[Christian Underwood]

Please post all roleplays here! Have fun and good luck!

[Dreamkiller]

Chapter 40: Threats

Home.

That’s what this felt like. Walking through the door, putting away all of my clothes, putting all the extra things I had in storage. It felt like returning – returning to a happy place where I knew I was safe. A place where I knew I could smile and laugh. It didn’t even bother me that I was going to be living with people instead of being alone. As long as I was with him, everything was going to be fine.

The look of shock on Aiden‘s face was worth it. Kallie, of course, knew.

The biggest shock for Aiden was seeing me move all of my clothes into my old room. Because even though Finn and I had told each other that we loved each other, even though I had moved back in, and even though we were spending a lot of time together, we still hadn’t started dating though I was giving him a tremendous amount of shit about it.

And no, before any of you think it, Finn and I have not had sex.

Yet….

It doesn’t mean that we weren’t going to, it doesn’t mean that we will any time soon, but I’m very happy with the way we are. I know how he feels about me and he knows how I feel about him. We have long conversations, talking about our past and where we have been. As well where we want to go. He makes me smile, he makes me laugh, and for the first time in a long time I feel at ease with myself. And it’s all because of him.

I moved around the apartment, looking around and noticing that any of the changes that I had made before I left it stayed. He obviously cared about what I thought. Everyone was out, I didn’t know where Finn was, I didn’t know where Aiden or Kallie were.

It was silent. Serene. I took a deep breath and sat down, my coffee in my hands. I was finally able to breathe. As much as I loved the apartment that I bought, and as much as I wanted to make it home, it never had that feeling. That feeling of being able to just be free.

My serenity was shattered as there was a knock at the door. I got to my feet and moved thinking that maybe one of them had forgotten their key, but a chill ran down my spine as I looked over to the small monitor that connected to the camera above the door.

It was Jace.

I swallowed hard and shook my head, unlocking the deadbolt and opening the heavy security door. Jace smiled when he saw me, eyeing me up and down like he was a hunting predator and I was just a snack he could take. The truth is a few years ago that look would make me blush, but right now all it did was make me sick. ”Mmm, hello little one.”

My nostrils flared as he went to walk inside. I didn’t move, crossing my arms as I stood in the doorway.

”What do you want?” My voice was emotionless and dry, I was trying to prove a point. But I wasn’t afraid of him, that he didn’t intimidate me, in fact his existence was nothing but a mild annoyance to me.

He scoffed and growled before stepping forward and into the apartment looking around ”Nice place your boyfriend has…”

I took a deep breath, my eyes burning a hole right through Jace as he moved around my home. ”Yes…our home is beautiful.” Jace turned and looked at me, over his shoulder like I was an afterthought. My nostrils flared again as I tried to hold in the anger that I had building up inside. He came to stop at a pair of doors, my bedroom and Finn’s bedroom. ”What do you want Jace?”

He chuckled. The arrogant prick. ”Come on now. You should know by now that I’ve always been watching. But not just you. Your little boyfriend and his brother too. And I know what he did, I know what he’s been doing, and you should know that we won’t take it lightly.”

”Finn had nothing to do wi-“

crack

The back of Jace’s hand flew up and hit me right across the cheek. The familiar sting rattled through my body, and for a moment I was transported back to years ago. When I was a part of his world. And this was a regular occurrence. I forgot myself for a moment, shaking as fear racked through my body. After a few seconds, I collected myself and slowly looked up at him, my green eyes burning right into his.

He smiled.

”There’s my girl. You’ve gotten stronger but you still haven’t changed that much. And I don’t care if your little boyfriend had anything to do with it.” He stepped forward, every single fibre of my being told me to step back and away from him. Instead, I stayed strong and folded my arms over my chest. ”The fact is, your boyfriend’s little shithead brother has sent shockwaves through MY business…..and since he has hidden away and refused to talk to anyone….I have to come to you…”

”What the fuck do you expect me to do about it?“

He laughed to himself and shook his head, stepping forward again, his six foot eight frame hovering over me. He was even bigger than he used to be when we were together. Obviously, he’d put on more muscle mass to become more intimidating. ”Oh Kayla. You just have to do what you do best.” He reached out, running a thumb over my cheek as the rest of his hand moved around to the back of my neck, holding me tightly. ”Be persuasive.”

I slapped his hand away, moving to the side and putting extra bass in my voice ”I have very little to do with Finn’s brother. Dimitri Watson is not someone I’ve ever given a shit about. In fact, the majority of the time, he annoys me to the point where I want to slap him halfway across the fucking room. So, how exactly am I going to influence him to do anything?”

”Because you’ll have no choice!” His voice raised. Not quite to yell, but enough that it startled me. He stepped forward again closing the distance that I created, his nostrils flaring as he bent down so he could get right into my face. Reminding me once again just how small I was compared to him. ”Let me put it this way, if your boyfriend doesn’t get his brother to talk to us, or if you don’t get his brother to talk to us, then your little boy toy is going to be the one who pays. Not you, not Dimitri, Finn. He will be the one who pays. Do you understand me?”

My arms moved from their position of crossing over my chest to being down my sides, my hands bawling to fists as my teeth ground together. I wasn’t scared or intimidated any more, now I was angry. Furious. It built up inside as I stepped forward now, Voluntarily closing the distance to try and make him see that I wasn’t afraid of him. ”You will not lay a fucking hand on him…”

Oh? And w-“

crack

My right hand, balled into a fist, swung and hit him right across the side of the head. He blinked a few times, shocked and stunned that it hurt. ”You want to come after me? Then do it. After all, you told me all about how apparently I was a loose end that you needed to tie up. You want to go after Dimitri then go ahead and do it. He’s the one who is disrespecting all of you, he’s the one who is leading and in charge of this group of Yakuza. Finn has nothing to do with it. So you will not touch him do you understand?”

He took a few breaths, the bogs on his brain turning over as he wondered what he was going to say or do. But then the serious expression on his face turned, he smiled and shook his head with a sigh. ”You get that one for free. But I’m serious. Something needs to be done. Or someone is going to get hurt……do what you can.”

I swallowed hard, looking down before giving him a nod. Jace turned and walked away, opening the door and moving into the hallway as the door slammed shut behind him. I blew out a deep breath, relieved he was gone, my cheek red and sore from the hit. And now I was left alone to wonder.

Just what the fuck do I do now?

Two out of three ain’t bad

”Now I’m done with the “Kayla Richards Slums It tour 2024”. I can get back to doing what I do best. Defending championships and making them worth something.”

Kayla Richards, clearly annoyed, folds her arms over her chest with a sneer on her face. Her long black hair was tied back in a bun with a few strands of hair down her cheeks.

”Since I beat Juliana to take the championship, I have been facing people who shouldn’t be in the ring with me at all. Ariana Angelos, a woman who failed to take the Internet Championship from me so many times I lost count who also failed to take the Mixed Tag Team Championships off myself and Finn. I had to get in the ring with her and I had to face her and defend the world title against her, and the only question I had was why? Why did I have to get in the ring with her? There are so many others in this company who are more deserving of a championship match, but I had to face a woman who I’ve beaten so many times that it legitimately hurts my brain to think about her.”

“And while I have been sitting back and watching these things happen, I’ve been enjoying the Blast From the Past Tournament. Having a look at women who could be my next challenger if I beat Julianna while also looking at some of the makeshift teams that have been around. Remind any of you that Finn and I are still the Mixed Tag Team champions and we need real challengers?”

“Or have you all forgotten? I mean I get it, Finn and I are both the top champions in this company as well as the Mixed Tag Team Champions so maybe those championships are taking a backseat and everyone’s minds. But he and I made a promise to make sure those championships mean something. And I really wanted some of these teams in the Blast From the Past to stick together and maybe make a run at us. But instead half of them didn’t turn up, half of them just took their paycheck and fucked off, and the ones that stayed aren’t worth anything.”

“So, while waiting to defend those championships, I walked into a match with Harper Mason. Someone with boundless potential, who I actually gave a small amount of respect to. Which, let’s face it, if you know me is actually worth about double from anyone else. But Harper failed to do anything but annoy me.”

Kayla takes a few deep breaths, clearly trying to keep herself calm as she thinks about certain things to say and bring up. She looks down, the SCW World Bombshell Championship sitting next to her. A small smile comes across her face as she looks at it. Clearly full of pride that she is the champion.

”I have spent the last few weeks wanting to get my hands on Julianna. See, when she and I faced each other, I was fully prepared for a war. I did and said a lot of things to get under her skin so I could get that championship match. She wanted to main event a SuperCard and joining in, I was able to make that dream happen for her. And I want you to remember that. Julianna DiMaria could not main event a SuperCard if it wasn’t for Kayla Fucking Richards.”

“This isn’t just me being arrogant. Because, I am. This is the truth. The truth is that everyone needs an opponent that brings out the best in them. Everyone needs some kind of spark to make sure that a match that they go into matters. And I provide that. I made those matches against Ariana and Harper mean so much more because of the reaction I had to facing them. I could’ve just sat back and dismissed them completely, instead I made the match against Ariana a point to prove in the match against Mason, one where I wanted to test out her potential.”

