Hours after Summer XXXtreme…
I was seated in my cruise cabin, alone and enveloped in the darkness, soaking everything in. I was alert and conscious following the Summer XXXtreme event and by this time, the gravity and the reality of the situation set in. I was feeling everything that I was going through.
The heartbreak.
The anguish.
There was no sense of pride. There was no sense of accomplishment. There was no sense of joy that was capable of pouring through me at this time. All I could think about, all that I could feel, was that my reign was over. 350 days. Done. Just like that. I was holding back my emotions but when I saw that Adrianna had sent me a text message two minutes prior to this moment, I couldn’t hold back anymore.
Heartbreak and anguish seemed like child’s play compared to the feeling of a massive, letdown disappointment that had just begun to flood my conscience. I began to think about how I told Adrianna I was going to win the world championship for her and for everything she had meant to me. Seeing the words “It’s okay... “ with a broken heart emoji further broke mine. I was still feeling numb when I picked up the phone and answered her text.
“It’s not okay…” I began to write. “I failed you. I said I was going to win it for you and I didn’t. I am an absolute failure of a sister…”
Clearly, it was a bad idea to communicate with anyone considering the situation. But right now? The emotional heartbreak overpowered any possible logic that could’ve gone through me at this point.
“I am so sorry that I let you down… just like I always do. You and I both know what happens next when I come THIS close to being a world champion again (or getting over the hump) and I don’t get it done. You know that the downward spiral is next. It is all downhill from here. I had my chance. It’s over. My window is closed. The reign is over….
Honestly? After letting you down so badly, I should never be in your presence again. That window is gone, Adrianna… and now at the age of 37… maybe that’s the last chance I’m ever going to have to be a world champion again. I guess the reign that just ended for me was a tease…”
The tears began to fall down my face as I hit “SEND” without even thinking about it. I wanted to just be alone, drowning in heartbreak. But the door to my room opened and the light came on. Jazmyn Rain entered and I could see her immediate concern. I felt her walk up to me.
“Hey…”
“Don’t ask me if I’m okay…” I instantly said. “Because I’m not. I try so hard to get over the hump… and I just never do. I guess with all the awful things I’ve done over the years, karma just wants to punish me by making sure I never win a world title again…”
“Myra, it’s not like that,” Jazmyn states with a sigh, trying to pull me through my heartbreak as well as my fears. “You faced someone that was on top of their game, just like you were. It was a match that could’ve gone either way. There’s no shame in losing to Amber. You know that.”
“Why?” I asked.
“I just got through explaining…”
“No matter how good I get, no matter how well things go for me, I’m always second best to someone else. Why can I never get over the hump? WHY? Blast from the Past was one thing and now this.”
“Myra, don’t be like this…”
“Why is it that every single time I dedicate a match to someone, I always fail them? Adrianna, Kimberly, my mother…”
“Stop it, Myra! You’re better than this! Don’t let this define you! Please! I don’t want to lose you again?”
“Why do I always have to be such a screw up?”
“Myra…” Jazmyn says with an annoyed sigh as she sees my phone. She picks it up and reads the text message that I just sent Adrianna. I glance at her and her eyes just widen in shock. As she reads, her jaw drops and I can see that fearful horror in her eyes. She sets down the phone. “I know what to say to you in this situation. But I won’t. You are far too good and far too smart now to know what you have to do about this without me telling you. I get that this is a habit for you, but for God’s sake, NOW is the time to break that. If you’re expecting me to cheer you up, tell you everything is okay, tell you what you have to do and inspire you to keep going… I’m not going to do that…”
Jazmyn stands up and begins to leave the room.
“Jaz…” I said in a soft, hushed voice.
“No… the best thing I can do for you right now is allow you to figure it out on your own. I’m so sorry that things didn’t go your way tonight. But that’s no excuse to give up and quit just like you’ve done in the past. You’re on your own this time…”
I was left stunned in silence when Jazmyn walked out. I just let the tears fall without saying another word the rest of the night.
“Why does this keep happening to me?” I asked myself in my mind. “Why do I keep having these huge matches like tonight where I put my heart, my soul, my spirit, EVERYTHING into what I do, yet, it’s someone else that wins? Why? I thought I had it figured out… only to find out that I didn’t… add on the fact that this was for Adrianna and I let her down… and this has to be the most heartbreaking loss I’ve had in my career in over eight years…”
The guilt. The agony. The heartbreak. The torment. The hauntings of all those ‘so close, yet so far’ matches I’ve had over the last few years. It all came to drown me in a hurricane of emotions that I couldn’t handle. I fell asleep on the night of my own birthday feeling like my spirit was torn out of me….
