AGGRESSION 52: KOTC - The First vs. Copycat
- Thread starter DBrunkGXW
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The Great Eye
I came to cut you up
- Joined
- Jan 29, 2004
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- 1,337
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(FADEIN: The First sitting on a bench in the bleachers of Salem High School. He’s wearing a black T-Shirt, black sweat pants, black sneakers, his face painted up like Prince Nuada. Beside him is Muse in her steam punk outfit, playing an acoustic guitar playing “Tonight, Tonight” by Smashing Pumpkins.)
FIRST: In retrospect, I could say losing at Black Dawn was meaningless…Since Dan Ryan has hit the reset button on the whole company, 13 different men have a chance to become the new EPW World Champion when this is over, hell the title could change hands three times before it’s all said and done.
Given the luck of the draw, if I’d been champion and Stevens been in my spot, well, odds are I’d be facing him anyhow….All the EPW World Title being good for is a bye…
I could say these things, but I’d be lying…
Because life is but moments and memories…Moments experienced and lived and memories to savor and enjoy. There is a reason we can recall our first kiss…Where we were when a loved one passed away…When our child takes its first step…These are personal things, but they are universal also…
And my moment was denied me…By my own hand…I made a mistake and it cost me everything…And that moment was not just taken from me but from my fans as well, and that cuts me to the bone…But now that moment is but fuel for a new fight, a new battle...
Who better to have that fight with then Copycat…The man who began all this fun so long ago by costing me a match against Cameron Cruise…Copycat who then ran and hid from me…Was it the guns that scared you off Copycat (First flexes his right arm) or the face paint (Points to face) What about me spooked you so much? Seems so odd, a giant, a monster like yourself, begging off against fighting little old me…
You really do prove the old adage true that it isn’t the size of the dog in the fight, it’s the size of the fight in the dog, because you sir, have so little fight in you it’s scary. You’ve spend your career here living off Anthology’s name, looking for conspiracies and excuses to explain your failures. Done everything but look in the mirror and taken responsibility for what you’ve done. I’ve lost my share of matches, but that’s on me, and I accept that…You, everything’s Dan Ryan’s fault or Lindsay Troy’s…Just somebody, anybody but you…
Now Copycat, now you can’t run from me any more…No, now for your crimes, supposedly forgotten so long ago, you pay…And you can’t run from yourself either…No this time you lose and this time, it’s on you…Don’t blame the ref after I beat you, don’t complain about a rigged draw throwing you in the ring with me…Because there isn’t a person in the EPW Locker Room who wouldn’t be in our shoes, just one match away from fighting for the World Title…
Don’t burn Dan Ryan’s house down or whatever the hell it is you got planned as you escalate your war on ownership…Because he didn’t make the ping-pong balls come up the way they did…Luck of the draw, fate, destiny, whatever you want to call it…The two of us finally get to square off…And you will learn a hard lesson…
That nothing…NOTHING…Is going to stop me…I will be the King of the Cage
I will be EPW World Champion…
(FADEOUT)
FIRST: In retrospect, I could say losing at Black Dawn was meaningless…Since Dan Ryan has hit the reset button on the whole company, 13 different men have a chance to become the new EPW World Champion when this is over, hell the title could change hands three times before it’s all said and done.
Given the luck of the draw, if I’d been champion and Stevens been in my spot, well, odds are I’d be facing him anyhow….All the EPW World Title being good for is a bye…
I could say these things, but I’d be lying…
Because life is but moments and memories…Moments experienced and lived and memories to savor and enjoy. There is a reason we can recall our first kiss…Where we were when a loved one passed away…When our child takes its first step…These are personal things, but they are universal also…
And my moment was denied me…By my own hand…I made a mistake and it cost me everything…And that moment was not just taken from me but from my fans as well, and that cuts me to the bone…But now that moment is but fuel for a new fight, a new battle...
Who better to have that fight with then Copycat…The man who began all this fun so long ago by costing me a match against Cameron Cruise…Copycat who then ran and hid from me…Was it the guns that scared you off Copycat (First flexes his right arm) or the face paint (Points to face) What about me spooked you so much? Seems so odd, a giant, a monster like yourself, begging off against fighting little old me…
You really do prove the old adage true that it isn’t the size of the dog in the fight, it’s the size of the fight in the dog, because you sir, have so little fight in you it’s scary. You’ve spend your career here living off Anthology’s name, looking for conspiracies and excuses to explain your failures. Done everything but look in the mirror and taken responsibility for what you’ve done. I’ve lost my share of matches, but that’s on me, and I accept that…You, everything’s Dan Ryan’s fault or Lindsay Troy’s…Just somebody, anybody but you…
Now Copycat, now you can’t run from me any more…No, now for your crimes, supposedly forgotten so long ago, you pay…And you can’t run from yourself either…No this time you lose and this time, it’s on you…Don’t blame the ref after I beat you, don’t complain about a rigged draw throwing you in the ring with me…Because there isn’t a person in the EPW Locker Room who wouldn’t be in our shoes, just one match away from fighting for the World Title…
Don’t burn Dan Ryan’s house down or whatever the hell it is you got planned as you escalate your war on ownership…Because he didn’t make the ping-pong balls come up the way they did…Luck of the draw, fate, destiny, whatever you want to call it…The two of us finally get to square off…And you will learn a hard lesson…
That nothing…NOTHING…Is going to stop me…I will be the King of the Cage
I will be EPW World Champion…
(FADEOUT)
GARTHIsTheLaw
League Member
<i>(We fade in on an Internet Explorer browser window, open to the homepage of Google.com. The mouse cursor goes to the text entry box and unseen and unheard hands type in “copycat wrestler.” The “Google Search” button is clicked, and seconds later, a list of results comes up. After the top result – the Wikipedia page for James “Copycat” Kattman – is the official website of James “Copycat” Kattman. The mouse cursor clicks on the link to the official website)
(Copycat's usual website starts to load, but it is quickly swallowed up by a black box that expands to fill the entirety of the browser window. Large green letters appear at the top of the window:</i>
A MESSAGE TO THE FANS OF JAMES “COPYCAT” KATTMAN
<i>(Smaller green letters, accompanied by clicking typewriter sound effects, begin scrolling onto the screen as though being actively typed</i>
I hope you all understand why I had to do what I had to do.
You have all expected a certain logic to my behavior that, no matter my general attitudes, has remained consistent over the years. I am aware that my new direction runs contrary to your expectations. This was necessary.