“But Julianna? Well the first match aside from being about me wanting a championship opportunity that I had clearly earned, it was about making sure everyone knew the one simple fact that without me her championship reign was going to mean nothing. If she beat me, it would legitimise her, and if she lost to me, it means everything I said was true.”

“And I wondered how that was going to make her feel. I made a big deal last time about pointing out how I dealt with loss. And trust me on this, I don’t want to sound like a broken record, but loss is a huge part of this business. If you act like a loss doesn’t matter then you shouldn’t be here. Every loss should cut you deep. Every loss should make you want to rise up better. if it doesn’t? If you just take those losses time and time again and completely ignore that they’ve happened? Then you will never grow. Look at Ariana, look at someone like Mercedes Vargas, look at people who used to be here like Jessie Salco…”

“They acted like their losses didn’t matter. And they never grow.”

Kayla steps around the table, leaning down and picking up the championship and staring at it before placing it over her shoulder. Clutching onto it and wrapping her fingers around the main plate, the tightness that she holds it clearly showing she is afraid of losing it. But she isn’t going to show that.

”I have grown every single time I’ve lost a match, every time I had something taken from me I got up and right right back to take it and I wanted to see if you would do the same. I even said it before our title match. I said I wondered how you would react. If you would come back at me with everything you had. And for the most part, you did.”

“But you didn’t do it in a way that earns you any real respect.”

“I talked shit about you to get your attention. I plucked your strings and your ego.”

“I played you like a damn fiddle and you danced like a goddamn puppet for me.”

“You had a rematch due to being a former champion and defending it. You had it there. All you had to do was say the words. That’s it. And I don’t, for one second, believe the bullshit you spouted off about you considering walking away and not taking the rematch. You want this title back. But what is more telling is how you attacked me. Coming after me how you answered the other question I had burning…”

“If I took your pride.”

Kayla chuckles and looks up with a huge and I mean HUGE shit eating grin

”See, you had this aura about you Julianna. One of your own making. You came into this company, you built an undefeated streak, you talked your way into a title shot against Courtney Pierce who mentally checked out faster than Oz and Eiley did when me and Finn took the Mixed Tag Titles. You won the title and developed this myth.”

“A myth that you played off. A myth that you spread like COVID at a public gathering. And as long as that myth held you up and made you a star you didn’t care if it was true.”

“Then I came along.”

“I came along and I reached out and took everything you had. I took your undefeated streak that you touted from rooftops, I took that main event you wanted so badly, cause as I said you wouldn’t have had it without me. I took your title, I took your relevancy and I took your pride. Just like I said I would. I had you beaten before you even looked at the ring that night Julianna….”

Kayla offered a simple shrug with an arrogant smirk, her upper lip curling as she went.

”And then, well then you attacked me and Christian came to me. He told me that I wasn’t going to be able to get my hands on you until the SuperCard. And at the time I was angry. I was annoyed. You see, I’ve always had this thing where I believe that an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. I know they sit there and they add the whole thing of an eye for an eye makes the whole world but here’s the thing. I don’t come for one eye. If I’m gonna be coming for you, I’m gonna take both of them. and Christian knew that.”

“He knew that if I was left unchecked I was going to go after you and I was going to ruin what could’ve been one of the biggest main events that this company has ever done.”

“So, I don’t blame him.”

“However, you should be thanking him. You should be going into Christian‘s office getting down on your hands and knees and kissing the ground that he walks on. Because he saved you. At least for a little while. He protected you from me because he knew what I was going to do when I got my hands on you and he wanted to make money off of that. So he made sure that you were going to make it Into the Void.”

“And yeah, that meant that I had to stay back and watch you run your mouth. And aside from a few times where I verbally went after you in promos or on the shows themselves I was going to buy my time and wait until this show. Is this was my chance to remind you just who the fuck you are dealing with. And in the end, Julianna I think you need to look at yourself in the mirror and realise just how bad you fucked up.”

She laughed to herself and shook her head, moving the Bombshell Championship from one shoulder to the other.

”Two out of three falls. Really is perfect isn’t it? I beat you once and I can beat you again. But this gives you a little glimmer of hope. You might be able to flick a win over me. But in the end this match is going to work against you. Because you might be able to fluke one win against Me. One. Two? Do you know how hard that is? Do you realise if you go back over my career, not just here, but everywhere else in the professional wrestling landscape that beating me more than once in a row is damn near impossible.”

“Hell, you of all people should know that. I brought up a past. I brought up the fact that while you were down in the developmental company I was ruling the parent company like a fucking queen.”

“You of all people should know how good I am. And instead of looking at that, instead of coming at me with a game plan that worked, instead of coming at me like everyone thought you were going to end simply saying that you wanted to rematch, you came after me physically. You pissed me off. And what did you think that was going to accomplish? Did you think that that was going to get my attention to the point where I would applaud you and think that this was some kind of chess game where you knocked me over? Was just going to help you?”

“That did not help you.”

“Instead, it made me wanna cave your head in. And it’s funny how the history of anybody tends to repeat itself. When we faced each other last time, as we had into Blaze of Glory, I told you that all you did was go on the shows week after week and repeat the same narrative time and time again. you had decided to make the same mistake again. The only difference is this time you’ve changed the narrative.”

“This time you have tried sympathy.”

“Empathy.”

“Your tune changed slightly, but it still goes to the same beat. And it’s horrible because with you? You keep repeating yourself as well as others. It’s like a cover song. But one where they’ve gone beat the beat, chorus for chorus, verse for verse. The pitch may have changed, the voice may have changed, but in the end, it is the same thing, the same song, the same dance. and that is what you’ve done and that is all you are. You’re not original, you’re a carbon copy of people who have come before and you like to think that you have some kind of hold over this company. But there’s a reason why everyone else in the Blast From the Past is talking about how if they win that tournament, they are going to face me…”

“Cause no one thinks you can beat me.”

“You know who does think that you can beat me? You do. And something that I’ve been trying to get into your head for the last two months is that you are the only one that matters in this. You are the only one who needs to think that you can beat me. There may have been a laundry list of people in this company who thought I could beat you or wanted me to beat you, but in the end the only person that mattered in that conversation was Me. And at Into the Void, you and I are going to get in that ring, we are going to main event again and I am going to give you a second gift. I’m going to keep you in the limelight again.”

“You’re welcome.”

[Julianna DiMaria]

September 2017

I was a month removed from my WCG West Coast Championship win. My best friends Christy and Ally were at my home seeing the championship for the first time since I won it the month prior. They showered me with congratulations and I was feeling happy until Ally said something that irked me.

“You’re now officially the best wrestler in NGW’s developmental territory…”

“Excuse me?”

“I didn’t mean that as an insult. I mean, you’d think that title would give you a ticket to the main roster, right?”

“I’m just going to pretend I never heard that. But, let me share something with you ladies. This title was more about avenging a loss that should’ve never happened to a wrestler I was always better than, than it was about being the face of a stupid developmental. Yes, this, for me, is a golden ticket to the main roster. Aside from that, it doesn’t mean much to me.”

My best friends were taken aback by this.

“I hate that I even struggled to beat them… that it took me multiple tries… that I’m not the first WCG Champion as I should’ve been…”

“That doesn’t matter, Julianna…” Christy told me, trying to get through to me in vain. “Your predecessor was garbage as champion and you can elevate that title to better heights…”

I shrugged, clearly not caring about that at all.

“When you have people on the main roster talking shit about me, I really just want to get up there fast enough so I can beat all of their asses! You know, that idiot that is a main event player up there? What’s her name again?”

“Kayla Richards?” Ally answered meekly.

“Yes, HER! She’s already talking shit about me. All I did was say that I was going to prove myself to be THE best champion in these parts but OH MY GOD, she took offense to that. I mean, it’s not my fault that she can’t be a main event player without surrounding herself with goons, am I right? Not to worry though, when I get to the main roster, I’m going to beat the shit out of her too.”

“Julianna, that’s not such a wise thing to say…” Christy said, out of concern for my well being.

“Why? Because I’m in DEVELOPMENTAL? Is that it? I shouldn’t be here! I should’ve never BEEN HERE at all! I should’ve gone straight for the main roster! I would’ve won a championship up there by now. But noooo… they had to fucking screw me by sticking me in WCG which I have always seen as a personal insult. You both want to act like this title means a damn to me? To me, it means that I overcame the bullshit of losing to my opponent previously, that I shoved it up the ass of NGW management, and that I have that ticket to the main roster I should already be on!”

There’s the familiar sigh of my best friends knowing that trying to convince me to think differently was pointless.

“Julianna, seriously! You’re biting off more than you can chew. Focus on what you have now, for your sake…” Ally warns me.

“I agree with Ally. You’re not ready for the main roster yet…”

“WHAT?!?!?!!?” I said, about to snap on Christy. “I’ve ALWAYS been ready!”

“If you were ready, you would already be on the main roster…” Christy reasons.

“Get out…” I said to both of them, freezing them in the moment.

“Did I stutter? GET! OUT!”

Both of my friends ask me why I have to be so immature before they ultimately leave my house. I looked at my WCG West Coast Championship and just chucked it on the floor, clearly not caring much about it.