March 2011…
I was confused and disoriented, realizing that I wasn’t on the cruise anymore, but backstage at a wrestling event. I saw a poster for a wrestling event which really shook me. I saw a poster that said “PRW Annual Annihilation 2011” on it.
“Where am I? WHEN am I?”
I walked down the hallway not seeing anyone. But I could hear an argument from a nearby door. I knew it was the door to the women’s locker room… and I was hearing Adrianna try to set someone straight…
“You can’t let her get to you like this…” I heard her say from behind the door. “I don’t know why the hell you keep treating Victoria like a bad person! She’s done nothing to you, Myra….”
I raised my eyebrows upon hearing my own name being used.
“Except steal my spot…” I could hear my own voice from behind the door. “I was the franchise of this company until SHE came along with her sellout ways of posing for BIKINI MAGAZINES, being a fucking SEX SYMBOL and forgetting that wrestling is supposed to be about WRESTLING and not THIRST TRAP BULLSHIT... “
“If she’s such a bad wrestler, how come she’s beaten you three times in a row with a world title on the line?” Adrianna said.
“GET OUT!” I heard myself say from behind the door! “GET OUT OF MY SIGHT! GET THE FUCK OUT!!!!!!”
I heard Adrianna angrily sigh as I heard her coming to the door. The door opened and we locked eyes.
“Adrianna…” I said, but she turned and walked away, acting like she didn’t see me. This confused me, but that wasn’t the end of it.
“She can’t see you…” I heard the voice of my mother behind me. I turned toward her and she was standing right there.
“Mom? What are you doing here?”
“Do you remember this night in Phoenix 10 years ago when you had one last shot at the PRW World title against Victoria and you lost?”
“Of course, but why the hell am I here?”
“Your final lesson. Did you honestly think I was going to let my own daughter self-destruct over this loss? On her birthday no less? Your past self is in there right now about to break down and give up on herself and it’s up to YOU to prevent that from happening. Only one condition: you can’t tell her about what has happened to you in the last ten years. Adrianna couldn’t see you, but she will.”
I looked inside of the locker room and saw my past self lose it and start bawling, whining and worrying about her window of opportunity being closed. It hit close to home considering that’s exactly what I did in that text message to Adrianna. I turned back to my mother to say something else to her, but saw that she was gone. Seeing my past self be so heartbroken immediately had guilt and sadness pouring through me.
“I wish I could tell her about the last… or rather next… ten years. God, I remember how horrible my confidence was shattered. This loss was the most devastating loss of my career until my last PRW match before my pregnancy retirement two years later. Mom’s leaving me to it… UGH, I hate reliving this…”
I entered the room and saw my past self just about curled up in the corner, bawling her eyes out.
“I’m done… I’m FINISHED…” my past self moaned through her tears. “How do I go from being the franchise of PRW to being NOBODY in just two months? This isn’t FAIR! How can some thirst trap like Victoria be the star of this company and not me? I gave her my very best and she STILL WON? If my best isn’t good enough, it will never be again. I’m never going to reach that peak again…”
“That’s not true…” I told her. 2011 Myra looked at me with red, borderline puffy eyes, indicating she’d been crying for a long time. “I can’t exactly tell you how, but you’re not only going to reach that peak again, you’re going to exceed it.”
My past self was stunned, having that ‘seeing a ghost’ expression on her face. She slowly stood up and stumbled backward into a corner. Her hand was shaking as she pointed toward me.
“You… you look just like me… is there a twin that nobody told me about? How could you know that I’m going to exceed the peak I was at? There’s no way… this is it for me… I’m about to become irrelevant and slide down the ladder until I’m put out of my misery…”
I cringe quite a bit, remembering full well how I treated every loss ten years ago like it was the end of the world because I was so hellbent on being a huge wrestling star.
“I know this because I AM you… from 2021… 10 years from now.”
“How… how do I know you’re not making this up?”
“I’m not supposed to tell you EXACTLY how things go for you, but things ARE going to get better. You are not irrelevant. Sure, you lost to Victoria Salinas three times in a row on three straight Pay-Per-Views: once to lose the world title to her, twice when you tried to gain it back. But why are you carrying such shame over it and acting like the world is going to end? Victoria is just hitting her stride as a wrestling star herself. Your three losses are to someone that is going to be one hell of a generational legend in the making in her own right.”