You cannot come with me to the places I intend to go. What little conscience I have allowed myself to maintain for the time being will not allow me to bring you with me.
My efforts to save EPW and the wrestling business as a whole from those who would destroy it for their own gain have failed. I know this, and although so many of you have tried to convince me otherwise, your words cannot change the truth. For more than a year, I have tried to effect changes as part of the EPW roster, and yet today, the problems are even worse than they were when I arrived. It will be necessary for me to pursue other avenues to accomplish the goals I have set for myself, and it will be necessary for me to update those goals so that their outcomes may do the most good.
Anthology was a central part of my plan to cure the ills of this business. Anthology was a valuable tool in the battle. But Anthology lost its way. I have been tempted to blame Sean Stevens for his fixation on himself, but the fault is ours for accepting him into our ranks so rashly when it became apparent that Cameron Cruise had failed in his role. In accepting Stevens to try to make up for Cruise's failure, Anthology itself failed. I did not support the decision to include Stevens, but was convinced by Jared Wells that it was the best way to accomplish our goals. His vision was wrong.
I trusted others to make decisions that would lead to the accomplishment of my goals, which I had understood to be the same as the goals of the rest of the members of Anthology. It has since become clear to me that, no matter how noble their intentions, I cannot rely on others as collaborators. Their goals may be similar to mine, perhaps even identical to the untrained eye. But they lack the vision I have. It is my singular vision that must oversee the healing of EPW.
I believed I could fix EPW by suppressing those who would destroy it. But Anthology was of insufficient suppressive force. No matter how hard we pushed, the destructors of this business could push back harder by sheer force of numbers. The establishment of an alliance of those most threatened by our existence made the pushback all the stronger. This was a position from which we could not win.
Anthology was a suppressant, a perpetually temporary fix to a problem that needed a permanent solution.
I will provide that solution.
I will be more than a suppressant to the disease that infects this business. I will be a cure. I will not merely attempt to hold back the forces seeking the death of this business. I will eradicate them. I will heal this business, and I will begin my work by cleansing EPW.
And then, when the last traces of sickness are gone, I will go even beyond a cure. I will immunize this business, vaccinate it, so that it may not again fall victim to those who are now slowly killing it. I will help to rebuild it such that it cannot again be victimized – mold it in my image.
This, I now see, is why I was called to EPW. It took me some time to uncover my eyes, but now that I have, I see more clearly than ever before. Dan Ryan was the first person to fall before me. Frank Pierce was next. But at Aggression 52, the First will, appropriately enough, be the first to see my vision before he is destroyed. He will be the first to know, at the moment of his downfall, why what I have done to him was necessary. He has a vision of his own, I know, a vision to which he insists he has stuck for eons. But after Aggression 52, my reality will be all he sees.
Look upon what I have done, and know it was necessary. Look upon what I yet do, and know it is necessary.
It is the only way.
<i>(In large green text at the bottom of the screen, these words appear:</i>
JAMES “COPYCAT” KATTMAN
<i>(The black box that had covered the entire browser window disappears, returning to the screen Copycat's normal website, as it was before. The mouse cursor remains unmoving and the image on the screen remains unchanged for a few short seconds before we fade out)</i>
(Copycat's usual website starts to load, but it is quickly swallowed up by a black box that expands to fill the entirety of the browser window. Large green letters appear at the top of the window:</i>
A MESSAGE TO THE FANS OF JAMES “COPYCAT” KATTMAN
<i>(Smaller green letters, accompanied by clicking typewriter sound effects, begin scrolling onto the screen as though being actively typed</i>
I hope you all understand why I had to do what I had to do.
You have all expected a certain logic to my behavior that, no matter my general attitudes, has remained consistent over the years. I am aware that my new direction runs contrary to your expectations. This was necessary.
You cannot come with me to the places I intend to go. What little conscience I have allowed myself to maintain for the time being will not allow me to bring you with me.
My efforts to save EPW and the wrestling business as a whole from those who would destroy it for their own gain have failed. I know this, and although so many of you have tried to convince me otherwise, your words cannot change the truth. For more than a year, I have tried to effect changes as part of the EPW roster, and yet today, the problems are even worse than they were when I arrived. It will be necessary for me to pursue other avenues to accomplish the goals I have set for myself, and it will be necessary for me to update those goals so that their outcomes may do the most good.
Anthology was a central part of my plan to cure the ills of this business. Anthology was a valuable tool in the battle. But Anthology lost its way. I have been tempted to blame Sean Stevens for his fixation on himself, but the fault is ours for accepting him into our ranks so rashly when it became apparent that Cameron Cruise had failed in his role. In accepting Stevens to try to make up for Cruise's failure, Anthology itself failed. I did not support the decision to include Stevens, but was convinced by Jared Wells that it was the best way to accomplish our goals. His vision was wrong.
I trusted others to make decisions that would lead to the accomplishment of my goals, which I had understood to be the same as the goals of the rest of the members of Anthology. It has since become clear to me that, no matter how noble their intentions, I cannot rely on others as collaborators. Their goals may be similar to mine, perhaps even identical to the untrained eye. But they lack the vision I have. It is my singular vision that must oversee the healing of EPW.
I believed I could fix EPW by suppressing those who would destroy it. But Anthology was of insufficient suppressive force. No matter how hard we pushed, the destructors of this business could push back harder by sheer force of numbers. The establishment of an alliance of those most threatened by our existence made the pushback all the stronger. This was a position from which we could not win.
Anthology was a suppressant, a perpetually temporary fix to a problem that needed a permanent solution.
I will provide that solution.
I will be more than a suppressant to the disease that infects this business. I will be a cure. I will not merely attempt to hold back the forces seeking the death of this business. I will eradicate them. I will heal this business, and I will begin my work by cleansing EPW.
And then, when the last traces of sickness are gone, I will go even beyond a cure. I will immunize this business, vaccinate it, so that it may not again fall victim to those who are now slowly killing it. I will help to rebuild it such that it cannot again be victimized – mold it in my image.
This, I now see, is why I was called to EPW. It took me some time to uncover my eyes, but now that I have, I see more clearly than ever before. Dan Ryan was the first person to fall before me. Frank Pierce was next. But at Aggression 52, the First will, appropriately enough, be the first to see my vision before he is destroyed. He will be the first to know, at the moment of his downfall, why what I have done to him was necessary. He has a vision of his own, I know, a vision to which he insists he has stuck for eons. But after Aggression 52, my reality will be all he sees.
Look upon what I have done, and know it was necessary. Look upon what I yet do, and know it is necessary.
