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Almost Human
Jet City South - SAN DIEGO
1 March 2022
OFF-Camera
Willie Mac’s visit spooked me. I hadn’t been willing to let him see that in the moment but it had stuck with me afterwards. I couldn’t see a way out. Somehow I pulled myself together enough to get the job done in the second round of Blast from the Past. The assist we got wasn’t exactly needed, but I am not going to complain about it. The entire night I was haunted by how I was supposed to be wrapping this up, but I couldn’t just hang Levana out to dry like that. I wasn’t just going to stand on the apron even though I knew that was probably the smartest play. There was no part of me that was going to be able to stomach that. But, I felt just as sick when we won as I would have felt if we lost. By advancing, I was risking my own ass, and apparently dragging down Willie with me. It felt selfish, but somehow I knew that feeling wouldn’t be as bad as the regret I would have looking back at it years from now. Keeping my head down and staying out of sight is no way to live a life. Being in the ring was the exact opposite of that. I couldn’t give that up yet. I wasn’t ready to go back. My only real option was to split the difference. As soon as I saw that I wasn’t booked for the last Climax Control, I took off. I let Levana know that I was taking some time, and bolted. If there were questions that the media needed answered about our team, she could do that. If there were social media scuffles, she could handle that. Being in the spotlight was part of the allure of it all for her. That made her the perfect partner, even though if I said that to her face she would likely be offended.
For the first week, that went as well as it could have. Coby had gotten the word out that everyone needed to stay out of my way. I wasn’t interested in talking about the tournament, promoting the gym, or making friends. I was there to work. Success, even as limited as it has been, apparently has its perks.I thought today was going to be another one of those days. I got up early. I beat my time on my morning run to the gym. Things were shaping up to be perfect. I should have known that was too good to be true. The front doors didn’t automatically separate as I approached. I checked my phone to make sure I wasn’t too early before deciding that nobody had made it to the front door yet. All the familiar cars for the trainers were in their respective parking spaces, so I didn’t think anything was out of the ordinary. I darted through the alley, and tried the back door nearest to the locker rooms, and it pulled open without problems. However, as I stepped through, I was greeted by the least friendly face at Jet City South.
Kris: Oh, check it out. This year’s tournament rookie.
I really can’t understand why more people don’t hate this guy. It is like he goes out of his way to be unpleasant just for the fun of it. Mark and Christian may think that makes him bold, but in my eyes, it really just makes him an asshole.
Jaycee: Oh look, SCW’s absentee tag team champion….
I knew that I shouldn’t let him get to me, because it was exactly what he wanted. He was just chomping at the bit to compare me to Courtney Pierce. Everyone that found out where I trained made that comparison, and I didn’t find it flattering. Nobody wants to be compared to a spectacular flame out while they are still on the rise. With everything else going on, I wasn’t trying to dwell on becoming a failure.
Kris: Easy there buddy, I wasn’t trying to rile you up. You’ve done well for yourself, even though you aren’t willing to give us any credit for that.
What credit did any of them deserve? Sure I had hit up a few of their structured classes. I had audited a whole lot more while doing my own thing and just keeping an eye on what they were working through. For the most part, I developed my own style. I didn’t come out of one of their molds. I wasn’t going to let anyone else take credit for my gifts.
Jaycee: I give you what you’re owed. I just don’t want to be saddled with your name. You can understand that, I’m sure.
Strangely, it didn’t feel like he wanted to argue like we had a few months back. Going off of that interaction, and everything that I had seen on social media and Sin City programming, it caught me off guard. Everything about his body language seemed chill. His hands were up, and he took a step back from me which was typical deescalation.
Kris: Nah, I get it. My name is shit everywhere but Sin City, and they think I am some kind of God most of the time. I don’t always understand it. In a lot of ways, I am just along for the ride. You’re only a couple matches in, but if you stick to it you’ll get it eventually.