“That’s IMPOSSIBLE!” my past self screamed toward me. “She’s just a glorified, sellout bikini model who is neglecting her pure wrestling ability! Someone like that…”
“BESIDES the point…” I said to my younger self. “I PROMISE YOU, even though I can’t tell you your future piece by piece, you ARE going to be okay… MORE than okay! You can still be a world champion again! You can still grow from all of this heartbreak and improve to be even BETTER than you are right now! In this business, you NEVER stop improving nor are you ever a finished product. If you don’t evolve? You’re going to be stuck in place! Don’t do this to yourself, young Myra! You’ve still got so much room to grow! If you self-destruct, the consequences of that...you could never understand how severe they could be for you, your career, and those around you…”
“But I AM… or WAS… in peak form…” my past self insisted, much to my cringing chagrin as I remembered how far I had my head up my own ass a decade ago. “...I’m MISS PRW, damn it! I put this company on the map! I’ve grown as much as I’m capable of and now the torch has been ROBBED from me from that skank Victoria and now I’m downward spiraling…”
“You are NOT…” I insisted, with a raised tone of voice.
“SHE’S the new face of PRW…”
“She doesn’t HAVE to be if you rise up from this and try to challenge her for the world title again…”
“Yeah, like PRW is going to give me another chance after she’s beaten me three times…”
“Get a hold of yourself…”
“Are you BLIND to all the HYPE, the LOVE and the ADULATION that is surrounding Victoria now? The fucking powers that be here are treating her like their new golden girl and they have completely forgotten that I exist! My fucking boss even told me straight to my face last month that Victoria is his ‘cash cow’ now. He’s moved on all because she broke out of her shell and started to take her clothes off for Maxim! I’m IRRELEVANT NOW…”
“NO YOU’RE NOT!” I said to my younger self, that raised tone getting even louder now. “Quit beating yourself down!”
“I don’t have it anymore. NOT being the star of this company is the WORST thing that can EVER happen to me! If I’m not the star of this company, I am NOTHING! Do you COMPREHEND THAT?”
I never imagined this would ever happen, but I was suddenly realizing I was becoming angry at my younger self.
“The more PRW is up Victoria’s ass, the more I’M forgotten about! Everyone on this roster is going to call me past my prime, old news, ever the hill, and so on and so forth and there’s NOTHING I can say about that because tonight makes it officially TRUE! I will NEVER be PRW World Champion again…”
“Oh my god, you really don’t get it… I mean...WOW… I really didn’t get it back then. Listen… PLEASE listen… you’re not over the hill… because you’re not even CLOSE to hitting your prime, trust me on that….”
My past self was giving me a peculiar look and I could tell that there was a part of her that truly wanted to believe it. I was feeling confident, thinking that I was starting to get through to her.
“You are NEVER going to be ‘forgotten about’. The respect and the reputation that you have developed up to this point in your PRW career is FAR too great for this company, including your peers and your boss, to just discard you and forget about you. Anyone that calls you over the hill? Give it 2 years… TOPS… and most of those people that even go there with you will cease to exist in this business. What you are going through right now is the BEST thing that can happen to you because this is a learning opportunity for you to grow and be STRONGER! This loss tonight shouldn’t break you or define you. This loss tonight should motivate you to step your game up and get to the next level of what you are destined to be in this business because this is NOT your peak, sweetheart! You’ve got such a LONG way to go! You just need to work even harder. You lost to Victoria THREE TIMES because you thought you had it all figured out for the rest of your career. You don’t… not at the age of 26… you’ve got so far to go. Don’t give up! Keep chasing that world title!”
“What’s the point? Even if I do win back the world title, everyone is still going to be up Victoria’s ass!”
“OH MY GOD! Are you even LISTENING to a word I am telling you?” I said, as I grabbed my younger self by the shoulders, almost wanting to shake her. “Quit the pity party! It’s like you’ve forgotten how to BELIEVE! You remember that right? BELIEVE? What anyone else says about you DOESN’T MATTER? All that matters is how YOU feel about YOURSELF! Come on! I KNOW you remember that! Please, don’t give up…”
“It’s not 2008 anymore…” my younger self states nonchalantly, causing me to let out a sigh. Internally, I was raging. I clenched my fist, debating inside of my own mind whether I wanted to smack my younger self across the face or to beat the hell out of her. “...I’ve already given up…”
“What…”
“There’s no point in trying… if I can’t be the star of this company, then I’m done putting my heart and soul into this…”
“I get it now…” I said as I let my younger self go. I turned my back toward her remembering the type of person I was ten years ago. “...there’s no way I’m getting through to you. You’re too young and egotistical to truly understand right now. I thought my mission was to save you, but I can’t save you. I’m not meant to. I have to let things take their course as they did ten years ago no matter how much it hurts me and how much I may want to change my past knowing what I know now. The way she is acting… it’s like the way I acted after I lost to Amber acting like the world is going to end, it’s the way I acted after… OH MY GOD, I GET IT!!!!”