It is the only way.
<i>(In large green text at the bottom of the screen, these words appear:</i>
JAMES “COPYCAT” KATTMAN
<i>(The black box that had covered the entire browser window disappears, returning to the screen Copycat's normal website, as it was before. The mouse cursor remains unmoving and the image on the screen remains unchanged for a few short seconds before we fade out)</i>
The Great Eye
I came to cut you up
- Joined
- Jan 29, 2004
- Messages
- 1,337
- Points
- 0
(FADEIN: The First, now standing in front of an EPW Banner. First in an “Outcast Hero” T-Shirt, black jeans, his hair slicked back. Face painted as before. “Strict Machine” by Goldfrapp plays in the background.)
FIRST: We’re all the heroes in our stories. We all get the girl, save the day, ride off into the sunset. We are always right, always noble…Egocentric little creatures that we are. See Copycat, you have a vision, an ideal of what this company and this sport must be, and you may even believe everything you’re saying about that vision…But I don’t…I don’t for two reasons, and oddly enough…My defeat at your hands is both of the reasons…
Allow me to explain…
First of all…Your vision makes it so you have to defeat me…And beating me means you get to fight for the EPW World Title…And I’d assume your vision would further require you to win that match also, and so on and so forth…Your vision for EPW’s salvation sounds oddly like a man trying to justify his desire to be World Champion with a bunch of flowery speeches and catchy slogans…
I want to be EPW World Champion for one simple reason…I want to be the best in this industry, and only winning that title does that for you. Right now 14 men believe in their heart of hearts that they’ll win King of the Cage and be EPW World Champion at the end of this tournament. 13 of them are wrong as wrong can be, but in this moment, all things are possible…I’m sure some think their reasons and desires for why they’ll win that title are more noble and honorable then others, but the fact remains, that’s all we’re here for, all just trying to prove ourselves the best.
And in the end, no matter how magnanimous and grand you think your reasons are…All you are about is being champion…It’s the only thing any of us really care about…
The second reason why destroying me doesn’t make any sense is that I bust my ass…I do everything I can, I wrestle every show I can, I do PR, I eat, sleep, and breath this business and this company…And you tell me you’ll save the company from the likes of me? Are you kidding me Copycat? This is what I live for…And if I’m part of the problem then I honestly want nothing at all to do with the solution.
You say I’ll see your vision before I’m destroyed…I can promise you I won’t…If you were elevating me for that Litterbomb and I was rising towards the heavens, I wouldn’t be thinking “You know, Copycat’s right, for the good of EPW, I must be destroyed.” No I’ll be thinking “How the hell did I get myself in this spot and how do I get out of it?!” and if you stuck me into the mat like a tack and pinned me…I wouldn’t head to the back emboldened with the knowledge that I was defeated for the greater good of EPW…No I’d be pissed I blew a shot at winning the EPW World Title…
See, your vision for this company has nothing to do with reality and everything to do with the fact that you think everything should just be handed to you. You want the main event, the spotlight, the big stage all for yourself, but you don’t want to earn it. You’ve done nothing but take shortcuts your whole time here in EPW…You latched onto Anthology to carry you…Now you’re attacking ownership hoping that beating up Dan Ryan will get you some attention.
And now thanks to chance, all that stands between you and a shot at the EPW World Title is me….You are that close to being able to talk about the vision, the greatness, the glory of Copycat for the whole world to hear it…
But I’m not going to let you…
Because I too have a vision…And I don’t have to keep my vision a secret…No I can tell you all about it right here and right now…My vision is me beating the hell out of a back jumping coward who denied me a chance at glory…My vision is of me making that man suffer for what he did to me and then defeating him…My vision is me leaving that ring knowing that the next time I enter it…It will be fighting Sean Stevens inside a steel cage for the right to be EPW World Champion…
And then I beat the King and take his throne…
That’s my vision Copycat…And in my vision…I have to destroy you…Because you’re standing in the way of me becoming champion…And that can’t be tolerated…For I will not be denied…
(FADEOUT)
FIRST: We’re all the heroes in our stories. We all get the girl, save the day, ride off into the sunset. We are always right, always noble…Egocentric little creatures that we are. See Copycat, you have a vision, an ideal of what this company and this sport must be, and you may even believe everything you’re saying about that vision…But I don’t…I don’t for two reasons, and oddly enough…My defeat at your hands is both of the reasons…
Allow me to explain…
First of all…Your vision makes it so you have to defeat me…And beating me means you get to fight for the EPW World Title…And I’d assume your vision would further require you to win that match also, and so on and so forth…Your vision for EPW’s salvation sounds oddly like a man trying to justify his desire to be World Champion with a bunch of flowery speeches and catchy slogans…
I want to be EPW World Champion for one simple reason…I want to be the best in this industry, and only winning that title does that for you. Right now 14 men believe in their heart of hearts that they’ll win King of the Cage and be EPW World Champion at the end of this tournament. 13 of them are wrong as wrong can be, but in this moment, all things are possible…I’m sure some think their reasons and desires for why they’ll win that title are more noble and honorable then others, but the fact remains, that’s all we’re here for, all just trying to prove ourselves the best.
And in the end, no matter how magnanimous and grand you think your reasons are…All you are about is being champion…It’s the only thing any of us really care about…
The second reason why destroying me doesn’t make any sense is that I bust my ass…I do everything I can, I wrestle every show I can, I do PR, I eat, sleep, and breath this business and this company…And you tell me you’ll save the company from the likes of me? Are you kidding me Copycat? This is what I live for…And if I’m part of the problem then I honestly want nothing at all to do with the solution.
You say I’ll see your vision before I’m destroyed…I can promise you I won’t…If you were elevating me for that Litterbomb and I was rising towards the heavens, I wouldn’t be thinking “You know, Copycat’s right, for the good of EPW, I must be destroyed.” No I’ll be thinking “How the hell did I get myself in this spot and how do I get out of it?!” and if you stuck me into the mat like a tack and pinned me…I wouldn’t head to the back emboldened with the knowledge that I was defeated for the greater good of EPW…No I’d be pissed I blew a shot at winning the EPW World Title…
See, your vision for this company has nothing to do with reality and everything to do with the fact that you think everything should just be handed to you. You want the main event, the spotlight, the big stage all for yourself, but you don’t want to earn it. You’ve done nothing but take shortcuts your whole time here in EPW…You latched onto Anthology to carry you…Now you’re attacking ownership hoping that beating up Dan Ryan will get you some attention.
