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Roleplay Boards => Archived Roleplays => Climax Control Archives => Topic started by: Julianna DiMaria on September 06, 2024, 11:47:06 PM
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Let’s take it back to when I first arrived in Sin City Wrestling.
I can’t believe it was five years ago already.
I recall my first five opponents in the company: Twisted Sister.
Obviously nothing to brag about but I got my feet wet there.
Mercedes Vargas. Hall of Fame member.
I was a bit harsh on her when I did my promo for that match, I will be the first to admit that. I drew a couple of comments about arrogance, but nothing over the top.
Bobbie Dahl. I questioned if she was mentally strong enough if I remember right and she took that very personally. Perhaps that’s when the whispers about my attitude started?
Bella Madison. Now, her? That was a special time because that was my first High Stakes. I came out of that with a win.
Alicia Lukas, then-SCW Bombshells World Champion…
Fuck… that’s NOT something that I want to remember…
But if I am to confront my past to learn from it and build a better future for myself, then I don’t have any other choice. I remember being nervous going into that match with her, which happened to be in my own home state by the way. I didn’t even want my family to support me or my father to give me advice because I wanted to prove that I could do it on my own.
Ultimately? It backfired and I ended up doing with the first adversity I had ever faced in SCW…
Late 2020
To tap out in my own home state against the SCW Bombshells World Champion in Alicia Lukas was absolutely gut wrenching for me. I won’t deny it. Back in the locker room, I was in plenty of pain and plenty of tears. I was feeling like a big letdown in my heart and the fact that I pushed my family away made it even worse. My insecurities were really coming out in my brain… things like…
“You’ll never break the ceiling…”
“OCW was right about you…”
“Those four wins you had already don’t mean anything anymore…”
And of course, I was picturing my estranged bother Rodrigo saying those things to me. I was questioning everything at that point and while I was definitely bordering on meltdown, it was nothing compared to what I would suffer through across the board six months after this. I opened my phone and saw a bunch of support text messages. I sighed because I knew that they would be sympathy and being as stubborn as I was at the time, I didn’t want to hear it. But there it was… all of it…
“You’ll be okay…” Chelsea LeClair texted me “...I’ve seen you bounce back from worse than this.”
“I know it hurts…” my brother Eduardo added. “I wish I could be there with you to pull you through this. I understand where you’re coming from, but keeping us up here in Sedona ended up being a bad idea. Call me when you can.”
“This is why you don’t push us away…” my father added. “I’m not saying that you would’ve won if you were right there with you, but we’d be there for you in person helping you through this because I already know this is a very painful loss for you. You did NOT prove OCW right. Don’t think that…”
“Too late…” I said with a sigh.
As the tears flowed down my face, I could hear some other Bombshells… though since it was so long ago, I couldn’t tell you exactly who they were at this point… celebrating my defeat and saying that hopefully Alicia Lukas had taught me a lesson. I was so confused hearing them all discuss how I was growing an ego over my now ended undefeated streak and how I was a bitch that didn’t know anything about what it takes to be an SCW bombshell and all of these other things. While I was able to stop myself from sobbing, I could only sit there numb as the tears flowed harder. I knew deep down that I didn’t like Alicia Lukas at that point and I hated her grandiose ego of the time.
But I also knew that if I stayed silent, she was going to call me out for it and I wasn’t going to have that. Anger was starting to fill me the more I could hear the others celebrate my defeat.
“I have to be strong…” I told myself. “I can’t let anyone see me like this nor can I allow anyone to know I was ever feeling this way. I have to let everyone know that I’m okay, that I’ll recover, that I’ll learn from this and that this isn’t going to destroy me. I know that I can be a main event contender and a world champion anywhere I wrestle. I understand that there is still work to be done, but I can do this. I can silence my critics. This hurts now, but this isn’t going to stop me. I’ve got to show my family that I’m going to be okay and that I will pull through this stronger….”
I took a deep breath as I went on my phone and I opened up Twitter. I clicked the button to write a Tweet and I was mentally struggling with how I was going to show my strength.
“What do I say?” I asked myself. “This won’t define me? No that’s a bit rough around the edges. How about… ‘This isn’t going to stop me from realizing a dream’... no, that’s too cliche and I think if I were to tweet something like that now, I’d be accused of downplaying my loss. Okay… “This is a delay of the inevitable……”
I paused and I thought about it briefly.