I began to walk away, enlightened and encouraged from the latest epiphany I just got, from my younger self.
“Where are you going?” she asked me.
“I’m leaving you be. I’ve served my purpose here…”
I walked out of the locker room and my mother was standing there waiting for me.
“Do you understand now?” my mother asked me. “Do you see why I brought you here?”
“...yes…” I admitted. “Talking to my younger self and trying to get through to her, knowing what is about to happen to her, realizing how easily I gave up back then, realizing how easy it is to snap back into being her when things go wrong… it’s clear to me now. I was getting so angry with her… or rather… myself… for having the attitude that I did ten years ago. God, I wish I didn’t give up so easily back then…”
“So why do you want to give up chasing the world title just because Amber beat you?”
I was feeling slightly embarrassed and guilty knowing that my mother had a point.
“I shouldn’t… why should I let a setback to someone on top of their game drag me down in 2021 the way I allowed it to sink my confidence and destroy me in 2011?”
“BINGO!” my mother said to me with a smile on her face. “I knew you’d figure it out!”
“Thanks mom…”
“You’re welcome… you’ve got this, Miranda! Now wake up and keep fighting that good fight! Keep chasing that dream and your full potential! I believe in you sweetheart and I always will! Don’t you ever forget that! Happy birthday by the way...”
“Thanks, it sure was a wild one that...”
I was interrupted by a bright, white flash and before I knew it, I was back in my room on the cruise the next morning…
July 19, 2021
I sat up on my bed, floored by the dream that I just had. I was still feeling sore and groggy.
“Now I know why things go wrong…” I said to myself. “I know why I crash so damn hard after every heartbreaking setback. It’s a self-fulfilling prophecy. Ten years ago, I gave up on myself feeling that I was never going to be relevant in PRW again. I neglected everything because I had. Sure enough, I started getting injured so much and my career really slid for more than a year and a half. That would’ve never happened if I just stayed confident in myself the whole time and kept fighting for that world title…”
My train of thought was interrupted by Jazmyn coming back into my room to check up on me. My heart was starting to beat with joy and determination again and it was already beginning to shine through. Jazmyn noticed my body language was so much better and smiled at me.
“You look better…”
“I FEEL better…”
“What changed overnight?”
“You know when I kept losing to Victoria 10 years ago and I basically gave up because I was so heartbroken?”
“Yeah. That was… rough. We were tag team champions months later and you were STILL miserable. Then the injuries and the fall down the ladder happened. You did that to yourself you know. Because you had given up after Victoria defeated you the third time, you were never the same in PRW afterward. You never won their world title again. You eventually recovered and became a Triple Crown winner there, but it was just never the same for you. You lost your confidence and it sunk your career”
“I just realized that on my own, Jaz…” I said with a confident sigh. “It was only the first time too. Those periods in my career where I was slumping and losing matches to people I’d normally beat whether they were in PRW, GCW, UWA, and so on and so forth… it all ties back to that time. That third loss to Victoria is my trigger that causes me to beat myself down and want to give up every time I have such a harsh, heartbreaking loss like last night. I let that loss, and the other ‘so close, yet so far’ losses I’ve had since then, define me as a wrestler and determine my destiny. That’s why I can’t get over the hump the way I want to…”
Jazmyn smiles again. “I knew you’d figure it out on your own. By the way, are you going to get that?”
Jazmyn pointed toward my phone, then stood up and walked out. I realized Adrianna sent me a text message overnight and I read it right away.
“I am so disheartened that you feel this way…” Adrianna wrote back, causing me to feel immense guilt. “Please don’t go back to your old ways! Please don’t give up on yourself! Please quit thinking that you let me down because you didn’t! Snap out of this! I fear that I’m about to lose you… again! Your text last night broke my heart in ways you couldn’t understand…”
I took a deep breath letting the guilt pass through me. I wasted no time responding.
“I am SO SORRY that I put you through that! I was going through an incredibly hard moment in the heat of the moment, as you can imagine. That is still no excuse for making you feel that heartbreak. Last night was my heartbreak and mine alone. You did not deserve to go through that. As soon as this ship docks, the first thing I am going to do is see you and make this ALL up to you… I promise!!!”
After including a mix of heart and praying hands emojis at the end of my text, I sent it to her. I felt better right away and I knew in my heart that in spite of last night’s heartbreak, I was going to be okay… especially with the lesson my mother helped me learn in my dream the night before. With this learned lesson, I was feeling that familiar motivational pull in my heart again, knowing that my journey to becoming world champion wasn’t over yet…
Not even close…
A few days later…
There were no words when I walked in Adrianna’s hospital room and I saw her not lying on a hospital bed unconscious, but sitting on a wheelchair awake and alert. The sight of me made her smile. Seeing her alert and seeing her wearing something other than a hospital gown, albeit with a cast on her left arm for a broken collar bone and some crutches nearby, was something that brought joy to me too. When we locked eyes, I didn’t say anything. I went up to her and kneeled down so we could hug each other. I felt a metal body brace protecting the ribs that were broken in the accident, but this didn’t sap my joy a bit.
