Into the Void…
For the last month or so my mind has been slipping back to this moment without any knowledge as to why. There I am… remembering when I walked into the locker room that night, this feeling of dread and anger coming over me, putting down my stuff and the Bombshells world championship slipping out of my hands, colliding with my stuff before falling on the floor. My eyes widened with surprise as the words of Evie Jordan leading up to this night were flowing rent free in my mind…
CC 274
“Like she’s going to win…” I thought to myself as I was in the dim part of the arena where Myra Rivers had met me earlier in the night, watching her take on Alicia Lukas. “...she taught me so much… but this is Alicia Lukas we’re talking about… I’ve had two chances to beat her and both times she’s gotten me…”
Remembering those times last year didn’t help bring me out of the trance that I had been in since my father had passed away about four weeks ago. Nothing but ice was flowing through my veins… cold, bitter ice. There were times during that match when I wasn’t even focused on it because I was caught up in my own head and the bitterness that flowed through my heart that was caused by the likes of Kate Steele and Evie Jordan firing criticism at me from all directions during my championship reign. As I felt the bitter cold sweep through my heart, I glanced up at the screen and I saw Myra hit her Rebel Bomb on Alicia.
“No way…” I said out loud, feeling like Alicia was going to kick out. Imagine the shock I experienced when she didn’t. Suddenly, that ice that was flowing through me shattered.
Into the Void…
And yet… I couldn’t take my mind off of the moment that world title slipped out of my hands in the locker room. I wasn’t feeling like the proud world champion that I did up to that point. I picked up the championship and I put it to the side while I sat down. I felt this unbearable, discomforting pain on my shoulders and my bitterness was growing inside of me to the point where I didn’t want to even look at the world title. The never ending criticism I had endured throughout my reign had gotten to me at this point, though I didn’t realize it.
“I just want to be done with it…” I told myself… my eyes again widening in shock as I came to a conclusion that was confusing, but certainly wasn’t feeling wrong at all. But as I soaked in Myra’s win over Alicia, I wondered why I kept thinking about this very event. What exactly did I want to be done with?
CC 274
I had waited for the Bombshells locker room to clear out before I even bothered walking in. I gathered my things as quickly as I could, the feeling of wanting to get out of there as fast as possible pouring through me. I was feeling nothing but miserable. All I had wanted to do was stay away from everyone. Again, it wasn’t clear to me why… but I felt like I’d be so much happier alone. This feeling only grew in the weeks following my father’s death. I was about ready to leave only to realize I wasn’t alone…
“Going so soon?”
Myra Rivers’s familiar voice annoyed me in the sense that I realized I wasn’t alone. I turned to look at her. She had long showered and dressed out of her wrestling gear, sporting a short black, long sleeved dress with the heels to match.
“What do you want?” I asked her.
“I wasn’t going to leave until I checked to see how you were doing.”
“Why do you care about me so much, Myra? You never gave a shit about me when you were my mentor. You suddenly think that just because we’re on good terms that you can act like you’re my big sister now? Yeah, congratulations on beating Alicia. Is that what you wanted? For me to bow down and grovel at your feet because you did something I’ve yet to do myself? Is validation from me what you wanted?”
“I told you when we were on the air that I was going to show you how a true champion handles adversity, Andrea. That’s exactly what I did. You’re telling me that you didn’t feel one ounce of inspiration seeing that?”
“Oh… you want to INSPIRE me now…” I said ,rolling my eyes.
“Andrea… you’ve long jumped the shark with this anger you’ve been dealing with lately…” Myra told me. “...you’ve been through so much and I get that… but being distant and brooding in the dark like you were tonight is going to solve your problems? Destroying Evie Jordan in effigy and being dark and emo is going to solve your problems? You’re BETTER than that, Andrea! If your father was still here…”
“YOU DON’T GET TO BRING UP MY FATHER!!!!” I snapped at her. “WHY do you keep BOTHERING ME? WHY DO YOU SUDDENLY WANT TO FIX MY PROBLEMS? How DARE you even bring him up right now when I’ve been dealing with this HORRIBLE pain for weeks…”
“What’s the pain, Andrea?” Myra asked. “Honestly… you’re using your father’s death as an excuse. I’m not downplaying that his death had a huge impact on you… but you’re hiding behind it now… because the real pain? I saw it in your eyes before he even died… and I’m not going to leave you the hell alone until you tell me the truth about EVERYTHING.”
“Why would I tell you?”
