“The greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing the world that he didn't exist”
Keyser Soze
“Has it been six years? Has it been that long already?”
It's dark. Nothing can be seen, only a voice. THAT voice. It come from a dream, or maybe a delusion. Something you thought you had forgotten, or tried to convince yourself you did, if only so you could feel better about yourself.
“So much misinformation, but should I really be that surprised... Anyone who truly remembers, who lived it, it gone. Replaced by others, a new generation who spout off what they know like gospel, but all that comes out is fable. It's been a long time since I walked away, and time can be funny.”
“You want to hear the joke of time? I'll gladly tell it. It goes something along the lines of, the more things change, the more they stay the same. Perhaps you've heard that before from your Grandparents or a teacher, someone who had the wisdom of years etched on their face that you passed of as the dotage of old age. Passed their words off as sayings from a by-gone era before anyone knew any better. But I look around me now and what I see is the same. The faces are new, but the words are the same.”
“The youthful warrior tries to brag up his experience. What was it you said warrior? 'Desensitized', yes that's it. That's how you felt about all the tourist sights in Dublin. You just want to hit the gym, hit the ring, then hit the airport to the next one. There's so much of Casey in you. Never willing to stop and look around. Get your head out of the rut you think is a groove and live in the world you inhabit.”
“Then there's the girl. Not the silent one, the other one. So much living, so much bravado. How is it people like you constantly excel here? Little regard for why you're here or what you're doing, you're s wrapped up in your own little world that, left to your own devices you could have a tale all your own and none of us are needed. You think that makes you interesting and important but there are thousands of tales just the same played out on television every day between local times of one and five on hundreds of channels with new twists each and every day. Your title doesn't make your relevant girl, your partner does.”
A flicker. Just a small thing, a little burning light shining for the sake of light. It doesn't illuminate anything beyond the pure white wax candle that it's jumped from.
This little light of mine, I'm gonna let it shine. Let it shine, let it shine, let it shine.
“Now let's stop played pretend with all the kids in the room and get to the real issue. Where, oh where does six years go? The Japanese boy... Is it Japanese? I'm making an assumption, I didn't actually check. That boy said it's been years since I stepped inside an SCW ring, and this is true, but rhetorically he assumed that was my last time inside a wrestling ring. There are other worlds than this. I have crossed them. While the years have piled on to SCW changing it but keeping it the same I journeyed out into the abyss. They say you can loose yourself there you know, that you can stare out and the abyss stares back. I know. I've looked into those cold dead eyes and I've wandered so far away that you must ask yourself if the same man has come back.”
“He didn't. He died somewhere in the cold and dark and inside his body an evil took root that made his shell it's own. He died in the mud and the rain with a shovel under a rock that bares his parents name. The price for this life, paid in full. First his mother when he was still young courtesy of a drunk driver, years later his father paid his price, his heart beat his last beat and he joined his dearly beloved in the white light.”
“What was left behind was a legacy of pain and death. The nomadic grim reaper of despair, which sounds redundant left to stalk the plains, but that's not the whole truth. A fun little fiction to be sure, but melodrama of the galactic scale has never really been my style has it?”
A blinding flash. It's an overload on the eyes really, like going from a small little candle to a bright intentional spotlight. Well it's not a spotlight, but it's still enough. Not enough to drown out his voice though.
“For a while I thought there was a chance to drown in some pit of despair. I did think for a time that darkness and bitterness and hate would absolutely eat me alive. Death by bottle or worse. It wasn't a dark pit though, I hadn't fallen into the depths of hell. It was just a tunnel and somewhere at the end there was a light.”
The light begins to fade, not fade exactly, adjust. From blinding white into a cool white glow, and there he is. It's been YEARS, but there he is. The hair is trimmed shorter and half of his face is obscured by a wrap that proudly brands him as Canadian born.
“There was darkness for a time, but the house of Alexander still stands. Not just stands... THRIVES. Sure there was a time when I thought the worst, but I got a call from a very old family friend and an invitation to England. What should have been the end became a new beginning. For years I had been stuck in a downward spiral that was only going to end one way, or so I thought, but down that dark path I found the light at the end. I found a place and people that reminded me of home and how it felt to be alive and for the first time in years I felt blood pump through my heart again. Not just blood, ELECTRICITY.”