“You picked a great day to see me…” she whispered to me in a soft voice. “They’re discharging me today.”
“That is great news…” I said as I broke my embrace. I stood up for a bit to grab a chair and sit on it right in front of her.
“I am so sorry about that text...” I stated as I grabbed her hands and showed her that I was there for her. “I know I explained it over the last text I sent you, but I just wanted to apologize to you face to face for that. Nobody feels worse about it than me.”
“Myra, it’s okay. I know that the moment for you was harsh. I understand why you felt that way. But you never let me down at all. I was bummed that you lost to Amber, but I was never disappointed in you. Everything that you did for me leading up to that match is something that I am always going to appreciate no matter what happened in that match. That auction that you did was the most amazing thing anyone has ever done for me. You have nothing to beat yourself down for.”
“I’m so glad you’re getting out of this hospital today. I’m going to be there for you. I want to make it up to you for that text and do anything that I can to help you recover from your accident. I want to make up, not just for the loss to Amber, but for putting you through the heartbreak that I did when I sent you that text in the heat of the moment. Whatever it takes…”
“Myra…” Adrianna said with a worried sigh. “Quit it! There is nothing that you have to make up for! I mean that! You don’t need to do anything for me… well… except one thing…”
“Name it…”
“Not right now. I have to talk to you about something. I’m worried about you and your psyche. I’m scared that this loss to Amber, after reading that text message, has completely destroyed your confidence. I know you had other meltdowns before, but that text message was something else. Ever since I read that, I’ve been so worried that you’re closer than ever to a horrific relapse of those old evil ways of yours. I know the cycle: you give up, you feel sorry for yourself, you snap. For the last decade or so, you’ve had these… huge… heartbreaking losses that destroy you and cause you to change for the worse…”
“Blast from the Past didn’t…”
“You weren’t pinned in that. Summer XXXtreme was different. Shoot, it was the first time someone has pinned you in fifteen months. It’s the same cycle… over and over and over…”
“It’s not happening again…”
“But how can I have faith in that? What’s different this time?”
“What’s different is that I finally know why I’ve lost all of those ‘so close, yet so far’ matches I’ve had. In some ways, I defeated myself before the bell rang, even Summer XXXtreme. With that, I admit it: I worried too much about the ramifications of losing to Amber way more than I let on. Being in that moment overwhelmed me because it was a spotlight I hadn’t been under in so long. It was the biggest spotlight I was under in more than eight years. It swallowed me alive, Adrianna. I thought too much about the heartbreaks I’ve had over the years. I worried too much about suffering another one… and that’s what happened. I worried about going through that loss and then falling all the way down the ladder… especially since so many world champions and title contenders fall off so harshly immediately after losing a world title… Ruby, Christina, Keira…”
“You’re not ANY of them, Myra. Why even worry about that?”
“A decade old habit going back to when I was replaced as the ‘franchise’ of PRW…” I admitted with a regretful sigh. “For the last decade, I’ve let every single ‘big match heartbreak’ just pile on top of each other. That’s my own fault. Still, I’m not going to use it as an excuse for Amber winning. She was better… but I could’ve helped myself too and I failed to do so. After every single heartbreak where I end up ‘so close, yet so far’ I made a bad habit out of giving up and just conceding a fallacy that only became true because I let it happen…”
“Yeah, like when you lost to Victoria three times…”
“I never, ever allowed myself to recover from that. Passing the torch before I was ready to; it killed my confidence. I ran away from that for 10 years and I’m going to face that now. I accepted that I was never going to be a champion again… and that’s why in my last PRW match before my maternity retirement, that bitch Luciana beat me leading me to feeling like I failed my mother and Kimberly…”
“It caused you to go down that dark spiral that you did when you came back…” Adrianna reminded me. “That’s something you need to REALLY face. I remember when you were in UWA and you lost your X-Limits title to a flash in the pan on the flagship show and how that destroyed you...”
“UWA as a whole shattered me, Adrianna. More than anywhere else I’ve been, they nuked my confidence. Yes, losing that title destroyed me. Yet, I still had one more chance to finally be a world champion… and carrying that loss with me, I never gave myself a chance to win that chamber match I was in for that world title. So that put me further in the whole and instead of continuing to fight, I ran away and the roster laughed at me for it. That feeling that nothing I did was ever going to be good enough was the worst feeling in the world and I regret that I just ran away and never faced up to it….”
