Well, here we are!
Headed out on the ocean, and headed for history.
I know, you never imagined this. I certainly didn’t. But here we are anyway.
And look, just like I said, I didn’t walk out on Kayla, and she didn’t walk out on me. We won. We were the winners. So, I must thank my captain yet again for carrying me to a huge victory in a tag match that will soon be forgotten aside from a footnote of what my 4th official match was before I won the Bombshell’s title in my 5th.
I have spoken of change, I have spoken of revolution and evolution because it needs to happen here. The champion, Kayla Richards is the prime example of the rut we’re in. She’s our Bombshell’s champion, I would hope she defeated a lesser, and well past-her-prime Mercedes Vargas, and she did. But… the only reason that this is the true main event, is that I am in it, as I said.
I’m sure Kayla is happy someone else is doing the heavy lifting since she’s incapable of it, but that’s just going to be one of many things she thanks for in the end after I am champion. She might not see it now, but she’ll learn to appreciate it.
I know I had to have the same thing happen.
There’s a lot you learn from the chains of love.
Let us begin a new chapter.
You’ll learn a lot.
Trust me.
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I almost hate to admit this, but Charlie is one of the reasons I’m even in the wrestling business.
I can blame him for a lot of things, but yes, my journey into pro wrestling started with him. If it wasn’t for him, I don’t know if my journey would have led me to re-discover pro wrestling. He has lived rent free in my head for so long, that when that option became available, I immediately thought of him. For better or for worse, he has always been there, just not consistently.
Charlie never really had any interest in anything I did as a child. So long as I didn’t get in trouble at school, so long as I didn’t get arrested for stealing or some kind of crime, Charlie couldn’t have cared less about my life or hobbies or interests. So long as they weren’t illegal, I was free to do as I pleased. My mother really was the one who tried to teach me things, Charlie just… provided material things I suppose. He got me everything I ever really needed that was material. I got Barbie’s and a big wheel, and a bike, and all the things I asked for. But once I got them, I was left to my own devices as to how to make any of it work.
Charlie didn’t really “teach” me to ride a bike. I got on, and he would shout one word instructions to me.
I remember getting on, after he took my training wheels off, and finding the petals and holding onto the handlebars. We were in the driveway and he pointed towards the backyard.
“Pedal.” He said.
So, I pedalled back to the backyard. There was a small downward slope in our yard, and suddenly, I was going faster than anticipated. Without the training wheels to guide me, I felt like I was going out of control.
“TURN!” he shouted.
Without the wheels, I was scared that I would dip down, fall over and crash. So I slammed on the brakes. I skidded to a halt, and looked back up. Charlie was shaking his head in disappointment. I realized I had to learn to do this, to get over my fear of crashing. So what if I crashed? All I had to do was turn.
Finally, after a few tries, I turned and, low and behold, I did not fall over. My weight counterbalanced the dip of the bike to an extent. All I had to do was turn. I just had to figure out how.
Charlie was correct, despite not actually explaining anything.
That was probably the most parenting he ever really gave me, until one day.
One day, when I was 14, Charlie began to take interest in me. I was so weirded out by it. After years of “yeah” and “that’s great” delivered so sarcastically every single time, to have him suddenly interested in me and my studies was jarring. I never imagined that he would ever want to do anything with me, much less be in my life. He gave me no advice or wisdom, he just let me do things on my own. Maybe it’s because he was taking care of my mother, but I don’t know for sure what exactly sparked this interest.
Just one day, I had to stay after school and do a science project my freshman year, and he needed to pick me up. This happened regularly, but normally we went straight home. But on this day, we didn’t take the route I had become accustomed to.
“Where are we going?” I asked, looking out the window to an unfamiliar part of town for me.
“Mickey’s” Was all he said.
Again, Charlie just acted like I knew things when I did not. I had no idea who or what “Mickey’s” was, but I also knew it probably didn’t have anything to do with the mouse.
And sure enough, we pulled up to a bar. I had no idea why my dad was taking me to a bar when I was not old enough to drink, or drive for that matter. But he walked in, and it was like he became a completely different person.