“I’ll play their fucking game… I’ll be that worthless developmental’s champion… and I WILL get my promotion. When I do? EVERYONE that’s picking on me, ESPECIALLY Kayla Richards, will be SILENCED!”

I calmed down, not realizing that the years long, on and off saga between Kayla and I was only getting started.

May 29

I was coming out of remembering that attitude I had as I sat on Hickam Beach near Pearl Harbor.

“That’s how it started…” I thought to myself. There was a sweeping anxiety that was beginning to crawl over me. “...and it still hasn’t finished with her. Kayla being cruel to me is nothing new. She was even before we ever shared the same roster. She’s never given me credit. She leaves out how I even beat her once when we were both in NGW and years ago, she even openly said ‘it never happened’. I remember that.”

I sighed as I continued to reflect.

“Part of that was my own fault though. I mean holy crap, if someone that was my age then had that kind of attitude in the SCW locker room, I’d want to beat the shit out of them…”

I looked down at the sand in front of me, feeling a bit melancholy.

“The worst part about losing her and the possibility of losing to her again is that if it were to happen at Into the Void, I might never be able to erase all of those awful memories I have of such a horrible wrestling company. Those memories make all the criticism I took about my title reign look like child’s play. I have to beat her. I’m at the back of the line… and maybe in the void myself if I don’t…”

I knew I had to get out of my own head but I couldn’t help myself. Those horrible memories from years ago were starting to drown me a bit.

“Kayla wasn’t the only one that bullied me back in NGW. Almost all the locker room did the same! That company went out of their way to make me a laughingstock. Some of the worst losses that broke my psyche for years happened at that company. Being there broke my relationship with my mother, turned me into a perfectionist, and brainwashed me into an ‘all or nothing’ thinking for years…”

“Hey there champ…” I heard my mother say out of nowhere, thankfully snapping me out of my anxiety. I was so relieved to be out of that horrible headspace I sprung up and hugged her.

“What are you doing here?” I said with an excited surprise.

“I’m here to help. Whatever you’re facing, whoever your’re facing, you’re not going to do it alone! You’re going to train with me!”

“WHAT? Mom, you haven’t trained with anyone since you and Dad separated!”

“I’m not THAT out of practice, honey. Listen, when you won that title to begin with, you were there for me. I was in that life threatening situation with my kidney removal and you never gave up on me. You won OUR world title for US. I’m paying back the favor that you did for me last fall. Not only am I going to train you to beat Kayla, I’m going to WATCH YOU win a world title for the first time. I’m not going to miss it this time.”

My anxiety was gone and I was incredibly excited.

“I was thinking about so many things regarding the past that were weighing on my mind…”

Trust me, I know…” my mother said with an amused eye roll. “I remember how bad you had it with Kayla whether it was her starting shit with you or whether you brought it on yourself. I understand how important beating her is to you. We’ll meet back at your hotel, alright? But, I’ll leave you with this. The secret to beating her is to focus inward, not outward.”

My mother and I exchanged an embrace before she left. I was feeling relieved, yet puzzled.

“What does she mean by that?” I sighed and stayed at the beach knowing I had more old memories to sift through.

December 2017

“FINALLY!” I shouted as I was walking into an NGW locker room for the first time! “I got my well earned PROMOTION!”

Moving up from WCG to NGW was a moment that should’ve been amazing. I was feeling like I proved a lot of people wrong. But when I walked into that room for the first time, a couple of the ladies that were on that roster suddenly squirted mustard into my face and near my chest.

“Welcome to the big leagues bitch…” I heard one of the women say as two others were laughing. I was already feeling deflated. “Now you’re going to be exposed as the nothing you really are.”

My youth really came back to bite me in the ass here.

“Fuck yourselves…”

“What are you going to do, Julianna? Talk shit on Twitter and go offline when everyone gangs up on her?”

“I bet she’s used to being ganged up on, if you know what I mean.”

More snickering from those women.

“I earned my way up here! In fact, I should’ve been here in the first place. I was the WCG West Coast Champion… THE top champion! I even defeated one of the main roster wrestlers here and sent them back home crying to retirement!”

“Yeah, but that’s someone low on the totem pole and you know it, Julianna.”

“Besides, nobody cares about your WCG title run. You faced a bunch of nobodies down there so that belt doesn’t mean anything.”

“I WILL be a success up here…” I said, among the laughter of those three women. “I’ll prove EVERYONE here wrong! I’ll fight like hell to prove you all wrong!”

“Hey what’s with the Kayla Richards obsession? Isn’t that kind of creepy? You have a thing for her or something? Don’t you have a boyfriend?”

I was trying so hard not to snap at those three shallow bitches, none of whom are actively wrestling today.

“Funny how she’s not here to talk shit to my face. She’d rather run her mouth off at me on Twitter.”

“Oh please, you’re not worthy of her talking shit to you to your face.”

“Laugh now, but I will get her in the ring one day and I will beat her and silence her and when I do, all of YOU are going to be silenced. I didn’t move up to NGW to get treated like a joke!”

“Honey, you ARE a joke! Read your own social media feed lately? Everyone here including the powers that be laughs at you behind your back.”

“Yeah! They don’t think you’ll make it.”

Before I can even say anything, another woman comes up from behind me and dumps mayonnaise all over my head. She then shoves me right to the floor and they’re all pointing and laughing at me. I look up and there are already tears running down my face.

“AW! The poor baby is CRYING!”

“Go back to mommy, okay? I’m sure she has a big bottle for you!”

“You’re ALL going to be proven wrong! You’ll see! I’ll be a bigger star than all of you combined!”

“Yeah, maybe when hover cars happen…”

“Go be a stripper or something, because you’ll never make it in wrestling…”

The laughs I heard for those few seconds would haunt me and shape me for years. I was angry, sobbing, cursing, saying that I wanted to prove everyone wrong and shut every hater (especially Kayla) up for good. The broken women I was at this moment was searing my thoughts when I met my mother back at my hotel later.

"I've always had a problem with feeling the need to silence people."

My mother wasn’t shocked when I told her this.

“Lately? It’s felt like I really need to do that with this match. You’ve got people in that dumb tournament already assuming Kayla is the champion they’re going to face. They clearly don’t believe in me and it bugs me. But what bugs me more is knowing I put myself in this situation.”

My mother continued to listen.

“I fell for Kayla’s trap and I know it. All I had to do was ignore her and let her earn her shot. I’d still be world champion now if I did. I’m so stupid, mother. I shouldn’t have taken the bait just because I wanted to silence her and be done with it.”

“What’s regretting going to do?” my mother sternly asks me. I couldn’t muster an answer. “Julianna, you’ve always felt the need to prove others wrong and it’s NGW poison with how you were treated there that’s the root of that problem. But don’t talk to me…”

My mother went to the door, grabbed a six foot tall mirror and placed it in front of me.

“...talk to the woman that you see.”

“What?”

“My trainer used to do this exercise for me when I was wrestling. Look into the eyes of your reflection…”

I was suddenly entranced by the mirror and my reflection, being deep in thought.

“Filter out all of your wrestling problems and tell me, honestly, what you see looking back in the mirror…”

If it wasn’t my mother doing this for me, I wouldn’t have even bothered to listen. But I did, and I was feeling a glow in my heart.

“I see a woman that’s overcome so much… a warrior… I see someone that was always strong and brilliant enough to overcome anything in her path and always will be. I see a woman that is one of the best in the world at what she does with a stronger, brighter future than ever.”

Those self-affirmations strengthened that glow and my burdens felt like they were melting away.

“Does losing to Kayla change that?”

“No.”

“Would losing to her again change that?”

“No.”

“Did losing to her in the first place prove all those people in NGW right?”

“No.”

I was surprised that I had the strength in me to come to those conclusions on my own.

“So why do you feel the need to prove yourself to everyone else when the only one that matters is you?"

I made an attempt to come up with an answer, but I went a bit cold and numb when I realized that I couldn’t. It was almost as if an epiphany was growing right in front of my eyes and it was so bright and so wonderful I almost wanted to cry tears of joy. Every single negative thing I ever heard about me from the petty comments to the burial comments, from NGW to SCW, was flashing before me and my brain felt like it was being drained of all of those negative thoughts I’ve ever had to suffer through.

“...Mom? I’m realizing how silly that whole mindset is…”

“GOOD! That’s progress. You’re the only one that matters. You don’t have to prove SHIT to Kayla. You don’t have to prove anything to anyone in SCW. You never had to prove anything to your former companies. You never had to prove anything to your father. That woman in the mirror is the only person that matters here and don’t you EVER forget that. I’ll give you some time to really filter out your mind from all the toxic crap it got cluttered with from NGW and any subsequent bullshit since then too. All that shit from those toxic sexist pigs in this company and from those incompetent fools that treated you like a joke in that company… all that shit Courtney said to you, all the shit Kayla is saying to you… take the next few days to purge it from your mind. Because next week? We’re going to bury that NGW past for good.”

I had nothing else to say as my mother left me alone. I looked back at the mirror, still numb, but realizing my mother’s teaching.

“That’s what she meant by inward, not outward…”

Now? I was realizing exactly how strong I’ve always been…

June 1st - USS Missouri

I was standing on the deck of the museum ship with a burlap sack in hand and a part of me was feeling really good for what I was about to do. Thinking back to that mirror exercise my mother had done for me, I knew that she would’ve wanted me to do what I could to declutter my mind from the past. She said that we’re going to bury said past for good and what I was about to do was make my point by digging that grave for those memories just a bit deeper.