And now thanks to chance, all that stands between you and a shot at the EPW World Title is me….You are that close to being able to talk about the vision, the greatness, the glory of Copycat for the whole world to hear it…
But I’m not going to let you…
Because I too have a vision…And I don’t have to keep my vision a secret…No I can tell you all about it right here and right now…My vision is me beating the hell out of a back jumping coward who denied me a chance at glory…My vision is of me making that man suffer for what he did to me and then defeating him…My vision is me leaving that ring knowing that the next time I enter it…It will be fighting Sean Stevens inside a steel cage for the right to be EPW World Champion…
And then I beat the King and take his throne…
That’s my vision Copycat…And in my vision…I have to destroy you…Because you’re standing in the way of me becoming champion…And that can’t be tolerated…For I will not be denied…
(FADEOUT)
GARTHIsTheLaw
League Member
<i>(We fade in on an establishing shot outside a gym, filmed unsteadily with what is probably a handheld camera. Though it's clear what the building is thanks to the windows showing its interior, the actual name of the gym has been covered up in post-production with a black bar. We can vaguely make out someone standing near the front door, probably an employee, as another person walks toward the door and starts to unlock it)
(After a second or two, the shot dissolves to one apparently inside the gym, in what looks to be the entrance area. The first employee, a younger blond guy, walks in, with the second employee – an older, brown-haired guy, probably a manager, following him. In front of the camera position is a folded-up piece of paper)</i>
<b>Manager:</b> --out that. I don't think I could have hit any more red lights on the way in.
<b>Employee:</b> Don't worry about it. I was only out there like two minutes.
<b>Manager:</b> Yeah, I know, I'm just mad at myself. I promised Chris last week I wouldn't come in late and leave him hanging out there, and the first day I open and he doesn't, I--(interrupted)
<b>Employee:</b> The hell's that?
<i>(Both look in the direction of the folded-up paper. The manager starts toward it)</i>
<b>Manager:</b> Huh.
<i>(He picks up the paper, still folded up, and inspects it)</i>
<b>Employee:</b> Closing guys complaining again?
<b>Manager:</b> No, it doesn't even look like it's for us.
<b>Employee:</b> That's bizarre. Who's it for?
<b>Manager:</b> I don't even know this guy. You recognize the name?
<i>(The manager shows the employee the paper)</i>
<b>Employee:</b> I have no—oh wait.
<i>(The employee takes the paper from the manager to get a closer look at it)</i>
<b>Employee:</b> I know who this is. He's that pro wrestler. Um, the First. EPW. You don't follow wrestling, do you?
<b>Manager:</b> Not for a long time. Does he work out here or something?
<b>Employee:</b> He has. I remember seeing him, I assume when they're doing a show around here. I think my brother told me they were going to be coming through again in a couple weeks, so whoever left this must be expecting him to come back.
<b>Manager:</b> A fan or something?
<b>Employee:</b> Only one way to find out.
<i>(He unfolds the paper)</i>
<b>Manager:</b> Wait, should you read that?
<b>Employee:</b> Dude, we're not the postal service. If someone is trying to use us to get a message to a pro wrestler, they have to expect it to get read, and made fun of a lot.
<i>(As the employee starts to read the letter, words begin scrolling onto the screen, transcribing what he's saying as he awkwardly reads it out loud)</i>
You need to open your mind, First.
For over a year, you've been seeing the same vision, playing through the same scenario in your mind. There's the EPW World Heavyweight Title, and there's periphery. Not only can you not see beyond it, you don't think anyone else can see beyond it.
That's the problem with you and those of your ilk, First, those whose only goal is personal glory. Your obsession with the title, with beating Sean Stevens, is foremost in your mind, to the exclusion of all else. You'd gladly watch the rest of the world burn around you, if only you could stand atop the flaming wreckage for one fleeting moment, the title belt held aloft and Sean Stevens vanquished at your feet.
Broaden your horizons, First. See what I see.
I don't have your singular obsession with glory. Neither the EPW World Heavyweight Title nor any other EPW title is instrumental to my mission. The King of the Cage tournament has put me one match away from the World Heavyweight Champion, and I can't claim I plan to avoid the title, but I don't need it like you do. I've been World Heavyweight Champion before, in another life. I've had my day at the top of the mountain. I didn't need another one, didn't want another one.
I didn't come back to this business to relive that moment. I came back to this business to set things right. That my plans may force me to take the throne atop EPW is unfortunate. I would not consider that option were it not necessary, but every shred of evidence I've seen indicates that it is.
You can't see that evidence because you are singularly fixated on one goal. Look around, First. See what I see.
The storybook victory you've written for yourself has proven itself an inaccurate telling time and time again. Everyone but you sees it. Everyone but you sees that every time you reach for the top, you fall. And yet you persist. You'll be content to keep doing the same thing over and over again, expecting a different result.
That's the definition of insanity, First. But I can see how you might not notice it. That's what everyone in EPW is doing. Retracing their steps over and over again, thinking that if they do it enough times, they might reach a different destination.
But my path is clear. In a world gone mad, I've achieved clarity – become the only sane man. I am aware of everything around me, and how it relates to my purpose in EPW. I have laid out a path that will heal the sickness that afflicts this business, that you and those like you have infected this business with. I must destroy this affliction, break it down piece by piece, until all that is left is what remains healthy about this business. And then I will begin the work of rebuilding it in my incorruptible image.
Your claims that you will never see my vision are as empty as your many claims that you will win EPW gold. I don't expect it to come to you easily. You may not like it. You may not agree with it. But you'll understand why I see it.
Open your eyes, First. Take a look around. There will be a lot for you to see once you've torn your eyes – or once I've torn your eyes – from the goal you cannot achieve, and refocused them on reality.
You'll see why what you are doing is so destructive to the business I love. You'll see how those around you are trying to kill it, believing that what little, meaningless glory they achieve in the process will keep them warm when it's all gone cold and dead.
You'll see what I see, First. And you'll know why my way is the only way.
Cat
<i>(The scrolling letters fade from the screen. The employee still holds the letter in front of him, though he's stopped reading aloud, and the manager stares at the employee, expressionless. After a few seconds of silence, the employee looks up)</i>
<b>Employee:</b> What should we--(interrupted)
<b>Manager:</b> Get rid of that. Throw it away.
<b>Employee:</b> But--(interrupted)
<b>Manager:</b> I don't know what this guy's after, but I don't want any part of it. Get rid of it.