Little did he know I was already feeling the pull of that. Despite the fact that it would have been in my best interest to throw the last match, I couldn’t. No matter how many times I talked myself out of giving it my all, I had to. I wanted to give up, but my body wouldn’t let me. It drove me to keep competing until it went our way. Looking back, it felt almost like an out-of-body experience.
Jaycee: The ring brings the best out of people…
I could be wrong, but I felt like I earned a little bit of respect with those words.
Kris: It just allows people to show you who they really are. People don’t hold back when they are out there. The moment won’t let you. You get all those people screaming around you, and things just happen. You’re moving on instinct. When you’re down in the ring you can almost feel the way that things are going to go before they happen. I have met some truly terrible people in that six sided ring, but I got through it because I could feel it was my night.
I shouldn’t have expected anything less from him. Kris was a notorious under-preparer. He didn’t have any real technique to speak of. The fact that he owned a gym was laughable, because there was nothing about what he does that he could really teach people. The guy was a wrecking ball that goads people into playing his game. If we ever came across each other in the ring, I would take him out one limb at a time. His chaotic style relied on who had the momentum in the match, whereas for me everything was more textbook.
Jaycee: If you’re paying attention, it can always be your night.
That was where I lost him. Just when we were starting to get on the same page too…
Kris: No. Sometimes it’s just not. Sometimes there is nothing you can do. It’s a lot like drowning actually.
His eyes trailed away like he was remembering something, but I didn’t have time to take that stroll down memory lane with him. This conversation had already erased my excellent time getting here. Somehow even though I got here earlier than ever, I was still going to end up starting late.
Jaycee: I’ll keep my eye out for it.
The words were just meant to appease him. It was the most courteous brush off that I could come up with at the moment. I tried to push my way past him, but he took a step backwards at an angle to stay in front of me.
Kris: I’m not sure that it works like that. It’s one of those things that you’ll just know as soon as the bell rings.
I could tell that he was studying my reaction to see if I was allowing any of his words to get into my head. The whole charming and disarming act was really just a work around to rope me into another one of his word games.
Jaycee: Look man, I’m not going to dwell on any of the negatives. Why would I? If I really wanted to pick things apart, I could…. but why? It’s a waste of my energy. I’d rather bust my ass to make sure that I did everything that I could to make it happen. Focusing on the white noise is just readying an excuse for when it goes bad. I don’t prepare for what I’m gonna do after losing, because I don’t intend to lose. None of the little things matter if you win, so why put any thought into them…. ever?
I thought that some of it would take him by surprise, but he took every word in stride. He even cracked a smile at me like I had passed his test.
Kris: Maybe the moment won’t be too big for you.
I couldn’t help but take a shot at him since this whole thing had been a game at my expense.
Jaycee: You mean like it was too big for you when you tried to win it? You weren’t even a rookie like me…
I thought that I would at least provoke him into being more direct about what the point of all of this was, but the words didn’t register much of a response at first. After a second, he turned away from me and motioned for me to follow him down the hallway towards the main space of the gym.
Kris: That doesn’t mean that we don’t have things in common…
As we came to the end of the hallway, he stopped and nodded out in the direction of a group of people. It took me a few seconds of scanning faces to see that not only was it all of the trainers, but people that I had never seen before. Two children. A boy that couldn’t be ten yet, and a girl that looked roughly half that. A few current and former Sin City faces whether they were trainers or recent students. Ruby and Court were in the ring squaring up with the children like they were actually going to spar.
Jaycee: Did I interrupt some kind of party or something?
He nodded, but I didn’t get the feeling that he was offended that I had stumbled across their gathering.
Kris: We all travel a lot, so there is never a good time for all of us to get together all in the same place. Those are both of my kids. KJ… that kid is going to be a monster in the ring in another ten years. It’s all he talks about. And then Lindsay. It’s her birthday, and she wanted to see everyone so we shut it down just for her.
It was starting to make sense why they wouldn’t just rip Kris’ face off of all the walls around here. I had always thought of the gym as a business that he was failing to manage. In reality, they were all more of an extended family. I am sure the connections between them would be interesting to learn if I had the time, or gave more of a shit. It was nice and all, but I didn’t see how it related to me.