“Who else are you going to tell? Your family? You’re the only wrestler in your family now. Is Clarissa going to help you? How can she? She was only ever a manager. You think Chelsea is going to help you when she’s never been close to the level that you’re at? I’m the ONLY person in this business that knows what you’re going through AND who you can talk to about it. I’m the closest thing you have to a friend in SCW and you know that…”
My eyes filled up with tears, but I held them back. Myra wasn’t wrong… and I was hoping she’d leave it at that… but she wouldn’t...
“You’re using your father’s death to run away from the real problem…”
Myra continued to talk to me… but again… I was flashing back to Into the Void…
Into the Void…
Bitterness and anger. That’s all I was feeling. I had my head hung. My shoulders were still tense.
“I lose this… then I really am a flash in the pan…” I thought. “I lose this and I’m just another fly by night champion… I lose this and it’s my fault that the title has bounced around… I lose this and the title is a joke… and who’s fault will that be? Mine… this title is in the shits and it’s all my fault… I lose tonight and I’m no better than the Polly Playtimes and Mercedes Vargases of the world…”
I took one glance at the title and I felt sick to my stomach. I turned the belt over on its nameplate so I wouldn’t even have to look at it.
“I’m tired…” I thought to myself. “I’m just so damn tired….”
After CC 274…
“...are you even LISTENING to a word I’m saying?” Myra asked me. I shook my head, drawing an annoyed sigh out of her.
“...you’re right…” I admitted. “I’m using my dad’s death as a wall to hide behind… all I can think about is Into the Void when I walked into this locker room and… and…”
Once I was bringing up that horrible moment I experienced before the cameras went on the air that night, I found myself struggling to breathe. That old tension and those racing thoughts from that moment came back as if I was reliving it all over again…
“You need to talk about it, Andrea…” Myra said with a concerned look on her face. “...what happened?”
“I’m not going to talk about it here. We should go somewhere private where there isn’t a soul from the locker room that can hear us…”
Myra nodded in understanding and I grabbed my stuff. We both left the event together that night… and I was about to be as honest and as candid as I had been with anyone in a long time.
I was still out of it on the journey to our destination as that moment from Into the Void replayed in my head again from the title slipping out of my hands… to my internal worries about me being a horrible world champion being validated… to when I flipped the title on its nameplate and wanting nothing to do with it. I knew in my heart that the best thing for me to do was to let it out… so I could let it all go and move on…
30 minutes later…
It was just Myra and I alone in her private Saxon suite, doors locked. No cameras. Everything was completely off the record. We sat across from each other, Myra listening and grabbing onto my every word as I gave her the day by day, blow by blow rundown of my feelings throughout my championship reign.
“...Alicia coming back and saying ‘mommy’s home’... it got to me…” I admitted. “She subtweeted ‘transitional champion’ toward someone. I don’t know if she meant me or not… it felt like she did… and from the moment she declared ‘mommy’s home’ and started to criticize me for being radio silent on social media… I began to question whether or not I deserved to be world champion…”
“It’s only one person…” Myra reminded me.
“Christina Rose was on my ass…” I reminded her. “Kate Steele was a VERY vocal critic during that title reign and she was harping SO much that I was just… I was TIRED of it… but Evie… she was the worst of them all. You heard what she said. You heard that poison that she threw at me. You heard her go off on the dumbest, stupidest, most random shit. Last time I checked, a world champion doesn’t have to live on social media. Last time I checked, I’m not required to put myself out there every second of every show. But there she… and others… were… in their ivory towers… criticizing me… BLAMING ME… for the title bouncing around since Alicia’s reign. There they were… mostly her… branding me as a one-hit wonder transitional champion… there she was… picking apart every word I put on social media… picking apart every word I said on camera… twisting and manipulating things to make me feel like I was a fucking idiot… like I was an undeserving, worthless champion… and I tried to put on a brave face…”
I paused with a sigh, hating that I was even admitting what I had been feeling, hating that I admitted for the cameras that I was putting on a brave face that really wasn’t there.
“But… when I walked into that locker room…” Myra raised her eyebrows, her curiosity now piqued because I was getting to the part she had wanted to talk about the most. I was feeling nervous and frightened in my stomach, feeling like I was about to admit something that was completely taboo in the wrestling business. “...I felt like a void… I walked in… I put down my stuff… the title slipped out of my hands…”
This feeling of sickness increased in my gut when I further elaborated on that moment.