<i>(The employee crumples up the paper and walks offscreen, presumably looking for a trash can or something. The manager glances in the direction of the camera shot, staring directly at it)</i>
<b>Manager:</b> What's this, now?
<i>(The camera immediately cuts to black)</i>
(After a second or two, the shot dissolves to one apparently inside the gym, in what looks to be the entrance area. The first employee, a younger blond guy, walks in, with the second employee – an older, brown-haired guy, probably a manager, following him. In front of the camera position is a folded-up piece of paper)</i>
<b>Manager:</b> --out that. I don't think I could have hit any more red lights on the way in.
<b>Employee:</b> Don't worry about it. I was only out there like two minutes.
<b>Manager:</b> Yeah, I know, I'm just mad at myself. I promised Chris last week I wouldn't come in late and leave him hanging out there, and the first day I open and he doesn't, I--(interrupted)
<b>Employee:</b> The hell's that?
<i>(Both look in the direction of the folded-up paper. The manager starts toward it)</i>
<b>Manager:</b> Huh.
<i>(He picks up the paper, still folded up, and inspects it)</i>
<b>Employee:</b> Closing guys complaining again?
<b>Manager:</b> No, it doesn't even look like it's for us.
<b>Employee:</b> That's bizarre. Who's it for?
<b>Manager:</b> I don't even know this guy. You recognize the name?
<i>(The manager shows the employee the paper)</i>
<b>Employee:</b> I have no—oh wait.
<i>(The employee takes the paper from the manager to get a closer look at it)</i>
<b>Employee:</b> I know who this is. He's that pro wrestler. Um, the First. EPW. You don't follow wrestling, do you?
<b>Manager:</b> Not for a long time. Does he work out here or something?
<b>Employee:</b> He has. I remember seeing him, I assume when they're doing a show around here. I think my brother told me they were going to be coming through again in a couple weeks, so whoever left this must be expecting him to come back.
<b>Manager:</b> A fan or something?
<b>Employee:</b> Only one way to find out.
<i>(He unfolds the paper)</i>
<b>Manager:</b> Wait, should you read that?
<b>Employee:</b> Dude, we're not the postal service. If someone is trying to use us to get a message to a pro wrestler, they have to expect it to get read, and made fun of a lot.
<i>(As the employee starts to read the letter, words begin scrolling onto the screen, transcribing what he's saying as he awkwardly reads it out loud)</i>
You need to open your mind, First.
For over a year, you've been seeing the same vision, playing through the same scenario in your mind. There's the EPW World Heavyweight Title, and there's periphery. Not only can you not see beyond it, you don't think anyone else can see beyond it.
That's the problem with you and those of your ilk, First, those whose only goal is personal glory. Your obsession with the title, with beating Sean Stevens, is foremost in your mind, to the exclusion of all else. You'd gladly watch the rest of the world burn around you, if only you could stand atop the flaming wreckage for one fleeting moment, the title belt held aloft and Sean Stevens vanquished at your feet.
Broaden your horizons, First. See what I see.
I don't have your singular obsession with glory. Neither the EPW World Heavyweight Title nor any other EPW title is instrumental to my mission. The King of the Cage tournament has put me one match away from the World Heavyweight Champion, and I can't claim I plan to avoid the title, but I don't need it like you do. I've been World Heavyweight Champion before, in another life. I've had my day at the top of the mountain. I didn't need another one, didn't want another one.
I didn't come back to this business to relive that moment. I came back to this business to set things right. That my plans may force me to take the throne atop EPW is unfortunate. I would not consider that option were it not necessary, but every shred of evidence I've seen indicates that it is.
You can't see that evidence because you are singularly fixated on one goal. Look around, First. See what I see.
The storybook victory you've written for yourself has proven itself an inaccurate telling time and time again. Everyone but you sees it. Everyone but you sees that every time you reach for the top, you fall. And yet you persist. You'll be content to keep doing the same thing over and over again, expecting a different result.
That's the definition of insanity, First. But I can see how you might not notice it. That's what everyone in EPW is doing. Retracing their steps over and over again, thinking that if they do it enough times, they might reach a different destination.
But my path is clear. In a world gone mad, I've achieved clarity – become the only sane man. I am aware of everything around me, and how it relates to my purpose in EPW. I have laid out a path that will heal the sickness that afflicts this business, that you and those like you have infected this business with. I must destroy this affliction, break it down piece by piece, until all that is left is what remains healthy about this business. And then I will begin the work of rebuilding it in my incorruptible image.
Your claims that you will never see my vision are as empty as your many claims that you will win EPW gold. I don't expect it to come to you easily. You may not like it. You may not agree with it. But you'll understand why I see it.
Open your eyes, First. Take a look around. There will be a lot for you to see once you've torn your eyes – or once I've torn your eyes – from the goal you cannot achieve, and refocused them on reality.
You'll see why what you are doing is so destructive to the business I love. You'll see how those around you are trying to kill it, believing that what little, meaningless glory they achieve in the process will keep them warm when it's all gone cold and dead.
You'll see what I see, First. And you'll know why my way is the only way.
Cat
<i>(The scrolling letters fade from the screen. The employee still holds the letter in front of him, though he's stopped reading aloud, and the manager stares at the employee, expressionless. After a few seconds of silence, the employee looks up)</i>
<b>Employee:</b> What should we--(interrupted)
<b>Manager:</b> Get rid of that. Throw it away.
<b>Employee:</b> But--(interrupted)
<b>Manager:</b> I don't know what this guy's after, but I don't want any part of it. Get rid of it.
<i>(The employee crumples up the paper and walks offscreen, presumably looking for a trash can or something. The manager glances in the direction of the camera shot, staring directly at it)</i>
<b>Manager:</b> What's this, now?
<i>(The camera immediately cuts to black)</i>
The Great Eye
I came to cut you up
- Joined
- Jan 29, 2004
- Messages
- 1,337
- Points
- 0
(FADEIN: The First in a black shirt and jeans, face unpainted, sitting on a couch in his house in Salem. On the TV is Wrestleverse III, when he’s just been thrown off the top rope by a masked man. “Save Yourself” by Stabbing Westward plays in the background.)
FIRST: Not gonna lie that hurt…
(Cruise gets First back to his feet, hits a Reality Check on him and pins him.)
FIRST: (Sarcastically) Kick out dammit…Bah, friggin’ First…(Shakes head)
(He fast forwards a bit on the video, to Copycat holding the mic.)