Jaycee: I don’t get it…
He laughed. I was starting to get the idea that it was his favorite part of these little condescending lessons. The more time I spent with him, the more I could understand why his students lacked confidence in themselves and always fell apart.
Kris: I had some success early on, just like you are. But I was always destined to take a whole lot of steps backwards. If you don’t know the history, go watch it. I used to suck. So when you mention that I did poorly in the tournament, it doesn’t matter. I hadn’t learned anything yet.
He was watching the group more than he was paying attention to me, but he had my attention.
Kris: At first I was using Sin City as a way to run away from life. I was there just to have something to do, and because of that I kept falling on my face. It didn’t matter how much I wanted things to go right, I just couldn’t get to where I wanted to go. It never really clicked or felt right.
Clearly that changed, because the guy was just inducted into the Hall of Fame, so I assumed he was approaching something that resembled a point to all of this.
Kris: Those two changed that for me. Instead of running away, I was running to build everything that I could for them. I wanted to be the best, so that they would want that for themselves. I found the motivation that I needed. I stopped working against myself, and leaned into it. I made the decision that being inside that ring was the way to fix things for myself, and didn’t take no for an answer.
I couldn’t see what he was trying to get at and attempted to cut him off.
Jaycee: That’s motivat---
He turned back to me and suddenly got serious.
Kris: Sooner or later people are going to find out that you have spent years here training in my gym. You are part of my legacy whether you want to be or not. That means that I have to take somewhat of an interest in you, even though I think you’re probably just another hack that doesn’t have a chance.
The way that his tone and body language turned on a dime was unnerving. If I didn’t know better, I would have assumed I was talking to an entirely different person.
Jaycee: Thanks for the vote of confidence…
He didn’t even acknowledge the attempt to cut the tension.
Kris: You were hesitating in that last match. I could tell. If you didn’t know whether or not you wanted to be a competitor, you shouldn’t have signed up. If your heart isn’t in it, you should let your partner know before you get her hurt. Either way, if you go out in this next round and pull that same shit, I will go out in front of that crowd and embarrass you so badly that you won’t ever want to come back, got it?
The way that the threat rolled off his tongue so effortlessly let me know that he had absolutely no second thoughts about it, and absolute confidence in his ability to bring it to fruition. This wasn’t how I saw today going. Everyone was talking about how impressive we were. How did he even catch that my mind was elsewhere?
Jaycee: There are just som--
I wasn’t even sure where the sentence was going. There was no way that I could let him in on everything, but that might have been what my mouth was prepared to do before my brain caught up to it. Luckily, he had already cut me off.
Kris: There’s always ‘something’, and I know your ‘something’ means a whole lot to you. I don’t care though. What I care about is what happens down there in the ring. You don’t have time to be running away from whatever outside shit you have going on while you are in that moment, or it will swallow you. You’re either all the way in, or don’t even bother showing up…
I finally gave up trying to cut him off and just dropped my shoulders. Once he was done, he stormed off, but before he had hit his group of family and friends, he had managed to erase all of the hostility from his body language. At least he hadn’t thrown me out. I could still get to work, and he had given me plenty to think about.
Jaycee: Good talk…
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>I tried to tell all of you that this was going to happen.
Here we are, one match away from the finals, and everyone is still trying to figure out exactly how Levana and I are still hanging around while all these so-called favorites keep dropping like flies. The Hall of Famer Amy Santino was supposed to do us in, but that never really materialized. Then Amber Ryans was supposed to send up packing because she was allegedly unbeatable. I told all of you about the Mixed Tag loophole, and then everyone watched it happen like a self-fulfilling prophecy. At the end of each unwinnable slaughter, it was the rookies getting our hands raised in victory. Not Amy. Not Amber. Not their lackluster partners. We went through two of the hardest matches in the opening rounds, and we are still standing. The last one wasn’t without controversies, but I’m not going to concern myself with the particulars. Simply put: It was our night. We seized the moment when it was required of us. Nothing more. Nothing less. Levana and I know that the only thing that matters is getting to the next round.