“I’m going to start off with some acknowledgements. First off? I fucked up. The smart thing to do was to ignore Kayla Richards and her constant sniping at me instead of falling for an obvious trap. I didn’t do the smart thing. I did the RIGHT thing, ultimately. And as much as that decision was a big fuck up for me when Blaze of Glory went on the air, I would do it all over again. Why should I regret it anymore? Why should I punish myself? I’m not going to do that. I chose to do the right thing over the smart thing and the outcome is what it is. I can’t change that. Regaining the championship in this rematch isn’t going to change that. The point that I am making at this moment is that you don’t grow without fucking up and man, in my early career? I did that a LOT! I want to also acknowledge some of the whispers and some of the chatter about how you have certain people in that Blast from the Past tournament, either those that remain or those that have long been eliminated, that were talking about facing Kayla Richards after this event, as if the outcome is set in stone. I bring this up to say that I’m not fighting this match to prove you wrong and the only opinions that matter are those of my own. I’m not going to go into an angry rant. I’m going to handle my own business. I’m going to regain the SCW Bombshells World Championship in that two out of three falls match at Into the Void. It’s easier said than done, it goes without saying. But if I’m the only one that believes in me? Then I’m the only one I need. Because really… for most of my career? All I’ve done is let the opinions of other people matter…

…and I’m done with that shit…”

I paused, giving an angry glare to the camera and opened the burlap sack to pull out a replica of the first championship I ever won in professional wrestling.

“This is a replica of the WCG West Coast Championship I won 7 years ago in my first company’s developmental territory. You know what this belt represents to me?”

I scoffed before I threw the replica of the belt overboard into the ocean.

“A bunch of bad fucking memories that have done nothing but shape the weakest parts of me as a professional wrestler and I am NOT going to be driven by vengeance or feeling like I need to make up for the past. I am NOT going to be driven anymore by a need to erase my fuck ups! Back then? I fucked up so much! I didn’t do myself any favors, but I was in a toxic environment that did nothing but hold me down for so long, especially psychologically and what I am working on as far as coming back stronger for this rematch is purging every piece of the past that I can… the most toxic pieces of what I’ve had to deal with over my career, so I CAN be stronger, so I CAN be at my best. It’s a work in progress, but no longer is ANY piece of my career or my worth as a person going to be defined by that experience. You WERE part of that experience, Kayla. You know that. You brought it up. Fine. I’ll embrace that and use that to my advantage.

I’ll start off with the obvious…

Blaze of Glory?

Stung. Hurt. It cauterized me. It was painful to swallow the reality of that outcome.

But that’s what I did.

But what you didn’t do then was break me. Oh I know there was a large part of you that wanted to break me. You don’t have to say it. But you didn’t. I’m still standing, growing, evolving…

You beat me. You hurt me. You stung me. But you didn’t break me. I might have lost, but I wasn’t defeated and every single day since then, all I’ve been thinking about is this rematch and regaining that championship by any means necessary. If I have to fight dirty, I’ve shown you based on my actions over the last few weeks, that I WILL fight dirty. I will leave no stone unturned to get that title back from you. I’ve watched back that match countless times over. I know where I’ve fucked up there. I know there were points in the ring and leading up to that match where I clearly showed that I was trying to overcompensate for some shitty fucking experience at a fucking hellhole that has been dead for almost 6 years and any experiences I’ve picked up that have jaded me ever since and I am NOT going to fucking overcompensate anymore, Kayla. I’m not going to make the same mistakes that I did. You got what you fucking wanted. You got that championship.

And you know, I actually had some hope for you that you would actually mature and evolve and grow with the title and not be the same bitter, unsatisfied bitch you’ve always been. The first thing you do… after you were done running up the score on social media that is… is moan about having to defend the championship against Ariana Angelos and while I GET IT in terms of whether or not she was deserving considering they had me defend that title against the likes of fucking Bea and Mercedes, you were the one that was supposed to be better than me right?

You were the one that was supposed to show me how it’s done? Yeah, I admit I bitched about defending the title against subpar competition, but that’s the thing. You’re boasting about how you’re going to be better than me, yet you went down the same fucking path that I did. You’re talking about all the other names you could’ve maybe should’ve faced. I heard what you said about Ariana and while I understand Ariana isn’t someone that is championship material, we can agree on that, but I hung onto every word you said and I couldn’t stop smirking. I felt like maybe I was onto something…

I KNEW I was onto something when you all but admitted that facing Harper Mason was a waste of time. I heard you go on the song and dance you’ve been on before about the annoyances you’ve had to deal with from the women on the roster acting like you didn’t exist, I heard you puff out your chest and talk about what you’ve done in your career, I heard you go on about how you’re going to restore the title back to where it needs to be…

How?

By being the same old shit you were as a challenger then as a champion? You want to give the lecture about how a champion makes the title and all of that, but when you’re the champion you HAVE to evolve, you have to grow. You have to change with the title and you of all people, having been a world champion multiple times over, should know all of that. Yet, there you go again degrading your title defense as a ‘waste of time’, saying Harper is a ‘waste of time’. So what the fuck kind of champion are you if everything and everyone is a waste of time? See, NOW I know the advantage that I DO have over you, Kayla: and that’s PERSPECTIVE! I take the time to learn from my mistakes, I dissect everywhere I went wrong, I look back at what I could’ve done different, better, I evolve and grow from my mistakes but you keep making them repeatedly but that doesn’t matter does it? Because the results justify it, right? You fail to see the big picture much of the time. You were getting on me for complaining about my title defenses and who I was facing in the ring, but you’ve been going around and doing the same thing since you won the title yourself? You carry yourself the same way that I am learning to CEASE carrying myself and that is allowing whatever you’ve been through to push you…

You’re the champion, you got the belt you wanted so fucking bad, but all you want to focus on is this ‘waste of time’ that happened to you, or this inconvenience, or how you were fucked over in one company or how such and such happened in some other place and how it drove you. You’re living a fucking dream, Kayla. You’ve got what everyone in this division should want and that’s not good enough for you, clearly it isn’t. You’re still the same, miserable… and possibly self-loathing though you’ll have too much of an ego to ever admit to that if it’s true… person that is harping on about having to face Ariana X amount of times or how you and Finn Whelan had to deal with Jet City and how Eiley was an idiot toward you and all of that…

You’re still going on about losing the Internet belt to Keira or the inconveniences Ariana caused you…

You’re focused on what you had to overcome to get what you have, NOT on what you can do with what you have. I’m no therapist. I’m not even close to one. But the biggest reason why I can observe something like that in you is because I USED to be the same way. I’m WORKING on getting OUT of that toxic mindset that you happen to find yourself in. If you want to hang onto the past and if you want to keep bitching about it, that’s up to you. You do you on that. As someone who used to live life the way that you do, I actually feel SORRY for you because I know how self-destructive a mindset like yours is and I would never wish that upon my worst enemy, not even you. What you have shown me since you won that championship is that it’s entirely possible that you’re not ready to be world champion here just yet.

If you did? You’d grow with the title and so far? You haven’t. You’ve stayed stuck in place. I know it’s still early for you, but if people want to criticize me two weeks into my reign as some did, then hey, fair game right?

I’ve learned to look myself in the mirror and realize there’s more to this business and this life than being a world champion. Don’t get me wrong, I want to fucking beat you and reclaim that championship, but I’m not going to go into a bunker or a corner somewhere and cry my eyes out if I don’t. I’m not that kind of person that I was six, seven years ago… the person that you know. You even admitted as such in recent weeks. I can hold my head up high no matter what happens in that two out of three falls match because I am learning that the opinions of other people, your opinions, Courtney’s opinions, Luna’s opinions… or I guess they’re LIES honestly…

They don’t mean shit.

If someone wants to assume they face you after the tournament? So what. It means shit for me. I can at least look in the mirror and say that.

I can hold my head up high knowing I’m okay and that I am BETTER than being a person that is self-obsessed with their own, borderline unhealthy ego.

But can YOU, Kayla?

Because if you can’t even be happy at a time where you SHOULD be at your happiest, fresh off of beating me for that championship that I’m about to win back, then how the FUCK are you going to properly function without that championship?

How the FUCK are you going to live with yourself KNOWING you didn’t set out what you wanted to do, KNOWING that you’re going to feel like shit because of it, KNOWING that you flushed away an opportunity to back up your words and to SHOW you deserve to be a world champion?

Because losing that belt back to me reduces your reign to a title defense against Ariana, a win against Harper AND?!?!?!

I’m a work in progress, I’ll be the first to admit that. But if I can win a world championship here BEFORE I even started being a work in progress, then I KNOW in my heart that I can, I WILL regain that championship from someone so psychologically fragile and in their endless narcissistic loop that will eventually lead to their own self-destruction.

You still NEED this to validate yourself, Kayla.

I don’t need to validate SHIT… not anymore, not to anyone else, and especially not to someone like YOU.

How the fuck are you going to function knowing you failed yourself as the SCW Bombshells World Champion?