“I had the chance to step in the ring with my father's old friends and foes alike, and I didn't just hang with them, I thrived. I felt the love for this business that fuelled my father for all those years. I went from thinking I was the best and entitled to the best to KNOWING I was the best, and I knew it because I faced the best.”
“There's that saying, iron sharpens iron, and this was my living proof. I faced the best and I excelled because I'm the hardest worker and the most skilled in that ring, in this business and for my time there I remembered that it wasn't just me that needed a good hard kick in the ass.”
“So here I am.”
He stands up. Shirtless, he's not exactly in the worst shape ever. Iron sharpens iron in mind and body, and this body looks like it's the iron that proves it. It's the iron that will bare a new standard.
“Years ago when this company first opened it's doors I wasn't just on the first card, I was the MAIN EVENT, and it's wasn't because I hopped on Twitter or ranted on YouTube about it, it's because I'm the hottest commodity this business has EVER seen. It's about time EVERYONE remembers that fact. Nothing has changed in SCW in the YEARS I've been gone because there's been not one person come through that was hard enough to change it. Not one person had the desire to push it forward. Time after time people have come through SCW promising to be the greatest thing only to burn bright and hot and be forgotten when their flame fizzled, yet here I am. I'm not just AN SCW Original, I'm THE SCW Original.”
“I didn't come back to make good on the years of empty promises I've been made from this company. I didn't come back to give someone the rub or add a little star power to this whole Blast from the Past tournament. I came back to claim the one thing that's eluded me from day one, the SCW Championship. I don’t care who has it, how many times they've had it, how long they've had it, how many people they've beaten or how many shows they've headlined. For YEARS SCW has stayed exactly the same because no one has been able to lift it to new heights. That's not on Christian Underwood or Mark Ward or anyone else that's ever been in a position of authority in SCW, they've all had their people they thought could carry SCW who were a much better fit than me, even though they were wrong time and time again, that's on me.”
“When I first came to SCW it was from a dark place. Not physically, but mentally. It was a broken place that left me bitter and jaded and I let that ruin me. I let it ruin everything I brought to SCW, and though there were flashes, I was never where I should have been. A company carried on a broken back is destined to fail. SCW has been carried on the backs of mediocrity. It's time to change that. It's time to change the landscape from the small and weak, all those who view what we do as an extraneous burden to greater soap opera stardom. It's time to stop letting the weak, the timid, and unskilled lead the way. It's the time of iron. It's the time of proving your the best by being the best. It's the time of change, of growth, time to reclaim our lands for all those who fought and bled. This land isn't for the sheep.”
“Blast from the Past tournament round 1. I have a woman by my side who is supposed to be the best of the best. Prove it. Wolves don't have to call themselves wolves, everyone else knows by the way they conduct themselves. Southern strong style sounds like you drive around in a pick up truck with a Confederate flag on the roof. Be better.”
“Hitamashii, you go around acting like things don't phase you. Smart, but leave room for amazement. Let the world affect you, be a part of it. Experience it and keep experiencing it. Interact with it. Even if your used to it, seek out something new, otherwise you'll grow apart and estranged. Someone who is detached from the world is someone that has no effect on it. You want to be someone who remembered? Do things that YOU remember.”
“Silent girl, speak up. No one will speak up for you, so speak up for yourself. Victims say nothing. Victims are silent and those who would take advantage of the weak take advantage of the silent just as easy. Case in point: yourself, this week when my tag team partner tries to teach me what a wolf she really is and what Southern Strong Style is really supposed to mean when she makes you her victim. Be an active part of the change coming or be a forgotten role player who only stood in a place that could have been occupied by literally anyone.”
“There are so many new faces to become familiar with, new names to figure out what place they hold. For one, I have to figure out just who's at the top of the pecking order now in SCW so I know who to knock off their pedestal first. It's a long journey coming back from six years away. This is just the very first small step.”
Black.