...and so we advance to the semi-finals of Blast from the Past just two matches into our Sin City Wrestling careers. While that isn’t something that hasn’t happened before, it’s certainly been the most unlikely path through the tournament historically. Two strangers working together is going to be combustible by itself and inexperience rarely helps. You have to be in sync with one another to overcome that, and Levana and I have been able to do that since the first round. For some reason, we mesh well. We both have the same goal, and we are willing to put aside anything that is going to get in the way of achieving it. Some teams try to fake or force chemistry, but as it plays out, we see the cracks. We see through the lie. We watch teams fall apart as the pressure ratchets up in this tournament. Far too often, we see the favorites get stopped in their tracks by that pressure. This round is going to be no different.
...because this week the man standing across the ring from me is Max Burke. Undoubtedly, this tournament has gone as well as he could have hoped for until now. He managed to draw the two softest teams that signed up, and his wins actually made him look like a contender for the first time in years. I get that this tournament is supposed to bring back faces from the past, but this guy’s claim to fame is a Roulette Championship reign from a decade ago. He had the audacity to refer to his reign as a blood war, but it was hardly long enough to be called a skirmish. And he’s going to do the same thing when he tries to hype his victories in the first two rounds as if they are something to be proud of. Any team could have made it here if their path had included two Russows, Miles Kasey, and Todd Williams. Two of those people are cursed to never win anything worthwhile in this company, Todd is a joke, and Milo oozes mediocrity. Mark and Christian basically handed Myra and Max a pass through the first two rounds while the rest of us had to battle our way through. Myra herself admitted as much during the second round.
...and as if Max Burke being a ghost from Sin City’s past wasn’t bad enough, the guy is a big enough fool to go out in front of a camera and paint a target on himself. The guy got eliminated from last year’s tournament, hobbled around for a little bit, but then got shelved because he had a bum knee. It was so bad that it took six months from him last year alone. Now he is trying to work it back into ring shape while competing in the tournament? I guess I should thank him for making my job a little easier. Usually I have to watch a lot more tape on people in order to come up with a strategy to break them down. Max was dumb enough to do all the work for anyone that was able to stay awake long enough for him to get to his point.
Myra shouldn’t be surprised that her partner was small-minded enough to give up the game either. Myra got a perfect view of that from ringside as Mac took him apart last year. Sure, he managed to carry her through the first couple of rounds this year, but that was against some of the easiest competition that signed up. What is going to happen when he steps into the ring with someone that knows how to take him apart? What is going to happen when he steps into the ring with someone much more focused than he experienced in either of the first two rounds? I am not Todd Williams. I am not Milo Kasey. I am Jaycee MacDonald, and the only reason I walk down to that ring is to have my hand raised at the end of matches. Nothing more. Nothing less. There is nothing that matters more to me than that, and the skills that I employ to reach those goals are the types of things that should scare Max. I don’t jump around. I’m not going to try and hit-and-run. I’m coming right after him, and I will break him down piece-by-fucking-piece while Myra watches from the apron. Why? Because Max Burke is in the way, and I have to remove him. It’s that simple.
...but don’t think that I don’t realize that Myra will undoubtedly get her opportunity to shine in this match. No matter what I do, there is no way that I can keep her isolated on the apron the entire time. If anything, that would only cause a rift between Levana and I. The Bombshells are going to get to participate, but it’s not going to matter. I have faith that no matter which of us puts our opponent down for the actual count, we are walking out of this match with a win.
”But Myra Rivers is unbeatable!”
Is she? I mean, is she really? It might look like that on the surface, but I see the dark truth lurking underneath. I see the long history of not being quite good enough. I see a pattern of always being the runner-up. She’s never been good enough to stand on top of the mountain, but isn’t that supposed to be the endgame for all of us? Isn’t that supposed to be the place that we are all trying to get? Time after time Myra Rivers failed to take that top spot despite all of the opportunities she has had to get there. She always falls flat in the big moments. The first round? That’s a cakewalk. The second? Even easier. The semi-finals? That is where the pressure is really on. This is where we always see Myra start to crumble.