“...and the moment that happened… I looked at my own reflection… I thought about my reign as world champion… all the poison that Evie threw at me… it was pulsating through my brain so much that I had a headache… the moment that I saw my reflection in that world title… I… I…”
I was feeling sad and guilty with the words that I was about to say.
“I wanted it to be over…” I said as my eyes started to glisten a bit. “...there was a part of me, Myra, that actually wanted to lose the world title that night… and it’s a HORRIBLE thing to admit but… I just wanted it to be over…”
“You wanted WHAT to be over?”
“...everything. I didn’t want to deal with criticism anymore. I didn’t want to deal with all the nasty bullshit the other women were saying about me. I didn’t want to deal with Christina Rose and her horrible obsession with being better than me. I didn’t want to deal with Kate Steele and her ENDLESS nonsense toward me on social media. I didn’t want to deal with Alicia Lukas and her fucking mouth and having to look over my shoulder for her… I didn’t want to deal with Evie… period… her more than everyone else. All I wanted in that locker room moment… was for that burden to be gone… all I wanted was for all the IDIOTS to just… SHUT THE FUCK UP… in that moment, Myra? God… should I even say it?”
“Honesty is always what’s best, Andrea.”
“In that moment… I gave up.” I could feel the tears flowing down my face, largely from the same that I was feeling. “I just… didn’t want to deal with the burden anymore. I just wanted for all the criticism, all the bullshit and Evie Jordan to just… go away…”
“You had already lost the world title before you even stepped into the ring…”
“Yeah, I KNOW that…” I said. “...and the bitch is… the weight of the world on my shoulders, the burden, the hate, the scorn, the criticism… it STILL hasn’t gone away… I mean for FUCK’S SAKE even after my dad died, Evie was STILL chirping and… I had ENOUGH… that’s why I punched her in the face… why I shattered her in effigy… why tonight… I was in that mood that you found me in… and the thing is Myra… you’re right… that’s NEVER going to go away… now that I’ve made it… it’s a regular thing… but I’m SO tired of having to deal with it… I know that I have to… but… I haven’t found that fire again… not yet… and the worst part is... I’m SO scared…”
More tears were flowing down my face as I stood up from my chair.
“I’ve got EVERYTHING on my plate now… the expectations I have to live up to seem like they’re WAY too high for me and I don’t think I can handle them… I’m so SCARED of just being another flop… like Polly Playtime and Electra Styles and all those fly by night champions…”
Myra’s eyes widened, though I didn’t know if they were out of sympathy or out of worry.
“...and back at home… guess what? I’M the one that has to hold the family together! You think I’m NOT afraid of that? Everything that our family could ever be proud of falls on ME! My mother is depending on ME to be strong and it’s SO HARD when you’ve been broken inside… when you already were before your father even died… I don’t want to be the leader of my family, Myra… that was always my dad… I don’t want to be in this suffocating spotlight… I wanted to be a wrestler to realize a dream and to be a champion… not to deal with all the NONSENSE, AND BULLSHIT, AND HATRED FROM THAT FUCKING LOCKER ROOM… I don’t know how much longer I can hang on right now Myra…”
Feeling shattered and destroyed, I broke down at this point, having lost it. Myra stood up and gave me this huge hug.
“I’m going to tell you straight up, okay…” Myra began. “...you can’t escape the spotlight… and you HAVE to be the leader of your family now. I know it’s REALLY HARD Andrea… but you’re strong enough to make it. That’s how it is. You realize that, right?”
“Yeah…” I said with reluctance.
“Don’t be ashamed of what happened…” Myra continued. “You had a moment of weakness where you decided you didn’t want to deal with the pressure anymore… you’re not the first nor the last. I was there myself when I was your age… I get it. It happens to the best of us. I believe in you Andrea… I meant it when I said it that you’re a better wrestler than me now… if I can beat Alicia Lukas, I know you can too…”
“How did you do it?”
“I kept myself in the moment…” Myra answered. “I focused on what mattered. You’re young… you were a first time world champion… 9 out of 10 of those crack under the pressure like you did. I treated Alicia like any other opponent and focused on giving it my best… I didn’t allow myself to crack under pressure. I focused on what was in front of me… I didn’t focus on the ‘tune up’ label she gave me… I didn’t focus on everyone thinking my win over Amber Ryan was a fluke. You’re a star, Andrea. Like your father told you, you have to embrace that now. People say things to try to drag you down… but it’s NEVER the truth… it’s NEVER a reflection of you… it’s a reflection of them… how they feel about themselves. You’re better than Evie Jordan and there’s a tiny piece of you deep down somewhere that knows that. You let her get to you too much… it happens. But you’re strong enough and hella good enough to ensure that it never happens again. From now on, don’t pay ONE IOTA of attention to ANYTHING Evie or Alicia or anyone else says about you… be the star you were born to be, be yourself, do your thing… and everything else falls into place.”
