Empty room. Not totally empty maybe, but it's pretty bare. Uninteresting walls, plain floor, one light.
Chair in the middle, the light is on.
“What do you want me to do here?”
In walks Blade Alexander.
“I don't know what you're expecting here. Like what, you want some diary thing or some skit where we pull pranks or maybe you want to come into my personal life and want to like... I don't know... You want a closer look at who I am... You want to know Blade Alexander?...”
He steps into frame, already dressed in his wrestling attire. Black and white boots, knee pads, rusty red color trunks. The whole package.
“You already know me personally! You already see everything I have to show you!”
“So maybe I don't wake up next to some bombshell... I had a valet once, but that didn't work out... Maybe I don't hang out with friends and family, I don't go have frozen yogurt on the corner with some cashier from Target because I don't care about any of that. I don't care about all of that. It's not me. You get the other guys if you you want reality TV alright? Wrestling is my reality. I'm fake when I'm walking down the street. I'm not me when I'm waking up in my own bed. I'm only me, I'm only myself when I walk down to a wrestling ring. That's when I wake up. When I'm standing in a ring, when I tie up, that's me. That's the real me.”
“And now you want me to come out here and be something else? Fine.”
He sits down in the chair and stares into the camera.
“Hi. I'm Blade Alexander. I have a match coming up at High Stakes II for the SCW Tag Team Championships. It's against Sinful Obsession. They're a great team. It's going to be a hard match. I hope I win. I'm teaming with DJ Williams. He's pretty good. I think we have a good shot.”
“You believe any of that, cause I didn't. None of that is true. Yeah, ok... There's that match. DJ is supposed to, but nobody thinks he will. Fucking Sinful Obsession want to lay a guilt trip on him. I don't care though. If he doesn't show up, that's fine. So I can't depend on him. So what. I can't depend on anyone. That's the story of my fucking life. I'm used to it.”
“My dad, he was a great wrestler. I should have been able to depend on my old man right? But he was never really there when I was growing up. My strongest memories of my dad were him walking out on us. My mom and me. That was it. She was all I had, but cosmic irony, or maybe it's justice... The only person in my life I could ever depend on, she died. Taught me how to be on my own though, so that's good.”
“I had a tag team partner once. Tyler Morton. We made a pretty good team. We didn't talk much though. We just did our thing. I haven't talked to him in like, 2 years.”
“Then there's that valet. She split. So that's Blade Alexander's story in a nutshell. It's pretty fucking funny though if you think about it for a minute. Give a tag team title shot to the biggest loaner you employ, a guy who's done nothing to deserve it, and then, to top it all off... Team him up with a guy who's trying harder to quit then he ever tried to succeed.”
“Tag Team titles too... I can't think of anything that means less. First I thought it was me, but then they make this match and the only ones that are making a deal out of it are the child and that other guy... That guy with the mascara that hold's what's-her-name's purse. They still puff their chests up like anyone cares about them. That's funny. SCW is full of funny lately.”
“Maybe it's just me right, but it used to be, I think, that people with possessions, people like Sinful Obsession were targets. People from all walks of life would hunt them down. People would try and get them. People would want them, but no one does. No one wants their belts. People barely know they have belts. Those guys do all this stuff like their going to win and dominate and be champions, but yeah ok... They have gold belts, but no one cares. I don't want them, I didn't come for them, I was just put into the match where the belts were on the line so there's some incentive for a guy like DJ to show up, but shows what they know. DJ's not going to show up. He doesn't even care. Neither do I.”
He stands up again.
“You would think without the promise of anything meaningful I wouldn't even bother showing up.”
He picks up the chair, folding it.
“But I am going to show up. I'm coming. It's not because I think I have a chance to win the match, I could care less about that. I could out-wrestle either of those guys and they know it. I could out-wrestle both of them at the same time, but I don't want their titles. So why bother?”
“A few days ago that Gabriel, and I honestly had to look that up, had some, uh... Harsh words for me. I seriously didn't even remember his name, I just thought of him as long haired guy. But let's get to some things he said.”
“He said I haven't been the same since my return. True. He said stuff about main eventing and all that before. First off, fuck you Gabriel. Judgmental prick. So I just walked away, so what? I let down the fans... Yes I did because for months they had to put up with bullshit like you and pretend they cared. Second, fuck them. I had my own reasons for leaving. What matches I was about to or not about to have are none of your concern, just like the reasons why I left. Though they included but weren't limited to the fact that I was just going through the motions. Sure I was main eventing, but that was as much because people like you are shitty and I can out-wrestle you in my sleep as it is that I'm so good.”
“Duh, I'm not the same as when I left. I've grown. I wouldn't expect you to recognize that though. You've remained the same and become stagnant when I was gone. You're in a tag team you think people care about with a child. You don't even recognize what wrestling is anymore much less be good at it.”
“You think I've been away losing my edge, but you couldn't be more wrong pal. You accuse me of acting like I've come back and I'm owed something by SCW and that I think they should be giving me something. Well, for one they do owe me. I had the good graces to come back here and elevate the likes of you again, and that's pretty fucking remarkable of someone of my talent level, wasting time on you. But hey, what do I know, I'm a sucker for a born loser.”
“My problem with you though, Gabby, is that you had the audacity to say I've become dull. Maybe I have, maybe we'll find out pretty soon. Maybe I like it dull. Maybe I like a little bit of rust. Maybe what I've become is mad... I've become sadistic.”
He throws the chair across the room and it slams into the wall with a BANG.
“Maybe I've lost what few marbles I had Gabby. Have you ever thought about that? I think I'm owed something? Maybe I am. Not by SCW though. Certainly not by you. What could you possibly owe me? You don't have anything I want.”
“No... I owe myself. I owe myself to come back to SCW and to stop. To STOP going through the motions! To STOP not caring! I owe it to myself to come back to SCW and be exactly the kind of monster I want to be. I owe it to myself to come back to SCW and be exactly what kind of SINNER I really am!”
“No Gabby... I owe it to myself to come back here and fix all of the little bits of myself that I let you break. I owe it to myself to come back to SCW and take back all of the parts of myself that I let people like you take before. And that's going to be difficult...”
He slumps down to a seated position on the floor as much pulling his hand through his hair as he is running it through.
“It's going to be difficult Gabby because it's not meaningless possessions like you have. It's bits of myself. It's my skin that's been left under fingernails. It's my sweat that has spattered on the mat. It's my blood that has soaked into the canvas. It's all gone and I've come to take it all back.”
He rolls himself up to his knees and moves closer, too close to the camera.
“It's not your title belts Gabby. I don't want those. I want myself back, and I'm starting with bits of you. My blood is gone. My skin is gone, but I'll improvise.”
“You said I'm not the same. I was a surgical scalpel before, in the hands of a talented surgeon. I'm that same scalpel now, but it turns out that talented surgeon is moonlighting as Jack the Ripper.”
“I'm not like you. I'm not like the child. You think you come from a place of superiority, that kid warns... No, threatens will veils. I can see through them though. He's cryptic and because of that people think he's crazy, but it turns out that's just because there's no substance to him. He's a spoiled child. Take away his Pooh Bear and Christopher Robin has no choice but to grow up.”
“When it comes to Gabriel he brags, he threatens, but you're not in a position of power. You're fat and bored. You're a stranger to sin. You don't remember it. You have meaningless possessions. It makes you look silly.”
“The difference between me and every other team you've faced for your titles... They were trying to take them from you. I'm going to take something else and I'm going to do it alone.”
Fade.