“That says ‘I’ll be a world champion one day and Alicia didn’t get tome’. You know what? Let’s roll with that…”
And with that, I tweeted the ONE thing that REALLY began to turn the locker room against me even though I had no idea that’s the reaction I would get.
It wasn’t until the next day when I realized I made a huge mistake…
Next Day…
“What the actual FUCK, Andrea?” my father told me when I answered his phone call the next day. “Why would you tweet that?”
“Tweet what?” I asked out of confusion.
“Delay of the inevitable…”
“What is wrong with that? I was just saying that Alicia only slowed me down, but she didn’t stop me in my tracks.”
“You realized she quote tweeted you calling you out for not being humble, right? I literally just read a story on one of the dirt sheets where anonymous Bombshells are spilling the beans and saying that you’re difficult to work with, that you’re unbearable, that you act like you’re better than everyone and that you have no friends, have made no effort to make friends and that the way you treated your first loss rubbed everyone the wrong way…”
“...what?” I asked with an exasperated gasp. “They… feel that way over one innocent tweet? I didn’t mean anything by it, Dad…”
“Andrea, princess…” my father said with a sigh. “You can’t expect people to treat you the same way from one wrestling company to the next. You can’t expect people to understand you when you’re the new girl on the block that is still getting her feet wet. I’ve seen what you’ve had to say regarding your opponents and such and I can see why the locker room wouldn’t like you…”
“But… you have to understand I wasn’t TRYING to come off the way they thought I was….”
“I DO understand. I get that the message that you were trying to get across was that you weren’t going to allow Alicia to get to you, break you and define you. I understand that you don’t like her arrogance or how she carries herself and you didn’t want to be seen as just another one of her victims. But those words? That DOES come off like a sore loser.”
“What would YOU have said, Dad?” I asked, clearly being confused at this point.
“I would’ve said something along the lines of how unfortunate it was to lose a match that could’ve gone either way, but that learning and growing was going to come from it. It conveys the message you clearly wanted to convey, but it gives Alicia credit and it acknowledges you have room to grow.”
Once more I sighed.
“Daddy, am I ever going to get it right? Am I ever going to be a world champion? Am I ever going to silence all the naysayers… including the growing ones in SCW apparently?”
“That first question is the only one you should be worrying about because right now? You’ve got to right the ship. You’ve done great so far and I know you’ll bounce back. You just need to choose your words more carefully, okay?”
“I understand…” I said, with our goodbyes following shortly after that. I accessed the Internet on my phone and I was left in a numb state of shock seeing the articles my father was talking about. Obviously, this was the first instance when I began to doubt myself in Sin City Wrestling…
September 5: Edmonton International Airport
Chelsea LeClair and I were in the terminal as we were awaiting my flight to Sweden. I had just wrestled the night before in a successful Festivus World Championship defense and security was surrounding us to protect us from a group of fans that were standing nearby. We were just talking about what my first taste of SCW adversity and how it truly begun my downward spiral toward what I would sadly evolve into the longer I stayed there the first time around.
“What if I never tweeted that, Chels?” I asked her. “What if I was just smart enough to word it differently, or to just wait until the next morning to gather my thoughts or if I didn’t let Alicia’s ego bother me to the point where I was more focused on shutting her up than winning that match? I could’ve saved myself so much of the heartache to come and I have to be honest, I regret making that stupid tweet to this day.”
“Andrea…” Chelsea says as she wraps an arm around me. “It’s been nearly five years since that tweet. I get why it would haunt you. But didn’t Myra just tell you about not worrying about the past?”
“She advised me to face the past to build my future and I’ve thought long and hard about the mistakes I made in the early part of my first run in SCW and LONG before my father died, or I ever ran into Evie or I ever assaulted Crystal and everything that followed after that, I made ONE stupid tweet that turned a locker room against me and I wish I knew why they took it that badly.”
“That’s a pretty fair question. But, as you know by now, you shouldn’t worry about what other people think about you. You are who you are. Sure, you’re blunt and honest and sometimes you’re a little TOO direct. Some people aren’t going to appreciate you for that. That’s how it is. Quit beating yourself up over one tweet from five years ago. I have an idea and you’re not going to like it…”
“What idea?”
“Something to open your eyes a little bit. Hey security, you can let this small group through. They seem harmless.”