We broke our embrace and suddenly… I was beginning to feel like the dark cloud I had been living under for weeks was beginning to clear up. I dried my eyes, relieved that I finally got all of those terrible vibes out of me. I nodded in understanding, realizing that there wasn’t one word Myra said just now that she got wrong.
“What I put myself through at Into the Void? I’m NEVER going to allow it to happen again! I’m NEVER going to have that moment of weakness. I’m NEVER going to fight for validation from other wrestlers again! Because anything that Evie Jordan has to say about me is nothing but poison and nothing but TRASH…”
“You got THAT right…” Myra told me. I turned and began to leave, increasingly feeling better by the second. “Andrea?” This caused me to pause before I reached the door so I could turn back and look at her. “I know that we haven’t always gotten along… to say the least… but you don’t have to fight through the treacherous waters of SCW alone anymore. If you need any guidance on how to navigate the burden of superstardom… you know where to find me… because I’ve been through what you’re going through right now… and it’s hard, and it’s harsh and it’s horrible sometimes… but you get through so much stronger once you get through those waters.”
I could only smile, finally, even if it was for a few moments.
“Thank you” I said, before I turned to the door, opened it, and walked out of her suite feeling relieved that the worst was finally over…
July 17, 2020
“For a while there… everything seemed so bleak…”
I sighed with reflection as the cameras came on as I found myself sitting alone in my hotel room keeping it as simple as possible. There were no mannequins nor were there any exaggerated display sets. It was just me, speaking my mind.
“I had lost myself. I had lost the championship. I had lost my father. I’ll be the first to admit that wrestling that tag team match just after he died was really fucking stupid on my part and I should’ve just taken the week off… but at the end of the day, it’s what my father would’ve wanted. The tag match going the way it did with all the controversy… it hurt. I felt like I let my father down. Suddenly, I was questioning myself. I won’t lie, I had done a lot of that lately. I was doubting myself. I was wondering if I really had gone down the same road as a Polly Playtime or an Electra Styles. I was wondering if I truly was that flash in the pan. It sure as hell FELT true. I could feel my mind slipping into the darkness… socking Evie in the face, breaking a mannequin of hers in effigy, wrestling and living with this anger, darkness and hatred in my heart and I admit that I didn’t know if the Phoenix was truly going to rise again…
And then Myra beat Alicia…”
I took a pause, reflecting on the main event from last week and remembering the words Myra had told me prior to her victory against her.
“...my own mentor… the woman that broke me into the mainstream… beat one of the most dominant bitches this company has ever seen and that got to me… in a good way. That outcome opened my eyes and suddenly, I remembered everything that I was all about prior to the cloud of darkness that I had been living under for a while. That match is massively relevant to me not just because Myra taught me so much years ago in GCW, but because of how she won that match… the attitude that she carried into it. She didn’t pressure herself at all. She fought against Alicia with ice water in her veins, not giving a crap about what anyone else said. She knew that haters were calling her win over Amber Ryan a fluke and then last week, she shut them the fuck up. I saw that… and it opened my eyes… and it made me realize that at Into the Void… I was already beaten before I began… because all I did prior to that match was take everything YOU and all the BULLSHIT HATERS were saying about me through my entire reign, Evie Jordan.
When I saw Myra do what YOU couldn’t do a while back last week… my world flashed before my eyes. I had the best epiphany that I could ever have. The fact of the matter is… I crumbled to all that negativity that was coming my way from you and from everyone else and I am bold enough and champion enough to admit that. I let that title slip away from me all because I wanted to be DONE with being on the receiving end of the hatred and the bullshit and all the garbage you were saying about me… most of which… well… it’s NOT the real truth. It’s just a bunch of shit that you talked that reflects far more on YOU than it does about ME! Seeing my mentor beat Alicia helped me remember that the shit that comes out of mouths like yours when it comes to who I am and what I am all about DON’T fucking matter… and they only ever did at Into the Void because I ALLOWED IT! Sorry Evie… I know you can’t stand me… I know you hate it… but I’m not going the fuck away and I don’t give a SHIT if I have to end your career to regain the world title, I WILL do it if it comes down to that.