“Hey Mickey!” He shouted at the man behind the bar. Mickey turned and had a huge grin on his face.
“Hey, Charlie! How are ya?!”
Mickey made his way down the bar and shook Charlie’s hand. Charlie then turned to me, and motioned to Mickey.
“Mickey, this is Franchesca, my daughter. Franchesca, this is Mr. Altieri”
“How are ya, kiddo?” Mickey asked, his voice pretty gentle and jovial.
“Fine.” I responded.
“Good to meet ya, and… you can call me Mickey.”
“Nice to meet you.”
Mickey turned to Charlie and patted him on the shoulder.
“The usual, Charlie?”
“You got it.”
We walked to the bar, sitting on the old stools. For one of the first times since I was a small child, Charlie looked at me with seemingly care in his eyes.
“You want something to eat? Drink? He asked.
I was shocked by this behavior.
“I’m not old enough to drink.” I replied.
“I know that. I meant like a coke or something.” He said, rolling his eyes.
“Oh… yeah, I guess.” I said with a shrug.
“Mickey, give me a coke and uh…a plate of nachos.”
“You got it, Charlie.”
Charlie smiled at me, and then it disappeared.
“You like nachos, right?” He asked, genuinely not knowing.
“Yeah, it’s fine dad.” I said in response.
We got the nachos, I got my coke and Charlie got his beer. Several of them in fact. And when the booze hit, he was far more friendly then I had ever seen. He was the life of the party. He somehow knew everyone that came into the bar and introduced me to so many people I lost count. I just ate my nachos while Charlie socialized.
I had never seen this side of him before. Charlie was doing this whole thing and it felt so fake. It had to be the booze doing this. But there he was. Smiling, laughing and joking. He seemed pretty happy. I don’t remember the last time Charlie smiled at anything that wasn’t a comedy movie or show on TV.
Mickey came over with another plate of nachos for me, smiling gently.
“Your dad’s a good guy.” He said.
I turned and looked at him.
“What the hell are you on, man?”
“You can’t be talking about my dad.”
“My dad is certainly NOT a good person.”
Those responses were the first to pop into my head. Mickey clearly only knew the Charlie that walked into this bar.
“Yeah.” I said.
There was a pause as he slid the nachos towards me, when another man walked in and sat down next to me. To be fair, it was the only seat at the bar, and Charlie was occupied.
“Hey Earl.” Mickey said to the man.
“Mick.” he responded, and flashed two fingers at Mickey.
“Double Whiskey sour, Mick.”
“You got it.”
Mickey turned, but saw that Earl turned to me and didn’t know what to make of me right away. I don’t know if he felt a certain way, but Earl was clearly interested.
“Who’s this?” He asked nobody in particular.
“That’s Franchesca. That’s Charlie’s daughter.” Mickey said, his eyes not really leaving our area.
Earl smiled and extended his hand to me.
“I’m Earl. I work for your dad sometimes.” He said, waiting for me to shake his hand.
I certainly didn’t want to, but I did.
“Cool.” I said. Hoping for this conversation to end there, but it did not.
Earl spoke to me for nearly an hour. I tried not to pay attention to him, but he just kept talking. Even when Charlie came over to where we were, it was simply to get more beer. He saw no problem with this, and Mickey was… at least watching over me, and feeding me nachos without charging Charlie.
Finally, Charlie returned and slapped Earl playfully on the back and shared a couple laughs with him. It felt like forever, but we finally we’re going home. Charlie wasn’t drunk, but he for sure was feeling good. He drove us home and never really said anything about why we went there or why I had to go, but we did it and… that was that.
This became a regular thing for me, at 14 to take trips to the bar with Charlie and eat nachos while he drank. Soon enough, I was the hit of the bar, with Mickey always being very kind to me and said hello, and I slowly, with no other option, opened up socially. Little did I know, but I was being taught life lessons in the bar.