That’s the first question you’ll be asking yourself after I beat you and win that title back…

At this point? I shut off the camera and sit on the deck of the Missouri taking in the sounds of the ocean and preparing myself for whatever my mother had in store for me for my psychological training for the rematch to come.

[Dreamkiller]

Chapter 41: Sisterly advice

I needed advice.

I hate to admit this especially so soon after having to go to my mother. But sometimes you face something where you just need to know that other people have gone through something similar. People who know what it’s like to stare this kind of bullshit in the face. Going to my mother was hard enough, knowing that she was there and was going to silently judge me for everything that I was going to ask her.

But this one was different. Somehow it was even worse. Simply for the fact that I’ve been down this road before. I’ve gone through all of this crap last time I was involved with Jace and his family. And I was about to drag someone else into it, who had it even worse than I did. Even though part of Me still blamed her for getting me involved in the first place.

My older sister Amber.

Many people have no idea that there is another Richard sister. They know that I talk about my younger sister, Tasmin,  but Amber was the one who got us all involved in professional wrestling. Our older brother had gotten involved too, we didn’t know that at the time. Amber left Home, went and got trained, and for a brief period was the best female professional wrestler on the planet.

Or at least that’s what she will tell you.

She, much like myself, lived in New York. Amber had been out of the professional wrestling business for a while. Choosing instead to raise her twin daughters with her husband. They were happy, my sister was away from the wrestling life and away from all of the trappings that came with it. But she was a wealth of knowledge when it came to 2 things in life. Professional wrestling, and dealing with those fucking gypsies.

You see, Amber‘s first husband was a man named Renée Pleasant, the older brother of Jace Pleasant the man who was currently making my life a living hell. Am dreaming into that life, corrupted by that entire family. Amber fort tooth and nail to get out of there while for a time I thrive. I thrive in a world where it was ruled by strength and vindictive nature. Something that I was very very good at.

I needed my sister. I needed her guidance. But I was also struck with a horrible guilty feeling in the pit of my stomach. Because I was about to drag her into something that she wouldn’t want to be. Into a world that she fought so hard to get away from.

She opened the door, her hair tied back, her make-up impeccable. She wore a black turtleneck sweater and black jeans. She was still in amazing shape, hell, if I didn’t know any better I’d say she was gearing up for some kind of return to the ring. Her tattoos were still vibrant as the day that she got them, visible on her hands and to her wrists with the rest of them all covered.

She smiled at me and leaned forward for a hug. ”Kay! Oh, it’s great to see you….” I chuckled and gave her a small nod as we both entered her apartment. Nova and Luna my twin nieces sat on the floor doing their homework. I couldn’t believe it had been 6 years already.

”They remind me of us…..” I smiled, it was a warm genuine smile. Those two little girls look so much like their mother and therefore so much like myself. Jet black hair, sharp cheekbones, beautiful emerald green eyes. They were the spitting image of Amber and also myself, even though she and I were not twins.

”Me too…..so what do ai owe the honor of this visit?”

We sat down at her kitchen bench. I sighed and had no idea where to begin with all this. ”Well, I moved back in with Finn….” Ambers's eyes widened, and I knew what she wanted to ask. ”Before you jump in…..yes we’re together. No, we haven’t slept together, we’re taking it slow. Yes I’m happy…”

She blinked a few times, tilting her head as she searched for any other questions to ask. I stayed silent, still thinking of how I would bring up what I needed to. ”That is great, so…..I have a feeling you came here for something else.”

I took a deep breath and swallowed hard. ”Yeah. Well I had a visitor at Finn's and he-“

”Oh two men? The life of an unmarried woman.”

I know she was just joking, a smile coming across her face as she sat back. ”It was Jace…” and with that the entire mood in the room changed. Amber went from smiling and joking to deadly serious. A look of fear came across her as she tried to hide it and readjust her emotions. It was a move that I knew quite well. Since it was something that I also do. she closed her eyes and shook her head looking over at Nova and Luna before looking back at me.

She was holding back tears. ”Why did he come to see you? What did he want?”

I took another deep breath and shook my head. ” Finn's brother…..” I trailed off, my voice quivering as I tried to word it properly. ”To keep you as safe as possible, let’s just say that his brother got himself into a position of power that he is not equipped to deal with whatsoever. But it’s put him on their radar. And of course, Jase is trying to leverage my relationship with Finn as a way to get into Dickies head, and I don’t know what to do.”

Amber gave a slow nod and looked over at the girls again. She was scared to death. And I understood why. ”What does Finn want to do? And Dickie? He should-“

”Neither of them know….”

Amber stopped mid-sentence, looking at me confused. And I get it, I do. I know how dangerous these people are and I hadn’t yet told Finn what was said or what was threatened. I hadn’t brought it up to Dickie even though he was the one who was causing all of this somehow fumble fucking his way into being the leader of the goddamn accuser. Yes I realize how fucked up that sentence was but just trust me on this. It’s not something in my control. ”You know how dangerous they are. You know what they are capable of…”

”I know….”

I swallowed, my heart syncing to the bottom of my stomach. Amber was right. I didn’t know what they were capable of. I knew what I had gone through and what I had seen others go through. This was going to be bad. This is not something that I wanted to be a part of and definitely not something I wanted to drag my sister into. ”If you want my advice…” I looked up, tilting my head as Amber shook hers. ”Tell Finn…..tell him everything. And then tell Dickie, together, as a United front.”

”I want to do that…but….Amber we’ve only just fixed things…” I paused and shook my head looking away. ”I can’t….lose him.”

Her eyes were filled with sympathy for a split second, but just as quickly as it was there it was gone again. Filled with a certain level of sisterly dominance. She sneered and leaned forward getting right in my face. ”And if you don’t fix this if you don’t tell him what is going on and come up with a plan? You will lose him. And it won’t just be him leaving, he’ll be dead Kayla…..”

I had no idea what to say. I know she was right. But I still didn’t want to say it, I didn’t want to admit it to myself. I took a few deep breaths and closed my eyes before opening them again and giving her a small nod. I understood she understood that I understood. And now we both sat there unable to fully process the world that we found ourselves in. And the fact that our sins from the past were still affecting our future.

History repeats.

The silence is broken by the sound of a bottle being opened. A glass clinks as ice hits the bottom. A pale tattooed hand with black nail polish-covered nails grabs a hold of a bottle of Jack Daniels. It gets tilted sideways, the amber liquid filling the small glass.

”We all have a history. Every single one of us.”

Kayla Richards, the current SCW Bombshells world champion sits in the Home that she shares with the current SCW world champion Finn Whelan. A glass of Jack Daniels on the rocks in her hand as she sits back and relaxes. Dressed in a low-cut sleeveless white gown, with a large slit up the side showing her heavily tattooed leg and body. She takes a deep breath in and pushes it out, her makeup impeccably done.

”Unless you have some sort of disease like amnesia. Or unless you are literally born the day before, and in Julianna’s case that would be an advantage because then we could start her personality from scratch. But we all do have a history. Even rookies in this business have a history because they have a personal one, they have something that led them to join these Mötley Crüe personalities. And let’s be honest here you have to be a special kind of crazy to get into the world of professional wrestling. We all have that spark and if we don’t have it, then you really can’t be in here. if you don’t have that small voice in your head telling you to do something outrageously stupid or crazy then you do not belong in here and you need to go find another job doing something much safer.”

She takes a sip closing her eyes as the warmth goes down her throat, her lips covered in a beautiful cherry red lipstick. A fire crackles in a nearby fireplace, Kayla smiles she seems at peace. Not yet leaving to go to the show.

”The thing is, it was nice of you to finally acknowledge your history, Julianna. To finally have a look at yourself in the mirror and realize that you have always, always been in my shadow. You were in my shadow in another company, when everyone was turning around and talking about you like you were the biggest baddest bitch in the professional wrestling world everyone pointed at me and said I was the standard bearer. I was the measuring stick for someone who would go to the extremes that I’ve gone to. whether or not you’ll admit it you have always been compared to me.”

“And even now you’re following me. Think about it. And this goes out to everyone. If I hadn’t brought up the history that she and I share, would she have ever acknowledged it? Or would she have tried to stay in wishful ignorance at the fact that I have always been better than her and she has always been beneath me? Really, go back and have a look. Whenever I bring something up, whenever I throw it in her face, she suddenly remembers it and goes on at length about it. But before that, nothing, crickets, silence.”

“She seems to have some sort of mental block where she doesn’t even want to acknowledge or bring things up first because she realizes how much it makes her look bad and how much of a hypocritical bullshit artist she is.”

“So, because I was able to bring it up and give you something to talk about, I’m just going to say this. You are welcome. You are welcome for everything I have ever done for you. However, you completely missed the point of my little history lesson. I brought all of that stuff up to make you realize that the only thing you ever had to do to stop being in my shadow is truly be yourself. The only problem with that is that you have no idea who you’re meant to be. everyone knows who I am, everyone knows what I’m about, and everyone knows the family that I come from. But you? You change personalities like most people change their panties.”

Kayla chuckles to herself, flippantly throwing her hand out before taking another sip of Jack Daniels. She puts the glass down, on a coaster because she isn’t a savage like most of you. She sits back and throws her arms out over the back of the couch.