For now though… we’ve got to deal with the task at hand. You’ve got your husband on your side, I’ve got Griffin Hawkins on mine… the best possible partner from the male side of the SCW locker room I could ask for at this point. And honestly, Evie? I don’t give a FUCK if Alicia is the special referee. I’m not worried one iota about that because I KNOW she’ll call it straight… even if the reason is that she “likes” us equally.
You’re going to WISH that you didn’t try to run up the score on me after my father died… and you’re sure as hell going to wish that you never tried to degrade me and drag my name through the mud the way you did leading up to Into the Void because honey… the bitch is back and you’re looking at someone who doesn’t give a damn if you even make it to Summer XXXtreme! But while we’re on your words from before… they not only mean shit because well… the only opinions about Andrea Hernandez that matter are those of my own… they mean SHIT because… well… everything YOU said that I was leading up into Into the Void? YOU’VE BECOME! Don’t believe me? What have you actually DONE during your title reign? OH… you can’t STAND IT when the same shit you threw at me gets turned around on you, can you?
You fought that match in the opener during Christina Rose’s Queen of the Day nonsense… which hey, I agree, that was a load of shit… but since then?
Need I remind you that you spent SO MUCH TIME repeating yourself and bashing me to everyone that would listen that I was such a “HORRIBLE” world champion because I wasn’t going out and seeking fights and… have you SOUGHT a fight at ALL since Into the Void? Sure… you tried to run up the score on me and I decked you in the face… but that’s LITERALLY been it! You spent ALL THIS TIME bashing me for “hiding”... when you have hardly said a damn thing on social media lately… when… hold on… were you even ON THE SHOW last week? You… the Bombshells world champion… show up, have some alcohol with Amber Ryan and say literally ONE sentence that had NOTHING to do with Summer XXXtreme, or Alicia, or myself…
At least I showed up every week and promoted the fact that I was a world champion that was going to defend the title against you at Into the Void… but I WAS DOING NOTHING, RIGHT?
Yet… isn’t that what YOU’VE done all reign?
Yeah Evie, fuck off with that hypocritical shit. I want to make this one thing very clear to you and to anyone in the locker room that wants to criticize me and anyone who ever tried to paint me like I’m the worst world champion ever: I’m DONE listening to people like you. I am DONE dealing with haters like you who just want to paint this alternative narrative about me in your fucking heads just because you don’t like the way I conduct myself. I’m DONE listening to the haters, the critics, the doubters, the slanderers… that’s over for me. You’re done running up the score on me Evie and the ONLY reason why I would even WANT YOU to make it to Summer XXXtreme is because YOU’RE the one that I want to beat to win the championship back. I can do what I did back at Into the Void and call you a whole bunch of names… but I’m done letting my emotions get to me. I’m done letting YOU live rent free inside of my head. I’m not going to take back what I said because you STILL wrestle with anger and hatred in your heart and JUST like I figured, winning the championship back wasn’t good enough for you.
I’m beginning to see what the real Evie Jordan is all about… and no, I’m not saying that because I THINK I KNOW YOU… I’m saying that because women like you in this business? The ones that HAVE to talk all sorts of shit? The ones that HAVE to slander others to bring people down, to make themselves feel better? You get exposed for the two-faced, cowards that you really are deep down inside. Sorry Evie, you’re not getting the Andrea that had already defeated herself and allowed the haters to get to her head before the match even started at Into the Void. You’re not getting the Andrea that wrestled right after her father died and had no business being in that ring just days later. You’re going to wish I was still down… hell, I’m going to make you wish that you didn’t try to kick me while I was down a few weeks ago.
You don’t get to be my kryptonite, Evie.
I’m not going to let that happen.
I’m going to take the same approach that Myra took against Alicia when she beat her.
At Into the Void, I blew you up more than you should’ve been. I psyched myself out before the bell even rang. I worried too much about how “good” of a world champion I was to the rest of the locker room.
I’m not making the same mistake again… because this Sunday, when Griffin and I score the victory?
I’m going to show the world how much your bullshit, empty words about me REALLY mean. Andrea Hernandez the victim is gone… Andrea Hernandez the CHAMPION is back… just in the nick of time too.
I’m DONE mourning. I’m DONE feeling sorry for myself!
I’m DONE crumbling under the weight of the world on my shoulders and I swear to god when my second title reign begins, I’m going to carry this division to heights it’s never seen.
The weight of the world is on YOUR shoulders now, Evie… you’ve already shown since Into the Void that you’re crumbling under it.
And deep down inside?
You know that…
Don’t you?