“Remember how as the Ultraviolent Champion in Carnage, you were one win away from a world title shot and Maggie took that title from you?”
“Of course. I especially remember how I went into that match with a feeling of dread knowing how I could never get over the hump for so long and how it felt like I was going to happen again. I never gave myself a chance then either because I was fearing the worst. Self-fulfilling prophecy after self-fulfilling prophecy, each time just casting it aside because I didn’t want to learn anything and deal with the pain of it all. I’m breaking that cycle, Adrianna. I’m finally going to face what I’ve run from for 10 years. The norm for me would be to give up, but I’m not doing that. Instead of shrinking and relapsing like I’ve done so many times, I’m going to lick my wounds, get the hell up and try again…”
Adrianna’s eyes widened with surprise when she heard that.
“Wait… you’re… you’re going to try for the World title and Amber again?”
I nodded and smiled which immediately drew a shriek of joy from Adrianna. This then filled my heart with joy seeing her so happy.
“I’m not done yet, Adrianna! I’m not going to let Summer XXXtreme define me. I’m not going to let heartbreak and ‘so close, but so far’ dictate my full potential ever again. I’m changing the narrative because instead of giving up and stepping aside like I did in the past, I’m going to aim for Amber, get one more match against her and I’m going to WIN that world title!!!!!!”
“GOOD!!!!” Adrianna said with the loudest joy I’ve ever seen out of her. “You’re doing the one thing I wanted you to do for me: keep fighting! I am thrilled beyond words, not just because you are going to keep fighting, but because you figured it out on your own without anyone having to lecture you. Promise me that you’re NEVER going to give up again!”
“I promise…” I said as we embraced each other again “...you have my vow that no matter how hard things get, I will never give up on myself again… or even express that I will or that I want to…”
“I love you, Myra! You really are the best sister ever!”
“This isn’t over yet… not until I decide it is. Now more than ever, I feel like I will be a world champion again!”
We broke our embrace again and I stood up feeling a joy in my heart and a pull to continue the fight. That is precisely what I am going to do. Deep down in my soul, I know that I’ve become too good of a wrestler to never be a world champion again. Going forward? That’s the kind of confidence that I’ll be carrying with me as I continue my journey in Sin City Wrestling to get to that elusive fifth world title I’ve wanted for so long…
August 13th, 2021
When the camera came on me as I was sitting in my San Jose hotel room, I wasn’t going through any negative emotions at all. Despite the heartbreak of Summer XXXtreme, I was feeling strong, confident and determined to get one more match against Amber at Violent Conduct. I thought about the challenge ahead and not one fiber of me was feeling intimidated by it. There wasn’t a bone in my body that had me worrying about the consequences of losing my upcoming match to Alicia Lukas. That’s because in my mind, heart and spirit I knew that I was going to win. With this full fledged confidence, I began to express my thoughts.
“I could’ve been like recent world champions and recent world title challengers that had lost that big match. I could’ve given up. I could’ve stepped aside. No disrespect to Keira Fisher but I could’ve been like her and subconsciously accepted my place in the back of the line the way she did after Christina beat her in her world title rematch. I could’ve been like Christina and contemplated retirement after Amber won the title from her, but that never crossed my mind. I could’ve been like Ruby and just fallen off the map, but I’m not going to do that. You all know what I’m going to be doing. I never, ever planned on being a one and done challenger and now more than ever, my resolve and my initiative not only remains stronger than ever, but it STILL continues to grow. It is my resolve and my initiative that has made me the success that I’ve been in Sin City Wrestling, kept me consistent and has kept me from falling off my game entirely the way some of the roster has after such a backbreaking loss. I’m going to be a world champion in this company because I never, ever give up. There were points where I could’ve, but I didn’t. Most wrestlers would’ve done so after losing the match that I just did, but I’m not most wrestlers. This company is truly just beginning to see me at the very best that I’ve ever been. As heartbreaking as Summer XXXtreme was, I’ve gotten up and I’m wanting to fight again and I never, EVER acted like a sore loser and stooped to the levels of taking out my anger on someone by possibly ending their career.