”With me you understand what you’re going to get. People know who I am. Just like I know who you are. You see Julianna, I think we’ve all seen what kind of person you are now. When forced to, you will look in a mirror and you will acknowledge history. You will acknowledge your past and you will acknowledge who you are and who you have been. But you have never learned a goddamn thing. Every loss, every win, it’s just been there. You have never, really learned anything.”

“And that is your biggest flaw.”

“Your biggest failure.”

“You seem to like projecting your own failures on other people. Sitting there and saying that I haven’t evolved. Evolved from what? I told you exactly what I was going to do as the champion. I told you exactly what I was supposed to do when I beat you. and yes, I acknowledge that you had to put that championship on the line against some people who didn’t want to and who were beneath you just like I’ve had to. But the difference? The difference is I knew this rematch was coming. And I also know where it is going. I know that if I beat you, and I say if because I’m not as big of an egomaniac as people believe…. so if I beat you I know for a fact I’ll be facing the winner of the blast in the past. And that person will have earned a championship match.”

“Just like you did by being a former champion.”

“But saying I never evolved? Are you kidding? I already did more for this championship than you ever did. I’ve made this championship more than you ever did. I did that by not even being the champion. You’re sitting there trying to use my own words against me, telling me some bullshit story about how you take issue with my comments about how you make the championship. The championship doesn’t make you. Honey, in about a quarter of the time that you held the championship I’ve done more for it than you ever have or ever will.”

“I hate to whip a dead horse because you can’t hear it scream, but I was the reason this championship was in a supercar main event match not you. And since holding the championship I have invented climax controls, and now I’m on the verge of making sure this championship main event it’s second street SuperCard. I did it as a challenger and now I’m doing it as a champion.”

“So, tell me again how I haven’t been involved and how I haven’t made the championship worth more.”

Kayla can’t help but laugh, looking up at the ceiling before back down again, tilting her head with another arrogant, she’s eating grin on her face. Kayla then leans forward and grabs her glass, taking another sip and placing it back down calmly before choosing her next words carefully.

”You say I didn’t break you. I say that you were broken before I even got in the ring with you. The first time. And now? Well, now you are trying to salvage every little piece of you that you can. Like a panicked child who has broken her mother‘s favorite vase. You are on your hands and knees picking up every single little piece in some vain. Hope that you’re going to be able to paste it all back together and make it whole.”

“The problem is you’re going about it the wrong way. The best way for you to no longer be broken would be to come back as the real you….”

“But you can’t find her.”

“You can’t find the real you. Because you don’t know who she is anymore. So now you’re clutching at straws trying to find ways that are going to get under my skin when all that’s happened is that I have been proved right every single time. When I beat you, I told the world what I’d hoped you would do and what I thought you would do. I hoped that you would have a match or two and show your dominance before coming out and challenging me to rematch it into the void. To call Me out and say that you wanted that shot.”

“It was a challenge that I would’ve gladly accepted.”

“Thing is, I knew you wouldn’t. I knew that the two pars you had in front of you were going to win out. Instead of doing the right thing and coming to me like a real woman and challenging me like I did to you, well, you had two choices. To either run away or to attack me to get my attention as some kind of misguided attempt to get the upper hand on me. When all you did was piss me off. And show the world what kind of person you are.”

“Congratulations.”

She sighed to herself, moving her legs and crossing the left over the right instead of the right over the left as it had been previously.


”See, there is one universal truth in this world. A saying that is so correct that everyone will keep saying it over and over again. It’s a simple one. Actions speak louder than words. When you were the champion, your actions spoke very loudly. You complained about not being in the main event while not doing anything to do it. Rectify the situation in any way shape or form. I have been beating everyone, holding the mixed tag team championships, and beating Hall of Fame names over and over again.”

“I set the standard and I was one of the best in this company. I then took it upon myself to make damn sure that people knew that I wanted to get my hands on you. You ignored me until you couldn’t anymore. Then you told me to meet you in the ring. And I did.”

“And since then, since you made the mistake of having the greatest sin of all the sin of pride you have been in my shadow in this company.”

“You could have challenged Me outright. Hell, if I got past you and the blast from the past wasn’t on Luna Palsino was first on my list of women who have earned a shot at the titles so the fact that a woman like her is in the blasting past final makes me smile. Because she is someone who has earned a championship match. My actions as champion have been very simple. I’ve beaten everyone who they put in front of me. And when you attacked me, I showed restraint and I showed mercy because I could’ve found a way to get to you and end you.”

“You are only in this main event and only had the last main event because I allowed it to happen…”

Her arrogance shines as Kayla leans forward and stands taking her glass and moving to the fire standing above it and looking down.

”And the match type, well that also doesn’t work in your favor. Beating me once as hard, beating me twice? Well, that’s damn near impossible. As I said before. I realise I’m repeating myself here but you need to realise this. And you also need to think to yourself, if you can get one pinfall over me, it still won’t be a victory, But you get to keep a small amount of pride. However, what about the alternative? What happens if I beat you in two straight falls?”

“Your already fragile ego will break into 1 million pieces. I will hold that championship over my head and you will stare up and realise that as long as I am champion you will never have another opportunity. This is your final shot. I’m not the kind of person who likes to give people performances. I hate the fact that I’ve had to kick the crap out of Angela’s time and time again, I hate the fact that I’ve had to face others in this company over and over again. So when I am done with you, that’s it.’

“I’m going to go on to face the winner of the blast from the past, I am going to start looking at the rest of the names in this company and I’m going to select one who has a great winning record to face me. Because I do not hide from the greatest challenges. Unlike you. and into the void I’m going to remind you why you ducked me for so long. I’m going to remind you why I beat you the first time. And the rest of the world is going to see that I have been right about you from day one.”

“And you? You will just realize that you are everything that everyone has ever said about you. Overrated, a failure, and someone with an inability to grow and become something greater than she believes herself to be…..”

[Julianna DiMaria]

July 2018

"WHY do you tap out to a piece of shit like that? AT MSG? TO A BOTTOM BARREL PIECE OF SHIT WHO TROLLED YOU UNDER A FUCKING MASK THAT YOU HAD BEATEN BEFORE?"

My father was yelling at me over speakerphone while I was holding onto my arm and swallowing a horrible humiliation of tapping out in my first “big stage” match in Madison Square Garden of all places. I was shaking when I wasn’t numb. The tears were already falling though I didn’t know how much was from the humiliation and how much was from being screamed at.

“You’re a fucking PUSSY!” my father outright said. “Why couldn’t have I had a daughter like Kayla Richards instead? At least she’s tough and wouldn’t give up like a bitch.”

“You know I don’t like her…” I managed to say.

“She would’ve made a better daughter than you. She’s going out and winning while you throw your entire career away. Nobody in NGW will ever take you seriously.”

“I’m sorry… I tried too hard… everyone here thinks I’m a laughingstock and treats me like that and I hate it and…”

My voice was becoming more broken as I continued.

“...I push myself to prove them wrong and to not be seen as a laughingstock… I push myself so hard and it isn’t working and…”

“I’m not interested in your excuses or blaming your environment. Fuck’s sake, I wish your mother cheated on me because I’m ashamed that you’re my daughter.”

“Dad… how can you…”

He hung up on me and I heard laughter from one of the women in the locker room. The worst night of my career so far just got worse.

“That was SO FUNNY! You’re SO BAD that your own DADDY wishes you weren’t his daughter”

I wanted to fight back against the woman, but I didn’t have it in me to do so. All I could do is cry and continue to swallow humiliation as she continued…

“This is what happens when you try to overcompensate for how much of a failure you’re destined to be. This is why you never try to be better than what you actually are and you not only proved that you’re daddy’s little disappointment, but you also proved that you can’t hack it in NGW!”

She’s cackling at this point.

“You do this just to please Daddy, don’t you?”

“Stop…” I said weakly through my own tears.

“Julianna, when are you going to admit to yourself that you’re never going to amount to anything especially after you’ve proven tonight, in front of the whole world, that you’ll always be a developmental wrestler at best?”

“Please stop…” I said with tons of defeat in my voice.

“PLEASE STOP!” the bully retorted back in a dramatic, whiny voice just to mock me and further make fun of me. “You tapped out to one of the worst wrestlers on the roster, someone you even beat while you were still in WCG, on Pay-Per-View, in Madison Square Garden! Aw, you can’t handle the reality that you’re awful and you belong on a stripper pole? POOR BABY!”

“Please… STOP….” I uttered one more time.

“Please…. QUIT! Goodness, you try so fucking hard when things are going bad to the point where you just make everything worse! You know what, I can’t stand staring at your ugly ass face anymore…”

The bully comes by me and smacks me across the face.

“So I might as well just bitchslap it the way your opponent did when you tapped out… HA! I’m SOOOO FUNNY! Toodles, bitch! Please quit!

Finally, she disappeared. It was one of those nights where I was just too broken to hold myself together. Everything was going wrong. NGW and my wrestling dream had both turned into nightmares on top of, of course, the always-abusive relationship I always had with my father. I had no answers, but I was desperately trying to scramble for them.

I’ve spent years trying to overcompensate to prevent such a horrible chapter like NGW to ever happen to me again.