The guard shrugs as some fans are allowed in our vicinity, some of whom can’t contain their excitement. There’s some chatter about how they’re happy to meet us and I couldn’t help but smile at this… until Chelsea revealed something mad…
“We’re going to reenact that experience, okay? Time to brush up on my old actress stuff…”
“Oh God…” I said with a sigh.
“You’ll be… you. I’ll be Alicia and we’ll do a hypothetical locker room chatter BEFORE and AFTER the match…”
“Yeah… okay…” I reluctantly said. “FINE! I guess we have to keep the small group of fans here entertained.”
“Alright…” Chelsea clears her throat. “You think you can beat me, Andrea? You newbie little bitch! You’ve got a few wins under your belt but none of them were against ME! I am the most dominant champion of all time and I am going to beat your ass and make you my victim just like all the others.”
This angered me the way it would have in 2019…
“I’m NOT your fucking whipping bitch! I’m NOT a message to send to other people. I swear, Alicia… you REALLY need a humbling. I’m going to shock the world and I am going to prove to EVERYONE that I am going to break the ceiling. I’m not afraid of you! I’m NOT your other opponents! I’ll shove those words right down your throat, prove you wrong and shove your pathetic attitude right up your ass!”
The group of fans watching our reenactment gives out a small cheer for this.
“What was the outcome of that match, Andrea?” Chelsea asked me. I bit my lower lip a bit, still feeling the shame of it all just slightly. I closed my eyes for a moment, took a deep breath and addressed the small group of fans watching.
“For those that don’t remember, I submitted to Alicia in my own home state and suffered my first SCW loss and I took it very hard…”
“And here’s what you were PROBABLY imagining in that pretty little head of yours…” Chelsea says as she dips back into character. “I TOLD YOU! Bitch, I just handed you your first loss! I just proved that everything prior to SCW doesn’t mean SHIT! I just proved that you’re just like everyone else that I’ve beaten! You ended up being just another victim! You’re a fucking idiot thinking that you were going to beat me! Let that be a message to EVERYONE that dares to challenge ME”
Even though it was a reenactment, I was still taking it to heart largely because it was reopening an old wound that was very hard to heal then and not much easier to heel from now.
“What do you have to say for yourself, ANDREA?” Chelsea asks me in the best Southern drawl she can muster up to try and be as Alicia as she can be.
I sighed.
“Say THAT line…” Chelsea whispered to me. I looked at the fans that were rooting for me.
“Just a delay of the inevitable…” I said as the fans were dumbfounded. I could hear murmurs and even one fan asking “What?”
“To the fans…” Chelsea began. “What do you think of what Andrea just said?”
“Horrible…” one fan said. “Why would I root for someone who just acted entitled to main event stardom instead of accepting her defeat and dedicating herself to learning from it?”
“It really sounded like someone who feels like… I don’t know… it was so off putting. It’s like saying that Alicia isn’t shit.”
“That’s the worst way to react to a loss. It’s like saying ‘I lost, who cares? I got nothing else to learn. I’m winning a world title anyway’...”
My heart sank hearing this from the fans.
“Thank you Chelsea… now I understand and to those of you that remember me tweeting that and being disappointed in me, I am very, deeply sorry for behaving that way. I haven’t lost in my comeback yet, but when it happens, I’ll be far better. It would be a rough setback, but something that I wouldn’t allow to destroy me and something that will help me learn and grow to be stronger in the future. My first loss means someone was just better than me and there’s no shame in that.”
“MUCH BETTER…” a fan said as the whole contingent clapped.
“Who wants autographs?” Chelsea asked and we were swarmed a bit by an adoring public.
Needless to say, I felt MUCH better being to learn from such a terrible mistake and putting to motion a plan to continue to grow from it…
September 6
I was feeling confident as I stood in the streets of Old Town Stockholm. The camera was on me and I thought back to my next adventure in my second run in SCW. I knew I found myself in a VERY familiar situation: starting hot out of the gate and a winner of my first four matches.
But it wasn’t Alicia I was facing, it was Alexandra Calaway.