Charlie would socialize, and Earl would always find a way to talk to me, no matter what. But what I learned early on is that Earl was a long-distance truck driver. So really, Earl just wanted someone to listen to him talk. Someone to talk to him, because he was all alone, almost all the time. He needed companionship and for a couple of years there, I was it. Charlie only said a few things to Earl, and they were mostly work related. Earl talked to me about his drives, the long roads, his wife and their marital issues, his eating habits, everything he thought was interesting. And all I really had to do was act interested.
I slowly turned it into hustling Earl into giving me money every now and again. He bought me earrings. He bought me clothes. All for my attention, and occasionally a hug or some sweet talking to his bad flirting. It was a small price to pay. Earl never really tried to touch me, but he did rub my back a lot. Charlie didn’t seem to care, and he never really asked what I did at Mickey’s or question where the gifts came from. He was too shit-faced to really care anyway, as many times I would end up driving him home. Thankfully, Eddie had taught me to drive by then, but it wasn’t an issue.
Still the bonding we were doing was still strange to me.
One day when I happened to be walking by the living room. I was 13 years old and Charlie was sitting at the television watching wrestling. And all of a sudden, I was transfixed. Two grown men in clothes were beating the heck out of each other, slamming themselves through tables, barbed wire and the like. I believed that this was horrible. There was no reason to be doing this. It looked barbaric and disgusting. But I couldn’t stop watching it.
“What are you watching” I asked.
“Wrestling.” Charlie said, again matter-of-factly like I knew off hand what that was.
I watched more and more with Charlie. I was… I was bonding with him over wrestling. It was weird. Charlie would just sit and watch and occasionally laugh at a joke or a move that looked bad. He would cringe at bad landings and things that looked really painful. I was just… taken with all this stuff. I started to gain favorites and people I preferred to see.
My favorite for a long time was Jason Cashe.
Cashe was ruthless, but he was hilarious. He looked funny, he talked funny, but he would kick you in the face without a second thought and never backed down from a fight. I once saw him in a cage match with his girlfriend, on-air or not, and several other wrestlers and without hesitation, he smashed her face in with several elbows. He did them so brutally, and so quickly, that the referee stopped the match and Cashe retained a title. He would go to any lengths to keep it.
I saw Cashe lose a nipple in the ring. He bled, he would hurt himself and his opponent. He was crazy. He was cool.
Soon, I wasn’t just watching wrestling with Charlie. I was watching it on my own. I sought out wrestling from all over the country and across the world on the internet. I followed Cashe doing cool shit and got to see a whole host of new wrestling and different styles. I got to see so much, and a lot of it, I enjoyed.
I saw the women do it just as good, and just as brutally as the men.
And that’s when I saw Amber Ryan.
She was the coolest person on the planet in my eyes. Everything she did was cool. The way she walked, the way she talked, and all the things she did in the ring. I saw her spit thumbtacks out of her mouth, throw and spit fire, and spit poison mist. She was so cool. I was mesmerized by her. She was everything I wanted to be.
There were others, but they all seemed fake, phony and just playing a role. Especially the “good guys” I didn’t really have time for many of them, but every story needs a good guy and a bad guy. But the bad guys, the people who took what they wanted, did what they wanted and never sought remorse or redemption for their actions? They were the good guys to me.
And some of the “Good guys” turned out to be shitty people out of the ring. I respected that more than anything, but if you were shitty inside and out? That was amazing. Maybe it was because of how I saw the world, or how the world presented itself to me. Everyone was a let down, everyone will disappoint you and nobody really gives a shit at the end of the day, so why pretend to care?
And then I found them wrestling together on the same shows and still doing that same stuff, and they were friends as well! It was like the coolest thing in the world.
Jason Cashe and Amber Ryan became my heroes.
I didn’t have any before them. And now, I had people to watch and emulate. Maybe they weren’t the best choices, but you couldn’t convince me otherwise. And you still can’t. They, more than my own parents, raised.
That's why I called them mom and dad.
I certainly wasn’t getting anyone to look up to in my family.
But as I look back on it, I learned so much from Charlie, without him ever really explaining anything.
I suppose at the end of this, I owe him more than I realize. He is one of the reasons I am where I am today, and why I am who I am today. Without Charlie, who knows how I would have turned out. He did a lot for me. A lot more than I knew.