June 4

"We're about to put to overcome that right now..."

My mother said those words to me as we stood behind the curtain of an auditorium stage. I was tense when we walked through said curtains and I was in for a happy surprise when I stepped on the stage.

“Liam! HI!” I said to him with excitement as he sat in the front row.”

“Hey!”

“You didn’t tell me you were coming.”

“I wasn’t going to miss this.”

“Alright, let’s get down to business…” my mother cut in. “This is THE mental exercise that is going to prepare you for the future.”

I nodded, feeling a pit in my stomach.

“You’re going to pretend that the bullies you dealt with back then are all sitting in that crowd… except Kayla. She’ll come later.”

Here comes my anxiety…

“You need to tell them how you feel and to remind them that YOU won! Those horrible people from that awful company need to be reminded of how far you’ve come especially in comparison to their careers since then… which for most, it led to nothing.”

“Mom, I don’t know if I can do this…”

“Honey, you ended up with a far better career than most of those horrible people combined.”

“...you’re right. Let’s do this.”

I walked up to the front of the stage, picturing every one of those bullies. I was feeling those dreadful emotions from years ago all over again. I remembered the hazing that I took, the mockery that I had to swallow after losing matches back then, the guilt knowing I had a hand in it myself. I imagined all their faces and I let it all out.

“You were all wrong about me…” I paused for a deep breath. “...I feel like you all bullied me because you were threatened by me and what I was always capable of. I feel like all of you can burn in hell for all the shit that you put me through and if a bus consisting of all of you was about to fly off a cliff and I had the power to save you people, I wouldn’t use it. I got the last laugh in the end. You people back in NGW? You became FAILURES! Most of you failed to even accrue any sort of relevant career after that hellhole died. Most of you haven’t wrestled in more than a year. Tell me again who ended up amounting to NOTHING! Despite EVERYTHING you put me through, I STILL thrived!”

Here comes that familiar fire.

“I became a three-time world champion, about to be four…

I STILL got into a Hall of Fame…

I pulled off the amazing run that I have in SCW so far, a company none of you could ever be good enough to be in. You’ll never say sorry for what you put me through, but that’s fine. I don’t need any of your fucking validations. I’m angry at myself for allowing the abuse that I went through because of NGW, but I’m so GRATEFUL for ALL that I’ve overcome and the wrestler I turned out to be despite it all….

…fuck….”

My eyes widened with shock as another epiphany just hit me.

“Everything okay, honey?” my mother asked.

“I felt like I had to beat Kayla to compensate for NGW, and that probably cost me last time, but…I don’t NEED to beat Kayla to erase NGW… and I don’t need to overcompensate for that horrid place…”

“You never did…” my mother said with a smile.

“But you ARE going to beat Kayla, right?” Liam asks from the front row.

“Of course. Mom, I’d already overcome NGW long before I even got to SCW to begin with.”

Tears of joy and this freeing happiness in my heart was beginning to overwhelm me.

“I’ve finally figured it all out…” I said with joy as I suddenly bolted from the stage, knowing that the long overdue healing from NGW finally began…

…I quickly rushed to find a quit place in the auditorium and I settled for a hallway. I sat down at a wall and I closed my eyes, picturing what my younger self would have to say if she was here.

I was imagining a conversation with that very part of me that went through all of the awful abuse I dealt with… it would go something along the lines of her telling me that NGW closing was rock bottom for her…

“I know it was…” I would say to her as I continued to play the whole conversation in my mind.

“I was seen as one of the biggest jokes all across the wrestling world…” my younger self reminded me. “I felt like the events that led to all of that were completely my fault…”

“Don’t think like that…” I reminded her. “There were things that should’ve been handled better, but it was never your fault. You had many people in NGW that went out of their way to try and hurt and bury you and what it did was, it damaged your psyche for years. Even though you are to recover from this and rise above NGW and go on to do great things in other places, even though you’re going to win a couple of world championships and even get into the Hall of Fame, all of your experiences from NGW will fester for years and you’ll have years of the greatest peaks but the lowest valleys. There’s no middle ground… when you’re on your game, you’ll be amazing… but when you’re not, it’ll be like you’re floundering in NGW all over again…”

My younger self sighs, clearly not happy with the warning I just gave her.

“So if you lose to Kayla again…” she asks me with a worried tone in her voice… “...does that mean that another collapse is coming? Does this mean I’m going to start crashing into faded irrelevance again? You’ve mentioned it’s going to happen, and I assume it’s going to be after losing world titles or whatever…”

I sighed, knowing my younger self wasn’t experienced enough to know better.

“...does losing to Kayla again mean that the sky is falling?”

“No…” I reassured her. “Not even close…because once you get to SCW, you’re going to realize how strong and how good you really are and no matter what happens, you’re finally going to learn how to pull it together when things aren’t going quite right and you are going to shine brighter than you ever have in your career. I understand all of what you’re hearing right now is hard to believe considering you’re just coming out of that NGW abuse and you’re at rock bottom at the moment, but if I’m here talking to you know, surely, something went right.”

“That’s a great point…”

“The mental inconsistencies you’ll suffer for many years because of what you went through in NGW will be a thing of the past, I promise you that. Thank you for enduring what you have so far and what you’re going to endure over the next few years to become what I am now and I promise you, the rock bottom you’re in right now? You are NEVER, EVER going to suffer anything like that again. You’ll face future valleys, but NOTHING like what you’re going through right now.”

“Thank you…” my younger self says to me before she disappears from my thoughts.

My heart felt like it was healing and it was such a good feeling that the tears of joy really began to come out of me.

“I needed all that…” I told myself. “I needed to experience and confront that horrible pain one more time so that I can start to move on and grow into what I’m more than capable of becoming…”

“Everything okay?” I heard Liam say from a small distance. I nodded as he sat down next to me. “What happened?”

“I got caught up in the moment…” I admitted. “It was definitely so much to face up to.”

“But you did and that’s what counts.”

“I didn’t think my mother’s mental preparation was going to work so well, but it did. I’m finally healing, Liam. I’ve needed that for such a long time.”

“That’s awesome! I get that what you’re facing up right now is incredibly difficult but you’re going to be fine and you no longer have to carry that burden from NGW anymore. You’re not hurting anymore and no matter what happens, you’re going to be better and stronger from it.”

Liam wraps a comforting arm around me as I allow myself to pull myself together. It was in this moment when I thought about what’s coming up and how that NGW past was poking at me, that I realized the truth about Blaze of Glory.

“Falling for Kayla’s trap wasn’t THE mistake, it was letting the painful burden of my NGW tenure consume and trigger me to the point where I DID fall for that trap… all because I felt like I had to beat Kayla and silence the ghosts of that horrible place.”

“You just DID silence the ghosts, Julianna…” Liam reassures me.

“I agree. I was wrong to see the last encounter with Kayla that way and there’s nothing that woman can do or say to me that’s ever going to bring me back to that rock bottom or to trigger those traumatizing memories that will push me to fall for someone’s trap like that. Because of my mother’s help, I’ve broken a toxic cycle that has been poisoning me for years. I know this isn’t an overnight process and everything, but I’ll own that mistake from before when I beat her and regain that title and if God forbid I don’t…”

I had to take a pause to the point of squinting my eyes for a moment because just floating that possibility was painful enough for me even without the dark clouds of NGW that had just dissipated at last.

“...that title WILL come back to me because I know I am strong enough to keep at it no matter what and to pull it off again. I spent my whole career letting other people define me when in reality, I should be the one defining who I am… nobody but me!”

“You’re getting it now…” he tells me.

“I couldn’t have picked a better time to finally do…”

At this point, we couldn’t resist each other anymore. We were exchanging kisses and obviously this time was more passionate than the time before. Both of us where very much into it when I heard a gasp coming from above us and I felt some slight embarrassment seeing my mother walk in on us.

“....I guess I don’t need to ask if you’re okay?”

I was frozen, still trying to allow the brief embarrassment to pass.

“I was going to tell you about this but… I didn’t know… um… sorry…”

“I’m happy you’re at least diversifying your life a little better.”

“Yeah, but right now I’m ready to get that title back. Thank you so much, mother. As difficult as it was for both of us, this ultimately was a good thing for me in the end.”

“Great! You’re sounding like someone that’s ready to beat her and who is far more prepared than the previous encounter. I’m so happy for you Julianna. The future from here can only be brighter.

Liam and I both stood up and we made our way down the hall. Happiness was flooding me at a pace greater than what I’m used to and now I was as prepared as I can be to end the “Kayla saga” MY way…

June 7

 Ka’ena Point.