I took a deep breath before I spoke my mind…
“It’s time for me to acknowledge an epiphany that I had recently. When I was in Sin City Wrestling the first time around, my biggest mistake was caring far too much about what everyone thought of me and that caused me so much heartache and self-destruction eventually. I came in here the first time around wanting to impress people and wanting people to like and admire me for my journey and all it did was push the locker room away even before I became the most hated bitch in the locker room. In fact, my first loss ever here, to Alicia? I focused more on shutting her up than winning the match. When I lost to Evie Jordan multiple times? I was focused more on silencing her fairy tale talk, then just shutting her up in general and proving her wrong and it only made the situation worse. Looking back at how I handled adversity and the talk of other people then, I admit I was fucking horrible at it and it cost me multiple times in many ways and not just in the ring. Now? I feel like in this fifth match since my return, I am facing someone that I feel is making the same mistake that I did the first time I was here and Alexandra Calway, I want to preface this by saying that it’s nothing personal. I don’t know you aside from what I’ve seen in archive footage whether it’s your matches our your pre-match hype pieces. I don’t hate you. I don’t have a reason to hate you. You’re my opponent across the ring from me this Sunday and in fact, we can even relate.
You’ve recently had your struggles with the mixed tag division with multiple losses to Kayla and Finn. I’m not mocking you for that. In fact, I even empathize. Four years ago, I dealt with a woman that I kept constantly losing to and it broke the shit out of me. I HATED people mocking me for it so there’s no way I am going to treat anyone else like that. I acknowledge what you’ve done being a two time Bombshells Roulette Champion and all of that. However, the biggest difference between you and I and the reason why I am going to win on Sunday is simply the fact that while we BOTH have had our fair share of weaknesses with caring too much about what other people think of us, I’M the one that has been learning to turn it on its head and learning that the shit other people say about me doesn’t mean a damn thing. You? I don’t know. I studied your words prior to your recent foray into trying to win the tag team championships and I can tell you straight up that the reason why you and Miles lost, in my personal opinion? I think you gave too much of a damn about what Kayla thought about you, the way she presents herself and hell, you might have let the losses from before bother you too much. I read that blog too by the way.
Towards the end of that blog, you’re writing about how you’re addressing your doubters and you’re encouraging them to keep doubting and talking about how you’re going to prove them wrong.”
I paused and shook my head, but also let out a sympathetic sigh.
“That’s what I’m talking about right there. I understand that wrestling psychology is a bitch to master and I’m not going to stand here and say that I’ve done that, but you shouldn’t give the doubters ANY focus! Just mentioning them at ALL shows that you’re worrying too much about them and that maybe the priorities in your mind when it came to that tag match weren’t exactly in order. When you address the doubters and you talk about how you’re going to prove them wrong, what you’re doing there is giving your opponents rent free space to live in. What was more important to you, Alexandra? Was it beating Kayla and Finn? Or was it doing everything that it would take for you to shut them up and prove them wrong? Because if the focus was the latter, the honest to god truth is, you already lost that match before the bell rang because what you did there was give your opponents too much power before the match even started. As a veteran of the game, Alexandria, you’ve got to have a little more self-awareness than that and sadly, while you’re definitely one of the better Bombshells on the roster with room to grow, it’s that sad, unfortunate lack of self-awareness that is holding you back from the next level and this isn’t just me speaking out of my ass. I speak from experience in this company with my first run here being before you stepped into this company for the first time. I won the SCW Bombshells World Championship and I was STILL on a ‘silencing doubters and proving them wrong’ kick and the honest to fucking God truth is, that downward spiral I went into in the summer of 2020?
That was all my fault. I obviously couldn’t control my father getting a heart attack and dying. But I gave Evie Jordan that same fuel before she beat me for that title. I wasn’t focused on beating her, I was focusing on shutting her up and proving her wrong and when I focused on that? I’ll be brutally honest…
I HANDED HER that fucking championship… and knowing what I know now that I didn’t then, I’ll be the first to admit I still regret it to this day that I did that…
Hearing your words going into that tag team match, the first thing that came out of your mouth was about how people see you as a joke that is dragging down your partner and coming from a seasoned, accomplished veteran like you, that absolutely hurts to hear you say that because holy shit, haven’t you proven throughout your career, in and out of SCW, that you’re NOT a joke and that there’s no way you’re someone that is dragging down your partner? Why in god’s name are you so fucked on that? Two Roulette Championships are nothing to sneeze at. I get that you wanted to be tag team champions and I get that perhaps you want to be a world champion someday, but instead of being positive and focusing on what you’re capable of, what you and Miles are capable of as a team… you chose to be negative and come right out of the gates worrying about whether or not people see you as a joke. I GET that Kayla’s a bitch that runs her mouth and someone that WILL exaggerate a thing or to even to the SLIGHTEST to get in someone’s head and sadly, you played right into her hands when you worried so much about being seen as a joke.