Alicia Lukas, YOU can’t say the same thing. I may not talk about you very much unless we’re facing each other, but needless to say? What you did to Courtney Pierce was pretty damn deplorable. It may have been a shock to most people, but it wasn’t a shock to me. I’ve been where you are at. Hell, I KNOW where you are at on a psychological level despite the egotistical bravado you try to show every single time you turn the camera on. I know that deep down inside, you are BREAKING. I know this Alicia, because I’ve been where you are before. I remember before our first encounter, that I compared you and I and how similar the Myra of 2010 was to the Alicia of 2020. It sickens you that it is not you in the spotlight. You know it’s true. Don’t bullshit that! If it wasn’t true, you wouldn’t have done the predictable thing and used your Queen of the Day privilege to give yourself a world title shot. You wouldn’t have done what you did to Courtney. And you sure as hell wouldn’t have gone on social media and made this huge fucking embarrassing spectacle of yourself talking about how you were going to retire from the business just for losing to Keira Fisher.
What? You thought I was going to just GLOSS over that and act like it never happened? No Alicia, I’ve got to do what so few in this compan\y have the guts to do and that’s hold you accountable for your actions. I get that we all have a moment of weakness. Hell, even I did in the immediate moments after Amber beat me and reality hit me right between the eyes that my Internet title reign was over. I get that you have certain losses that really push you to the edge and really make it tempting for you to give up. I’m not going to judge you for having that temptation to retire. But the way you handled that loss to Keira Fisher was deplorable and it was a complete embarrassment to this Bombshells division, this company and this business. You wanted to give up and quit and you threw the most pathetic pity party that one could ever imagine. You can sweep it under the rug and just say ‘I had a moment’ all you want, but everyone knows that losing to Keira again broke you. It took this fragile psyche that you’ve had since losing the world title to her and it made it even WORSE. Your actions as of late with that and with what you did to Courtney are the actions of someone that is growing increasingly desperate to be the Alicia Lukas of old. Andrea is a damn fool at times that needs to get over herself and I will be the first to admit she really stretched it when she said that your decline started when I beat you in our last encounter, but I see the point she was trying to make.
Because let’s be real honest with each other, Alicia. Since you returned from that injury Bobbie Dahl caused you, you haven’t been the same dominant wrestler you once were. Sure, you’ve won more than you lost and you tout that any chance you get. But damn, it took you what? THREE tries to finally regain the world title after you came back? That should’ve been the first warning sign. The second one was obviously after you lost the title to Keira. Since then, you’ve WON matches… but aside from Queen of the Day, can you name ONE victory that you’ve had that has stood out? You can beat the Courtneys, the Jessies and the Seleanas to your heart’s content. Sure, that will make your win-loss record look a little bit better. But the fact of the matter is, every BIG opportunity you’ve had to get back to that world title level or to even take a significant step back toward the greatness that you were once known for? You’ve failed in every last one of them with the exception of Queen of the Day.
Blast from the Past? You couldn’t even get to the semifinals. Roxi bested you there, even if you weren’t pinned.
You had a chance to face me for the Internet Championship by winning that gauntlet match but not only did you lose to Roxi again, you didn’t even finish in the final three.
You had your chance against Amber Ryan and we all know how that one turned out. Then came the loss to Keira. You can’t tell me that as you have big opportunity after big opportunity and you fail at every last one of them, that it hadn’t been cracking your psyche little by little because everyone knows that’s exactly what has been happening. That loss to Keira and your subsequent social media, ‘I’m retired, wait no I am not’ temper tantrum was the culmination of ALL the frustrations that I just mentioned. For months, you preached about getting back to the top the right way and after that keira loss, you threw THAT out the window and stooped to just wanting to hurt anyone and everyone that stands in your way. You’re declaring war on this whole division just because it doesn’t revolve around YOU anymore and you can’t stand that. Hell, you just HAD to tweet at Andrea after she said what she said about you and demanded that she respect you. You may not see it Alicia, but I do. You’re self-destructing.
You’re going down a very similar path that I did six years ago. You want to burn all your bridges in this company? Fine. But in the long run, Alicia, this isn’t going to work out for you. You’re coming into this match completely desperate at this point. I already know that this isn’t a match for you to prove yourself and to try to get back in the world title. If I had to take a guess, this match for you is to try to avenge the loss that you had to me last year. I know that last time around, when I beat you, it was a definite shocker. I don’t BET that our last encounter stung you, I KNOW it did. But what do I know, right? You said it yourself on Twitter that the only opinion that matters to you aside from your own is that of Amber Ryan, acting as if she actually LIKES YOU when her words toward you going into your match against her completely told a different story. Her opinion is the only one that matters right? So what does that mean when she is outright TELLING YOU that in HER opinion, your name doesn’t mean as much as you think it does? Can you tell me what it means when she’s calling you “trite” and “predictable” and when she’s outright telling you that you got stale and when she’s calling you a ‘main event parasite’ that is ‘toxic’ and ‘selfish’?