But then I remember he neglected me for basically half my life, Never told me he loved or cared for me, and pulled a gun on me that made me leave the only home and family I’ve ever known.
Yes, The chains of love are heavy.
This is now the time where we lay our cards on the table, Kayla.
If this was a high-stakes poker game, we’d both have gone all in and this would be a showdown.
But as I sit here and look at this whole situation, I am not holding strong cards at all. You are holding those big, powerful cards and I’m sitting here with an off-suit couple of cards that at a glance, look awful if we were still at the betting stage. Everyone would be calling me a fool for even betting with this hand.
There’s plenty you have that I simply do not. I won’t try and act like I have some kind of ace up my sleeve at this point in our journey. Our cards are on the table, there is no hiding what we both have, and don’t have.
I will concede several points to you right now, ones I am sure you will love to hear in fact. I have no problem admitting these things because in the long run, they don’t really matter that much to me. It’s not like I have any sort of argument that I somehow hold the power in this showdown. I will give you all the points you deserve.
Point one: You are a better wrestler than I am.
That much is plainly evident. You’ve won championships and held onto them for a long time. You can do amazingly spectacular things in the ring. You have been doing this longer than perhaps I’ve even been alive. You have trained and dedicated yourself to being the best of the best. The killer of killers. There might not be anyone in Sin City Wrestling, or more so the planet that is at your level of skill. You have me beat in every category when it comes to wrestling acumen. It’s just simply something I don’t have that much of, and you have it in spades.
You know the ins and out of the ring and I am not on that level, nor would I claim to be. You have me beat, Kayla. I concede this to you.
The only thing I wonder is just how much better you can become. Is this your peak? Is this the best Kayla Richards? Because I’ve heard you say time and again that you lose, and you learn from the loss. You train harder and come back stronger so that you can avenge those losses. It is your mantra, so to speak. Your code. You will always strive to get better.
But how much better can you really be? Because you’ve lost. A lot. There comes a point where it becomes redundant to think like this because you’re already at the top. You have the Bombshell’s title, and you have now convinced yourself that you are the best and have the title to prove it, so when you so clearly have this advantage over most people, it seems silly to use it as some kind of ace in the hole. I’m not trying to be a better wrestler than you, Kayla. I have no illusions that even beating you will give me any right to that kind of claim.
The point is, I don’t have to be a better wrestler than you.I don’t have to be “on your level.” You have convinced yourself that no one is on your level when it comes to that, so I don’t even need to go into that space. You can have it. What I am seeing is that you only know of one way to reassure yourself of it. After a loss, you train harder, you do more reps, lift more weights, and do twice as many drills. Get bigger, stronger and faster than before.
But what happens when it doesn’t matter? You already have this advantage over me. How much stronger do you need to be? How many more reps do you need to do? Is there a number, or a certain point that you reach that you can accurately gauge it? I mean, I beat you, despite this advantage, and you just want to make that advantage bigger when it didn’t help you in the first place?
Moreso, we are not having a track meet. You can run faster, jump higher and farther, anything you wish athletically. It means zero if you are on your back for 3 seconds and I am pinning your shoulders to the mat. Nothing. All that work, all that training? It’s useless. And you have convinced yourself that it means everything. You can be a better wrestler than me, but if I pin you, that is a moot point. All your training will be for nothing if my hand is raised at the end of the match. You can still retain that fictional title of “best in the world” all you like. If I have the win, and the physical title, you can have that one.
But still, you have me beat in skill.
Point two: You are more experienced than me.
There is no substitute for experience. You have a wealth of experience. You have more than likely forgotten more about this business than I will ever learn. I cannot compete with you in this space. Nor would I ever try to. I see all the videos and whatnot about youth vs. experience and all the time, the experience, knowing how to do things, but more importantly, when to do those things, always beats youth that thinks they have a better way to do it.
I have had 4 matches in SCW. You have had 4 in about 2 months. Probably more I don’t know about. You will always have the experience edge over me. No matter how long I wrestle at this point, as long as you are here, you will have that edge. There is nothing I can really do about that.