To me? You’re NOT a joke.
You’re tough competition that I am going to have to overcome to continue to build my way back up the ladder in this company. But, I can’t convince you to see yourself that way because ultimately, I can’t help you there. You’re the only one that can help yourself and you’re the only one that can define you. You’re the only one that can take back the power from your critics and say that you don’t have a damn thing to prove to them because the truth is? Outcomes in previous matches be damned, you don’t have to prove shit to Kayla and Finn. In fact, you never did. In that ring, you don’t answer to me and you don’t have to prove shit to me. How you see this match and what kind of mindset you go into this with is ultimately going to determine your fate. I’ll tell you this much right now, if you go into this match thinking that I am your enemy and that I am going to treat you the way that most of your opponents seem to then you’re going to make a win this Sunday against me that much harder because at the end of the day, Alexandra, how you perceive yourself… fuck everone else… is how you win in this business, how you grow in this business, how you get to the top, how you stay at the top, how you grow to be one of the best of your generation. If you give even an iota of attention to any negativity, you’re never going to get to your fullest potential.
If you perceive yourself as someone that ALWAYS has to prove people wrong, you’re just holding yourself back and that’s not just me saying it nor is it an opinion that I am pulling out of my ass. That’s an honest to God life lesson that I think anyone and everyone can stand to learn at some point in their lives because holy shit, it’s SO not worth it to be bogging yourself down in your brain and beating yourself up over what someone else thinks about you. It’s SO not worth the mental anguish to feel like you proved someone’s empty words right just because you lost a match that you wanted so bad. Again, I am speaking from my own experiences. You went into that tag title match angry toward Kayla, bitter even. You seemed like you were angry that Kayla wasn’t seeing you as a threat. You’re even mocking her for calling you a loser and I shook my head at the fact that you brought it up to make a sarcastic point when the better thing to do is to rise above that. The fact that you even acknowledged that at one time, you would’ve let it go and risen above it only to decide in the end to just focus on the wrong thing in the end just makes it all the more frustrating, in all honesty. You kept beating on the point of how other people in the industry say the same thing about you and how it’s nothing new…
Well if it’s nothing new, why are you SO WORRIED about how others perceive you? Again, I’m not saying these things to put you down because that’s the last thing I want to do to you. I am saying these things because I think all of us, from time to time, need to step back and breathe a bit and not get so caught up in the moment of worrying about perception from other people. I’ve been in your shoes in this company with that and if there’s anyone that totally gets it, it’s me. I’m not going to hold back from that. All I know is that if you find your way psychologically into this match and focus more on having a banger of a match with a worthy opponent on this coming episode of Climax Control, then you will absolutely be at your best and you will give me perhaps the toughest fight I’ve had since my return regardless of the outcome… I am telling you that right now and I absolutely mean it in every sense of what I just said. I HOPE, for the betterment of our match and especially for your psychological well being knowing the unfortunate consequences of what can happen if you don’t keep that in check, that you come into this match, this week, with a far brighter attitude than you had last week when all you could focus on was the mean things that Finn and Kayla said about you.
Because otherwise?
If you choose to wear yourself down and hyperfixate on whatever I have to say about you or what anyone else has to say about you?
You’re only just anchoring yourself when a wrestler of your caliber who has done the things that she has done deserves a hell of a lot better than that.
If you come into our match on Sunday angry at the world for whatever reason, and if your focus is on punishing me for the sins of others or trying to use me as a message to the locker room or trying to use me as a ‘fuck you’ to your haters in and out of SCW…
You’re not only going to lose this match on Sunday… but you’re going to dig yourself into a deeper hole and that’s the LAST thing I want for you.
Still… knowing my journey… knowing my mistakes… learning from my mistakes? Knowing that you, unfortunately, have this tendency to worry too much about what other people think about you and knowing that’s a great weakness?
I know that’s THE difference…
THE reason why I’m taking this on Sunday.
No hard feelings afterward… I hope…"
I sighed, sympathizing with her plight a little more and knowing how it feels to have the mindset that she does. Shortly after, I shut the camera off focusing on the next chapter of the journey ahead…