Copycat: And THIS is what it’s all become since I made the mistake of ignoring the developments in this business. For that, I am sorry. But before I even called Jared Wells back, I knew there was hope. I knew there was a shining light still left in EPW, the beginnings of what could be a last-ditch effort to save this industry from itself.
(He turns the TV off.)
FIRST: You walked in the door promising to save this company. That was the plan over a year ago, how you go about saving EPW Copycat? By tagging along with Jared Wells and Cameron Cruise? What did you do to redeem EPW in all that time? Talked a bunch of noise at Layne Winters, ran from me, was handed a tag belt when Larry Tact got fired. Exactly what did you do in all this time to make EPW better, bolder, stronger then before? To make EPW like the six million dollar man of wrestling companies?
What did you do in that time? Nothing, not a damn thing…
See this isn’t about me being a problem, it’s about you being a problem, you’re the thing that’s wrong with this industry, the has-been clinging for one last shot at the brass ring, the guy who’s over-the-hill but thinks he can still get it done. You said it yourself in this speech right here about if wrestling was a ‘young man’s game’…Well guess what, it is…And you’re not welcome here anymore…
It’s funny that over a year ago I lost a match because you wanted to save EPW from itself, and now here we are a year later and I have to lose again for EPW to be saved…That I am the one to suffer for EPW to have its sins cleansed…It is funny that you claim to be the Messiah, the redeemer of this company, yet when it’s time to get on the cross, you volunteer me for that job.
See Copycat, I don’t believe you because actions always speak louder than words. You claim you don’t need the EPW World Title, yet you signed up for this tournament. You say that this title doesn’t matter to you, but that you have to destroy me…Which just so happens to get you a match against Stevens for the belt. It’s funny how what you say doesn’t match up to what you’ve done and what you plan on doing?
You’ve been a World Champion outside this company? Great, join the club, that doesn’t matter in the slightest…All that matters here is what you have done…HERE…And all you’ve done is act like every other jackass in this company trying to get attention for yourself. The movie career, the big house, all that jazz, making yourself out to be a big shot who knew what he was saying when he told us all he would save the company…
Now the salvation concept takes a turn, now you’re all cryptic, with posts on websites and notes passed onto people to read them for you, up next you’ll release a video from the boarder of Afghanistan and Pakistan that the CIA will study for clues as to where your location is, and if you’re really still alive or not.
New packaging, same worthless product…From big shot movie star to anti-authority-figure rebel. Camera hog to man in the shadows….But at the end of the day, it’s the same tired song and dance…The new and improved snake oil is still snake oil.
You say this company is doomed…See, I tend to take a dim view of people preaching Armageddon and the end times. Every few years somebody decides the world will end…And somehow it keeps on going…What do you think will happen if you win this match? That suddenly we’ll find the rest of the Mayan Calendar and it really goes to Dec 21st 20,021? (smirks) Honestly Copycat, I want to hear your story, tell me your tale of salvation, how we can all avoid ruin if only we all dropped to our knees and worshipped at the altar of Copycat…
Of course you have nothing to say, or you would have said it. You’re just another idiot walking around with a sandwich board reading “Repent for Judgement is at hand!” or something equally witty. When called on your crap you just reply with gibberish designed to confuse the argument and obscure the facts…
See Copycat, all that’s going to happen at Aggression 52 is one of us will earn a World Title shot…Plain and simple…The company will not file chapter 11 the next day if I win, nor will it post record profits and a solution to the oil spill in the gulf if you win…No, all that happens is one of us gets to move on in this tournament, and the other one of us goes to the sidelines.
And in a fight like that, I like the odds of the man who’s hell bent on winning, hell bent on getting another crack at the World Title, over the odds of the main who’s invented a incoherent mythos about redeeming a company that doesn’t need redemption…Who claims victory is meaningless compared to his grand plan to save us all…
So you go save this company…While I go forward in this tournament, and go forward to finally getting my hands on the EPW World Title…
(FADEOUT)
FIRST: Not gonna lie that hurt…
(Cruise gets First back to his feet, hits a Reality Check on him and pins him.)
FIRST: (Sarcastically) Kick out dammit…Bah, friggin’ First…(Shakes head)
(He fast forwards a bit on the video, to Copycat holding the mic.)
Copycat: And THIS is what it’s all become since I made the mistake of ignoring the developments in this business. For that, I am sorry. But before I even called Jared Wells back, I knew there was hope. I knew there was a shining light still left in EPW, the beginnings of what could be a last-ditch effort to save this industry from itself.
(He turns the TV off.)
FIRST: You walked in the door promising to save this company. That was the plan over a year ago, how you go about saving EPW Copycat? By tagging along with Jared Wells and Cameron Cruise? What did you do to redeem EPW in all that time? Talked a bunch of noise at Layne Winters, ran from me, was handed a tag belt when Larry Tact got fired. Exactly what did you do in all this time to make EPW better, bolder, stronger then before? To make EPW like the six million dollar man of wrestling companies?
What did you do in that time? Nothing, not a damn thing…
See this isn’t about me being a problem, it’s about you being a problem, you’re the thing that’s wrong with this industry, the has-been clinging for one last shot at the brass ring, the guy who’s over-the-hill but thinks he can still get it done. You said it yourself in this speech right here about if wrestling was a ‘young man’s game’…Well guess what, it is…And you’re not welcome here anymore…
It’s funny that over a year ago I lost a match because you wanted to save EPW from itself, and now here we are a year later and I have to lose again for EPW to be saved…That I am the one to suffer for EPW to have its sins cleansed…It is funny that you claim to be the Messiah, the redeemer of this company, yet when it’s time to get on the cross, you volunteer me for that job.
See Copycat, I don’t believe you because actions always speak louder than words. You claim you don’t need the EPW World Title, yet you signed up for this tournament. You say that this title doesn’t matter to you, but that you have to destroy me…Which just so happens to get you a match against Stevens for the belt. It’s funny how what you say doesn’t match up to what you’ve done and what you plan on doing?
You’ve been a World Champion outside this company? Great, join the club, that doesn’t matter in the slightest…All that matters here is what you have done…HERE…And all you’ve done is act like every other jackass in this company trying to get attention for yourself. The movie career, the big house, all that jazz, making yourself out to be a big shot who knew what he was saying when he told us all he would save the company…
Now the salvation concept takes a turn, now you’re all cryptic, with posts on websites and notes passed onto people to read them for you, up next you’ll release a video from the boarder of Afghanistan and Pakistan that the CIA will study for clues as to where your location is, and if you’re really still alive or not.