I’m not trying to parrot, endorse or agree with anything that Amber Ryan is saying about you even though I may hold similar views about you that she does. But if you’re telling Andrea that the only opinions that matter are those of Amber yet she had very little, if anything GOOD to say about you as I just highlighted, then does that make her negative, critical reception about you true if HER opinion matters to you? It’s like you never heard what she had to say about you at all and that makes that tweet toward Andrea pretty tone deaf if you ask me. That’s a symptom of being in your own damn egotistical bubble for too damn long and having the inability to see what is truly going on around you. You’re not “in decline” as Andrea so put it… or at least it’s not to the overly exaggerated extent that she had tried to put it as, but you’re damn sure not what you were before and it comes down to the fact that you have shown an inability to evolve in any meaningful way! The Alicia Lukas that the world sees in 2021, outcomes and accolades aside, is the same damn Alicia Lukas that the world saw when you first arrived in SCW. Your whole shtick has always been arrive, talk shit, mentally fuck with someone’s head and drive a deep seated fear into their conscience, take advantage of that with a victory and then move on with your life feeling good about yourself and using that victory to inflate your own ego and then turn the camera on in your next match and go into the same old spiel about how great you are… and that’s been pretty much the Alicia Lukas formula: rinse, lather and repeat. No matter how many times the likes of Amber and Roxi seem to hit this point with you, you don’t listen and you stick to the same shtick again and again.
Your words have ceased having the capability of psychologically screwing up someone months ago. That fearful, intimidating aura that you were known for no longer exists. Two years ago, people saw your name across the card and thought “I’m fucked! There’s no way I’m winning.” Now? People see your name on the card and want to mock you for that faux retirement bullshit. You can get mad at what I am telling you. You can have a social media temper tantrum. You can complain about how I am ‘disrespecting you’ and you can hear what I am saying and get angry like a petty little toddler who starts crying because mommy took her cookie away all you want, but the bottom line is, you have absolutely NOBODY to blame for the stagnation that you’ve had this year but yourself. You want people to put respect on your name? Don’t throw a temper tantrum on Twitter and talk about retiring all over social media to the point where it even reflects in your bio and your display name. You want people to put respect on your name? Go out there and WIN the big matches that you used to win with ease so much instead of being just another Amber Ryan challenger, being someone that gets outperformed by Sam Marlowe in a gauntlet and being someone that has constantly lost to Roxi and Keira over and over again since you lost the title to Roxi in the elimination chamber nearly two years ago.
THIS match is that big match opportunity for you, but you’re not going to win this one either Alicia, because you have ceased having any REAL passion for this business and this company LONG before this point and the fact that you haven’t made ANY real effort to get another shot against Amber the way I have since Summer XXXtreme after she put you in your place is evidence of that. I haven’t seen you clamor for a rematch with Amber ONE time while I’m out there making it known that this is a rematch that has to happen This has never, ever been about the love of the business for you, but for the love of yourself and your own ego that you just haven’t been able to justify. Period! I was in your shoes ten years ago. I thought I was too good to evolve and get better. It came back to bite me in the ass and this Sunday that’s exactly what is going to happen to you one again! It wasn’t until I FINALLY realized that I had to evolve to grow stronger and better at what I do when things REALLY started to get good for my career again. It’s a damn shame that someone with so much talent is now constantly wasting it with their own ego. But it is what it is. I can’t convince you to change your ways and that’s not what this is about for me. For me, this is about getting back on that horse and proving that I STILL deserve to be the number one contender for that world title. For me, this is about making that very statement and Alicia, you just happen to be in the way this week.
This Sunday, when I defeat you again, that statement will be made. I will show the world that I’m not done yet. I will show the world that I haven’t given up, that I won’t give up and that I will keep on fighting no matter how rough things get. I will display how much I’ve evolved throughout my time in Sin City Wrestling. You don’t get to feast on someone that is downtrodden, coming off of heartbreak and on the verge of quitting because I am not even CLOSE to that! This Sunday, I’ll come through in this Hot Stuff Eliminator and I’ll be one step closer to my rematch with Amber.
I may have suffered a heartbreaker at Summer XXXtreme… but I’m not about to give up…
As tough a test as I know you’ll be on Sunday, I know in my heart that it’s a test that I’ve conquered before and it’s a test I’ll conquer again. Why? Because I’m coming into this on top of my game, with all the love and passion for this company pulling me through on Sunday, ready to continue the fight, ready to keep growing and evolving no matter what, ready to keep pushing toward my goals and my dreams and doing whatever it takes to realize them…
You can’t beat me on ANYTHING that just mentioned Alicia… and that’s why I’m pretty damn confident going into this thing on Sunday…
That confidence and determination continued to flood through me as I shut off the camera ready to get right back to work and continue the fight to realize my ultimate goal as a professional wrestler...