”...but her win streak!”
Yeah. I’ve seen her go on much longer rolls than she is on now, and still manage to fall short of her lofty aspirations. Momentum exists in this business, but any team that has made it this far has built up a little. Did a win streak help her out either of the times that Amber Ryan embarrassed her in front of the world? No. Yet Levana was able to step into the ring with Amber during the second round of this tournament and she never flinched, not even once. She even stopped Amber from being able to save the match for her team. That’s arguably just as important as me being the one putting Hitamashii’s shoulders to the mat for the three count. What has Myra done in the first two rounds other than let Max handle business against teams without a real chance of making it to the end?
...and that is exactly her problem. That is why Myra always fails when the going gets tough. Amber’s hubris turned into complacency, and Levana was able to capitalize on that. Myra is the flipside of that. Her wins over lackluster competition has inflated her self-worth. The easy wins she is able to chain together make her feel like she can compete at the top level with the best bombshells. The fact is, she can’t. She’s proven that countless times. That is why Mac Bane called Mikah an upgrade over Myra as a partner. That is why, even though Myra says it doesn’t bother her, she has brought it up in her promo work in both of the previous rounds. Mac’s words really stuck in her mind, and the only way that happens is if, deep down, Myra knows that they are true. People hate the truth. Especially when it shatters the delusions that they have about themselves.
What Myra should be thinking about right now is last year…
Last year she was in the same position she is in right now. She had a partner that was kicking ass. She had a rookie standing in the ring across from her and a date with destiny. She had the opportunity in the palm of her hand, and all that she had to do was rise up and take it…but she didn’t. She couldn’t. Not last year against Ruby, and not this year against Levana. History is going to repeat itself, this time on Climax Control, and Myra is helpless to stop it at this point. By Myra’s own words, the moment was too big for her. I have never once gotten the vibe that anything that Sin City has to offer is too big for Levana. That chick is 100% motivated, and I don’t know if anyone in this company has the ability to get into her head. All she wants to do is win, and anything less than having her hand raised in victory is unacceptable. Even if that hand is mine….
I honestly couldn’t have created a partner better for me than the one that got drawn out of a hat randomly.
Levana wants the spotlight to be on her? Awesome. I never had much use for it anyways. I like letting my actions do the talking for me, and that has gotten me this far. There’s no reason to switch that up now. It doesn’t matter to me how it happens, or who gets the win, as long as we advance to the tournament finals. Like I said back in the first round, this tournament is my one shot to make a first impression in this company. There would be nothing quite like stepping into the company and then immediately going on to win the biggest tournament of the year. That is the ending to the first chapter of my career that I have been planning since before I even signed my name on a contract. I have come this far. I won’t be denied at this point.
As far as Max Burke goes, he should be glad that he got to play in the tournament for this long this year. He could have been out a couple of rounds ago if he had to square up with anyone legit. Maybe after this he will stick to keeping himself to the junior leagues with Underground and GRIME. After all, he can be the top champion there, despite never being good enough to do it in Sin City Wrestling. But Myra I almost feel bad for. She’s like a less nauseatingly nice Sam Marlowe. She doesn’t deserve the fight that we are going to bring her. Honestly, I am sorry that this couldn’t be in the finals. I am sorry that her quest has to come to a close a full round short of the finish line, but such is life. I am sure there will be other opportunities in her future. After all, Mercedes is still getting shots despite failing in the clutch so many times before. Myra could make a Hall of Fame career out of following that path apparently. That will have to be good enough for her, because Blast from the Past 2022 Champion will not be an accomplishment on her resume, and she will have to wait for her next big opportunity to lose to Amber, because the prize for this tournament is not hers to claim.
For Levana and I, this is our time. Our rise. Our moment to seize.
The rest of you should be thrilled that you get to watch it happen.