New packaging, same worthless product…From big shot movie star to anti-authority-figure rebel. Camera hog to man in the shadows….But at the end of the day, it’s the same tired song and dance…The new and improved snake oil is still snake oil.
You say this company is doomed…See, I tend to take a dim view of people preaching Armageddon and the end times. Every few years somebody decides the world will end…And somehow it keeps on going…What do you think will happen if you win this match? That suddenly we’ll find the rest of the Mayan Calendar and it really goes to Dec 21st 20,021? (smirks) Honestly Copycat, I want to hear your story, tell me your tale of salvation, how we can all avoid ruin if only we all dropped to our knees and worshipped at the altar of Copycat…
Of course you have nothing to say, or you would have said it. You’re just another idiot walking around with a sandwich board reading “Repent for Judgement is at hand!” or something equally witty. When called on your crap you just reply with gibberish designed to confuse the argument and obscure the facts…
See Copycat, all that’s going to happen at Aggression 52 is one of us will earn a World Title shot…Plain and simple…The company will not file chapter 11 the next day if I win, nor will it post record profits and a solution to the oil spill in the gulf if you win…No, all that happens is one of us gets to move on in this tournament, and the other one of us goes to the sidelines.
And in a fight like that, I like the odds of the man who’s hell bent on winning, hell bent on getting another crack at the World Title, over the odds of the main who’s invented a incoherent mythos about redeeming a company that doesn’t need redemption…Who claims victory is meaningless compared to his grand plan to save us all…
So you go save this company…While I go forward in this tournament, and go forward to finally getting my hands on the EPW World Title…
(FADEOUT)
GARTHIsTheLaw
League Member
<i>(Black screen)
(After a few seconds of nothing, voices cut into the darkness. From the background noise and the tone of voice of the main speaker, we can tell this is a radio program of some sort)</i>
<b>DJ:</b> Welcome back to Wrestling Talk on (BLEEEEEEP) FM. I'm your host, (BLEEEEEP), and if for some ridiculous reason you've waited until just now to join us, today we're talking EPW. We're up to the part of our show where we, the experts, debase ourselves by listening to you, the unwashed masses. We're taking calls now, so if you really, really have something important to say, keep trying. That number is (BLEEEEEEEP), or toll-free, 1-866-(BLEEEEEEP). All right, here's our first caller. Kevin, you're on the air with Wrestling Talk, and I understand you want to talk about Copycat.
<b>Kevin:</b> I'm not really going to be talking <i>about</i> him. I'm talking <i>for</i> him, I guess.
<b>DJ:</b> Kid, I doubt you can really speak for any of these guys. Now what is it that you--(interrupted)
<b>Kevin:</b> Yeah, OK, this sounds weird, but this is a statement directly from Copycat. He e-mailed it to me, for some reason.
<b>DJ:</b> Are you serious with this, Kevin?
<b>Kevin:</b> Yes! I know how it sounds. But I know his e-mail address, I've e-mailed him back and forth before about an appearance he did a few months back, that I worked with him on. Out of the blue, he sends me this e-mail, tells me to tell the world or something, and I figured Wrestling Talk would be the best way to get the message out to a lot of people.
<b>DJ:</b> You're lucky I'm helpless in the face of shameless flattery. Go ahead, but try to be quick about it.
<b>Kevin:</b> OK.
<i>(As Kevin reads, red closed-captioning appears at the bottom of the screen)</i>
I've plotted enough elaborate schemes throughout my career to be familiar with doubt.
I prided myself on my propensity for deception. I got inside my opponents' heads, turned them around. Made them doubt themselves. Made them weak. It worked for me when I was only looking out for myself, when all I needed to do was look forward to the next payday.
But it was entirely insufficient in my quest to solve the problems in EPW and the wrestling business as a whole. That is why my efforts to be the savior of this business as part of Anthology were met with failure. Maybe Anthology would have eventually been an effective weapon, maybe not. But it was beset by authority figures terrified of their mortality, of their pending irrelevance. And before it could recover from those setbacks, Anthology lost its way. I'm well aware of the failures I've suffered.
The First claims he, too, is acutely aware of his failings. But I'm not sure he does. He is aware that he failed, but seems to be content with the idea of continuing to fail, believing that one day, everyone around him will eventually sink to his level so he can overcome them. It's a ridiculous goal. He's searching for a finish line on a track that has no end. He continues moving forward, looping the track over and over, and believing that eventually the scenery will change. It won't. He has voluntarily blinded himself.
He needs to remove the blindfold. He needs to see what I see.
I see a man satisfied with failure. I see a man who truly believes in nothing but the inevitability of his own ultimate victory. I see a man whose only possible escape from the trap in which he has fallen is for enough others to fall into the same trap, so that he can climb up the pile of bodies to the top.
He has no interest in improving himself. He believes himself entitled to the fantasy he has dreamed up, that he truly deserves every word of that storybook tale right up to the “happily ever after.”
That's a dangerous game to play. He is doing nothing less than praying for the failure of everyone around him – praying for the failure of this business, that someday, everyone else will be too pathetic to overcome his mediocrity. Over and over again, he has failed to beat Sean Stevens and capture the EPW World Heavyweight Title. If he were to make it to the next round of the King of the Cage tournament and face Stevens yet again, what would be different? Nothing. Unless Stevens somehow sinks below the First's level – because the First certainly won't rise above Stevens' level. He's proved that amply.
While the First prays for the destruction of this business, I pray for its salvation. Would that I did not have to be part of that salvation; would that this business could yet save itself. But after my time in EPW thus far, I know it cannot save itself. Not without help. Not without my help.
My previous plan failed. And when it did, I did not go on trying it again and again. I knew what needed to be done, no matter the cost. And so I sacrificed myself, everything I had become, and became something else entirely, because I knew it needed to be done.
The First does not know what needs to be done – not to achieve his goals, and certainly not to achieve mine. He doesn't want to see.
That's why I must force his eyes open, let in the light. His, and everyone else's who would go down his path, who would destroy this business for their own gain. They will all see the light, no matter what I have to do to bring it to them. And they will be forced to either live in it or be immolated by it.
I understand why the First doubts my sincerity. I don't expect to be able to convince him otherwise with my words. But I've found my words to be ineffective weapons in this war. At Aggression 52, I'll convince him with the only weapon that has any effect on the stubborn will of those who refuse to consider the future of this business.
He may resist. But he'll see what I see.
And he won't be the last one.
<i>(The closed-captioning disappears, and there's a few seconds of dead air)</i>
<b>Kevin:</b> That's what he wrote.