But, I would argue, I have gained a world of experience in those 4 matches, simply by both participating and watching. I watched Lilith and Melissa make the mistakes of youth, and I took advantage. I outsmarted and outmaneuvered Julianna, a former world champion. And I saw two “legends” give it their all, use everything they had learned with their literal decades of experience, and I still beat them both.
It’s why I am here. Where were you after 4 matches? Were you competing for a world title?
I have basically blitzed my way to the top and it worked without much problem. I am a very quick learner, and so, I am gaining on you when it comes to experience. Soon, I will have as much as you do now, even though you will always have more. But how much more experience do you really have, Kayla? Because once you learn how something works, it’s not like you gain any more new knowledge of that thing, object, whathaveyou.
For example, did you know that when you die, your body releases all the fluids you have in you? This is because your muscles no longer receive energy so they relax. It’s called primary flaccidity. See, now you know that, and that’s the end of that chapter of death.
The point is, I understand how this works, and it’s basically up to you at this point, Kayla. It’s up to you to figure me out. You have to reach into your bag of tricks. You have to pull out the oldest old school thing in order to try and keep that title around your waist. Everything I have done has worked so far. So now, it is your job to try and “solve the Frankie Holliday puzzle” as I talked about before. Though, I have already given you the answer.
The point is, I don’t have to try that with you. You have literally a decade’s worth of footage to study. Possibly more to see exactly how to break you down, what makes you tick, what drives you, motivates you and every little detail I can find. I have everything I need, while you, with all your experience, all your savvy and wit, you have to sit down and work off of four matches, one where we were partners and see if there’s anything that can help you.
I just have to continue to do what I’ve always done. Watch, study, adapt and overcome.
But, you still have that experience edge.
Good for you.
You cards… they don’t look as strong now, do they?
Are you still confident in those cards Kayla?
Because you’ve already pushed your title to the center.
The thing that defines you, hangs in the balance.
Yes. I said it, and you know it’s the truth. You are defined by titles. I never understood this logic, because titles can come and go. You have hold them for 10 hours, 10 days, 10 weeks, fuck it, 10 years. And at the end of the day, you eventually lose it. Do we all get prizes at the end? Is this like Pokemon where you have to catch ‘em all? For you, the title currently in your possession is your entire world. It justifies your entire existence in wrestling. And without it, you’re just another wrestler. Just the run-of-the-mill wrestler. Tights, boots, cool-girl kick pads. Probably got some dragon or flame design too to be extra generic.
Without a title, you know you are irrelevant.
Nothing about you stands out. A title around your waist gives you the confidence and power you so desperately seek. A title around your waist gives your entire wrestling career meaning. You feel invincible with it. It lets you act like you are in control of things.
But do you feel like you’re in control?
Sure. Sure you do. You’re not concerned, right? You’re on social media “thotting” and all that, so clearly you aren’t really concerned about me. You’re concerned about people who don’t even work here. So clearly, you don’t sweat me, right?
And that’s cool. You should continue to do that. Don’t worry about me. What can I do? You’ll figure everything out. You just keep doing you.
I just find it kind of strange that a supposed sociopath who is only out for herself, is now entertaining people, laughing and joking and socializing. Things that a sociopath sort of struggles with. You’ve done it quite well. If I were to actually label you, I’d just say you’re a narcissist. But hey, that’s my science nerd coming out. I’m just trying to help you.
Oh, I’m sorry no, no. Again, you are in control of the situation. I just told you you have those super strong cards for this all-in bet. Skill and experience. That’s all you. I gave you all the power because of that title around your waist. The only thing that matters to you, right? You will use these things. You have to. You must! You are the force of nature. You are the champion. You are the best wrestler! This is what you do! You have everything you need!
And it will mean fuck all when I rip the Bombshell’s championship from hands.
I would say I’m sorry that I have to take the one thing you truly love from you.
But, as they say, the chains of love are heavy.
…
Someday, you will look back on this, this moment in time. And realize it was the best thing to ever happen to you.
And you’ll thank me for it.
Trust me.