I was under a bunch of stars, but also in plenty of darkness. My camera even had an extra light on it due to how remote it was. But before I expressed my thoughts, I dwelled on them just a little longer. The darkness in the sky was definitely a representation of where I was at at one point in my career and in my life and on this night, going into the rematch, I had to really soak it in. I spoke up from there…

“Just prior to coming to SCW, I will be the first to admit that I wasn’t in a good place with my career. A place I was a Hall of Famer at shut down again after abusing me and treating me like a nostalgia act. Another place was on hiatus. I started the year leaving somewhere that played favorites and treated me like a sexual object. It wasn’t a good time to be me yet this company signed me regardless. You would think I was having a blast based on my journey here so far, but nope…

I came from absolutely LITTLE… if ANYTHING… to take this company and the Bombshell Division by storm and it’s FAR from the first time I have ever had to face and overcome adversity to be a stronger wrestler. I’ve had to survive the darkness that swallowed me whole on multiple occasions. I overcame being seen as someone just there to make the ‘chosen ones’ look better to becoming a wrestler people took seriously. I overcame my first ever world title reign in this business being relegated to a piece of shit’s final moment of glory before he retired to win my second of three. Hell, the fact that I even pushed on with my career at ALL after all the bullying and abuse that I took in my first mainstream company really says it all. I have done nothing but dig deep from the very beginning no matter how fucked up the adversity that I go through is and THAT, in my book, makes me a CHAMPION… and one that WILL be a champion again. Surviving that darkness like I have to get BETTER is what makes me STRONGER than you, Kayla… dare I say… BETTER! I’m winning back that SCW Bombshells World Championship because I KNOW I will, and I KNOW how to beat you… simply… by being better than what I was before because I look in the mirror and I see what I was before and I just happen to see you too because the fact of the matter is, Kayla?

All of my weaknesses that I’ve been working hard to erase or at least minimize? YOU have those same weaknesses and you’re too stuck up in your fucking ego to realize it. Oh yeah, I have a hell of an ego, but compared to YOURS? Christ!

It’s one thing to be the kind of person that likes to tear someone else down, it’s a completely different thing to basically feel the NEED to be the HBIC… and Kayla, that’s where you come in. You HAVE to be the biggest bitch on the planet when the reality is, YOU are the coward! YOU have gotten by capitalizing on other people’s fear of you, or by toying with their head and nagging away at their psyche until they finally crack… which is exactly what happened to me. I can’t say I condemn a strategy like that…

I can’t say I wouldn’t have done the same thing…

But I go into this thing KNOWING that I am stronger than you because while I’m not afraid to talk about where I came from int his business and some of the adversity that I’ve had to deal with no matter how fucking hard it is…

YOU?”

I pause to take a scoff.

“Bitch, you don’t even know what adversity is let alone knowing how to overcome it because there’s more to adversity than just winning every single match and every single title under the sun, Kayla. See, you want to criticize the way I talk and what I talk about, but have you taken a second to look at the Greatest Hits Tour that you have going on every single promo? Bitch, you must really like to Go Green because I can easily break down every single promo of yours into five parts…

Boasting about your latest accomplishments…

Complaining about a match or an opponent that you had to deal with…

Regurgitating one or all of either: “I made this title and that title”, “you’re in this main event spot because of me”, “I am saving this title”, “look at all the things that I’ve accomplished”, “I made this person”, “I am the reason for this…”

Mentioning how you dealt with loss and then bragging about how you regained a title or how you avenged a loss to someone you hated losing to…

Talking about how you deserve to be the best while you talk shit about other Bombshells or comment on other happenings in the division and how you’re so much better than what these other happenings are….

Over… and over… and FUCKING OVER again!

But you want to talk shit about me saying the same old shit?

Hell, watching what you had to say, you basically completed the greatest hits tour there and honestly, Kayla? I was waiting for you to say ONE thing to grab my attention, ONE truth about me, ANYTHING new or different…

You brought up ONE good point toward the end regarding that I’m the only one that matters in this in regards to my journey and my perspective, but everything else was the same old song and dance. You NEVER talk about any REAL struggles from your pre-SCW career. You NEVER bring up the adversity you had to go through coming up in this business other than avenging a loss you felt shouldn’t happen. You NEVER connect with the audience, or hell even yourself if we’re being honest. You NEVER mention even a time prior to your SCW career where things weren’t going your way and they pushed you to the brink. You’re afraid to be vulnerable… so you have to be INVINCIBLE…

You’re afraid to be a human being… so you have to be a “monster”... or a “dream killer”...

And THAT is what makes me better than you, Kayla, because I’m not afraid of any of those things. I am not like you. I don’t feel the need to be a monster, but you do. I don’t feel the need to be invincible, yet you do.

But you want to call yourself a champion?

I’m not saying you have to spill your guts and tell the world your entire life story year by year, but I look at you and I wonder how the FUCK I was able to even live with myself carrying those weaknesses that I JUST pointed out to you. Your insatiable pride and the need to be the HBIC of every fucking thing, coasting along your name and everything you’ve gone through to get there, is what is going to be your downfall in the end. Every single time you open your mouth, you have to convince everyone of those “famous five” things that seem to be in every damn promo that comes out of your mouth…

…or is it yourself that you’re trying to convince?

Listening to your promo… KNOWING that you truly don’t fucking know exactly what you want… knowing that you won the championship yet STILL complained about the same old shit you always complain about… knowing that you’ve grown NONE since you beat me… HEARING YOU BRAG about how you made Ariana’s match mean so much more when you went into that same match saying that Ariana was a waste of your time and then bitching about facing her still when you were facing Harper… fucking HYPOCRITICAL of you by the way when you’re saying that you didn’t dismiss Ariana…

…calling her a waste of time is dismissing her in fact…

…then turning around and saying you made it a point to prove…

…I know, listening to all of that, that you’re trying to convince yourself that you are what you say you are because nothing that you do will ever convince you enough. You’re a walking, self-loathing paradox of what a world champion is supposed to be and should you beat me again, it’s going to be the same old thing of running up the score, of bragging, of getting a lesser than standard opponent for your next match, then bitching, then moving on to the next challenger and it’s rinse, repeat, fucking broken record simply you don’t know a damn thing about being anything OTHER than HBIC DOMINANT BITCH that breaks records, wins championships and avenges “fluke losses”...

And you know, if you want to be that self-loathing paradox, then by all means do so because I know, looking at everything up and down in my career ever since you beat me, that I was pretty fucking similar to that. Back in the day, I’d rile up the room and I’d flaunt my uncontrollable ego when things were going my way when deep down, all I was doing was hurting on the inside  and hating myself for whatever reason I could think of. The old me, and the you that you’ve always been… I swear to god, they’re about as close to twins as you can be without sharing the same DNA and you’ve always denied that because you’ve always felt the need to be better than me even back then when we first met in NGW over 7 years ago. We’ve BOTH been in that same loop of darkness that is our pride and ego, Kayla. The biggest difference there is that I JUST learned how to get the fuck out of that loop and you’re just happy to be stuck there and THAT, Kayla, is why I KNOW I’ve got you beat before we even have our rematch…

Because through learning about MYSELF, MY journey, MY flaws, MY shortcomings ever since you beat me… and by the way, that was a LOT to take in… I saw YOU… I saw exactly the person that I DON’T want to be in this business anymore!

Fucking hell, you either go through so much shit that you’re too afraid to even let ANYONE in this company in on because god forbid you’re vulnerable and human in public for even a fucking second, or you truly are a void of a human being that has to live off her own ego and accomplishments. Either way, it’s sad. You stay stuck to your ways. Giving someone any real credit or any real respect is a foreign language you apparently. How the fuck can you live like this, Kayla? Hell, how the fuck was I able to live like that, being who I was before and dealing with hating myself so damn much either because of what I went through in NGW or being constantly abused on an emotional level by my own father?

I don’t know if I’ll ever be ever to answer that question, Kayla. But I know I don’t necessarily NEED to because know I know who I am, what I am capable of, how to push through the worst of times to get to the peak of my career and what it all boils down to was that Blaze of Glory, regardless of how painful that was for me, completely paled in comparison to everything else I’ve been through.

That’s what makes me a champion, Kayla… belt or not.

And everything that I just outlined regarding the weaknesses I’ve studied in you? That’s what makes you a coward. You can win that match on Sunday and move forward with your reign, but you’ll still always be that self-loathing coward that will never be satisfied with anything.

Those times I went after you on Climax Control? It showed me everything that I needed to know. Rather than react like a champion and take it in stride knowing that the belt comes with the territory, you wanted to come after me and kill me. Just that little hint of adversity when I even got the better of you even for a moment was enough to send you into a spiraling rage of anger toward me. So knowing that? I KNOW what I need to do! I KNOW how to throw you off your game. I KNOW how to trigger you. I KNOW your weaknesses now and when you couple that with everything I’ve done to make myself stronger, all of the work I’ve put in to prepare myself for overcoming the adversity in front of me just like I have on a consistent basis throughout my career, I don’t see any fucking reason why I won’t walk out of Sunday with that championship around my waist again. Either I’m going to win that title back, or you’re going to have to kill me trying but either way, I know I’ve got that bright future to look forward to. I know there’s going to be an inevitable match between us again down the road someday. I know who I am now, Kayla. I know who I am destined to be in this world and in this business and I’m going to keep pushing no matter what, EMBRACING the obstacles, not hiding or minimizing them as you do just to make yourself look scarier and better than what you already are.

I just need to make you tick at the right split second… and the three after that will make me SCW Bombshells World Champion again…

…and to give you something to REALLY hate yourself over….”

I felt absolutely no regret, remorse or fear of any repercussions for what I just said. I turned off the camera and gazed at the brightest star in the sky knowing that no matter what happened on Sunday, the star that I know I am at heart still has much brightness left in her…