainly no Godzilla I’ve ever seen.
The Rapture? Religion huh, a Bible story and a piece of tracing paper? Good one. All I’m hearing right now is the next militant GARBAGE disguised as an uprising. It’s that one friend who, in the middle of a conversation about the Russia/Ukraine situation is screaming I’M A VEGAN at the top of their lungs, like we’re supposed to give any kind of fuck. Viva la revolution, huh? How about viva shutting the fuck up with that for a minute and let’s get ourselves back to the real world.
Sin City Wrestling after all, is no stranger to ‘changing of the guard’ affairs. It’s why GRIME is still here, and still not taking over. The fact of it is, it takes more than a scary bitch in a mask and a few loyal-ish subjects to change the status quo. GRIME is full of it’s own idealists. It’s fuelled with investment. It has all the platform it needs to make it’s play and crush Sin City Wrestling and Underground with the might of one single blow…in theory…if what they tell us is true…but several years later, what have they achieved? Interfered in a few of my title defences, and made a little noise.
Valiant crusades like yours? When it all boils down to it, the worst that happens is we all resort back to the playground mentality. We go off and play in our own sandboxes with our own little clique of brothers and sisters from other misters.
“Go on Masque, off you fuck. You and Amber go and play over there and rip arms off of your own dolls all you want. We’re going to play trains over here where it’s a little less…freaky.”
You actually make Bill’s tirades at sucky security companies and Target gift card scammers look some way coherent. At least what he talks about is real life. You’re validating your partner by leading us on merry dance after merry dance, you realise that? I lose track of what point you’re trying to make well before you get to the punchline, if you even get there at all to be honest. I’m so lost trying to paint all these mental pictures you’re describing me I may as well just squirt it all over my fucking canvas and call it art.
Let me get to MY point, because luckily, this is still a substance-over-style business. It plays out under bright lights, it doesn’t hide in the shadows, and your whole facade, dear Masque? That’s exactly what you are, one big smoke and mirrors act that unfortunately…Kat and I? We’re not going to fall for it. Take a look around where we are…take a good look. Weights, cardio, a ring, blood sweat and tears…long hours, hard yards. The work we put in here is real. The work we put in here delivers clear, proven, quantifiable results.
How do you measure the success of The Rapture, Masque? All the sinners left to fend for themselves? Well…if you’re the kind I’d have to hang out with at that VIP party, behind that velvet rope in the sky? I’m gonna stay right down here with the infidels, thank you.
I measure the success of The Kat and the Dragon in wins and losses. Introducing your 2021 BLAST FROM THE PAST CHAMPIONS. Four victories. Four counts of 1-2-3. Four wrestling matches.
That’s all it boils down to.
I don’t understand what you’re TRYING to do, other than re-enacting a Nick Cage flick. I really don’t. I don’t think you could explain it to me by fueling me up on coffee and showing me a 20 minute Powerpoint presentation to be honest. My goals are simpler.
Win Blast from the Past…and you know what the past tells us all? I don’t have to try, because this is WHAT. I. DO.
I have a lot to prove once again. Every time around there’s a little more expectation, a few more eyes on me, a bigger target on my back. Three entries, three consecutive wins…a chance to achieve something that’s never been done before. The fact of it is, consistency is key. Anyone can score a one-and-done victory. This is two partners, eight opponents, delivering week in, week out over a two month period. You can’t fluke a tournament like this, and you can’t drag and carry a weakness all the way.
My training, my preparation, my mentality…they’re all top level. Nothing has changed from victory one, and victory two. It’s nothing more than rinse, repeat, win it all over again.
In Blast from the Past…nothing is assured…but this is genuinely mine to lose.
RINSE. REPEAT. WIN AGAIN.
Hey partner - You’re up! By the way…that team shirt looks GREAT on you! High five for the soon-to-be-three-time-winner, huh?
(We’ll talk about her leaving me hanging later. If you haven’t caught up with my partner’s incredible promo yet - Now is the perfect time, as this is where she cuts in!)
Certain people have a way of making my skin crawl. You just get that…feeling…you know? While I go home after a long day I climb into my PJs, put my feet up, and binge the latest thing on Netflix. Some other crazy cats are legitimately hanging upside down by their feet in some abandoned warehouse or whatever, calling it a home comfort.
Masque's association with Amber Ryan makes sense in a lot of ways...and if mine and Amber's demons didn't recognise each other the way they did well...I feel like her presence might have my arm hairs prickling all the same.
I wouldn't want to meet either of them in a dark alley…
...but this is no dark alley. This is a wrestling ring, with rules, and guidelines, and I have trained to play that game with surgical precision.
I work in plain English. There is no ambiguity, no doubt about what my message is.
Metaphors have their place of course. Imagery can be powerful. It can warm your heart, it can move you to tears, it can paint pictures oh-so-vividly in all of our minds, as long as it’s used sparingly. This is the most ‘aesthetically pleasing’ I’ve been in years and it’s not necessary. If previous results are anything to go by, the direct approach is plenty effective enough.
We’re wrestlers…and we have a wrestling fan base to appeal to. We kick and punch and throw each other around for a living. People pay money to watch us knock lumps out of each other. This is about as low-brow as it comes. Simpler messages are better, keep it on a level we can all understand.
Masque is too ambiguous for her own good. So tied up in wordiness that the impact of her message is lost. The potency of her poison is diluted. I can’t pay her the creedence she thinks she deserves…because I can’t pick apart what’s real or fake.
Unhinged, dangerous, but definitely not unbeatable.
If The Rapture comes, I’ll be drinking bourbon with the sinners. Signed…one of the left behind.
It's over now
(Are you running away?)
I come apart
(As I lie in your way)
It's in my blood
(Let the sky fall down)
I won't let go
(My oblivion)