<i>(Pause)</i>
<b>Kevin:</b> Sorry.
<i>(Pause)</i>
<b>DJ:</b> Go to a commercial.
<i>(The sound fades away, and only the black screen remains)</i>
(After a few seconds of nothing, voices cut into the darkness. From the background noise and the tone of voice of the main speaker, we can tell this is a radio program of some sort)</i>
<b>DJ:</b> Welcome back to Wrestling Talk on (BLEEEEEEP) FM. I'm your host, (BLEEEEEP), and if for some ridiculous reason you've waited until just now to join us, today we're talking EPW. We're up to the part of our show where we, the experts, debase ourselves by listening to you, the unwashed masses. We're taking calls now, so if you really, really have something important to say, keep trying. That number is (BLEEEEEEEP), or toll-free, 1-866-(BLEEEEEEP). All right, here's our first caller. Kevin, you're on the air with Wrestling Talk, and I understand you want to talk about Copycat.
<b>Kevin:</b> I'm not really going to be talking <i>about</i> him. I'm talking <i>for</i> him, I guess.
<b>DJ:</b> Kid, I doubt you can really speak for any of these guys. Now what is it that you--(interrupted)
<b>Kevin:</b> Yeah, OK, this sounds weird, but this is a statement directly from Copycat. He e-mailed it to me, for some reason.
<b>DJ:</b> Are you serious with this, Kevin?
<b>Kevin:</b> Yes! I know how it sounds. But I know his e-mail address, I've e-mailed him back and forth before about an appearance he did a few months back, that I worked with him on. Out of the blue, he sends me this e-mail, tells me to tell the world or something, and I figured Wrestling Talk would be the best way to get the message out to a lot of people.
<b>DJ:</b> You're lucky I'm helpless in the face of shameless flattery. Go ahead, but try to be quick about it.
<b>Kevin:</b> OK.
<i>(As Kevin reads, red closed-captioning appears at the bottom of the screen)</i>
I've plotted enough elaborate schemes throughout my career to be familiar with doubt.
I prided myself on my propensity for deception. I got inside my opponents' heads, turned them around. Made them doubt themselves. Made them weak. It worked for me when I was only looking out for myself, when all I needed to do was look forward to the next payday.
But it was entirely insufficient in my quest to solve the problems in EPW and the wrestling business as a whole. That is why my efforts to be the savior of this business as part of Anthology were met with failure. Maybe Anthology would have eventually been an effective weapon, maybe not. But it was beset by authority figures terrified of their mortality, of their pending irrelevance. And before it could recover from those setbacks, Anthology lost its way. I'm well aware of the failures I've suffered.
The First claims he, too, is acutely aware of his failings. But I'm not sure he does. He is aware that he failed, but seems to be content with the idea of continuing to fail, believing that one day, everyone around him will eventually sink to his level so he can overcome them. It's a ridiculous goal. He's searching for a finish line on a track that has no end. He continues moving forward, looping the track over and over, and believing that eventually the scenery will change. It won't. He has voluntarily blinded himself.
He needs to remove the blindfold. He needs to see what I see.
I see a man satisfied with failure. I see a man who truly believes in nothing but the inevitability of his own ultimate victory. I see a man whose only possible escape from the trap in which he has fallen is for enough others to fall into the same trap, so that he can climb up the pile of bodies to the top.
He has no interest in improving himself. He believes himself entitled to the fantasy he has dreamed up, that he truly deserves every word of that storybook tale right up to the “happily ever after.”
That's a dangerous game to play. He is doing nothing less than praying for the failure of everyone around him – praying for the failure of this business, that someday, everyone else will be too pathetic to overcome his mediocrity. Over and over again, he has failed to beat Sean Stevens and capture the EPW World Heavyweight Title. If he were to make it to the next round of the King of the Cage tournament and face Stevens yet again, what would be different? Nothing. Unless Stevens somehow sinks below the First's level – because the First certainly won't rise above Stevens' level. He's proved that amply.
While the First prays for the destruction of this business, I pray for its salvation. Would that I did not have to be part of that salvation; would that this business could yet save itself. But after my time in EPW thus far, I know it cannot save itself. Not without help. Not without my help.
My previous plan failed. And when it did, I did not go on trying it again and again. I knew what needed to be done, no matter the cost. And so I sacrificed myself, everything I had become, and became something else entirely, because I knew it needed to be done.
The First does not know what needs to be done – not to achieve his goals, and certainly not to achieve mine. He doesn't want to see.
That's why I must force his eyes open, let in the light. His, and everyone else's who would go down his path, who would destroy this business for their own gain. They will all see the light, no matter what I have to do to bring it to them. And they will be forced to either live in it or be immolated by it.
I understand why the First doubts my sincerity. I don't expect to be able to convince him otherwise with my words. But I've found my words to be ineffective weapons in this war. At Aggression 52, I'll convince him with the only weapon that has any effect on the stubborn will of those who refuse to consider the future of this business.
He may resist. But he'll see what I see.
And he won't be the last one.
<i>(The closed-captioning disappears, and there's a few seconds of dead air)</i>
<b>Kevin:</b> That's what he wrote.
<i>(Pause)</i>
<b>Kevin:</b> Sorry.
<i>(Pause)</i>
<b>DJ:</b> Go to a commercial.
<i>(The sound fades away, and only the black screen remains)</i>
The Great Eye
I came to cut you up
- Joined
- Jan 29, 2004
- Messages
- 1,337
- Points
- 0
(FADEIN: The First sitting on a bench near the Bewitched statue in Salem. He’s wearing an “Outcast Hero” T-Shirt, black jeans, black sneakers, face painted like Prince Nuada. Beside him is Muse in her steam punk outfit. She’s playing “Nothing else matters” by Metallica on her guitar.)
FIRST: You know what doubt is…Really? Doubt is laying on the floor outside the ring while some jackass talks about saving the business…Doubt is watching Sean Stevens run from the ring at Aggression 50, and wondering if you’ll get another chance at him…
Doubt is making a mistake at Black Dawn and paying for it by losing a chance to be World Champion…Doubt is watching Sean Stevens on some morning talk show the day after, doing press as still the EPW World Champion…Doubt is asking yourself if it’s worth it, if all the pain and struggle means anything, because you might never make it to the mountain top…
Doubt is giving up and calling it a day, accepting second best is good enough…Doubt is what allows you to quit and still feel good about yourself, because you did your best, gave it your all and just came up short…And well, no shame in that right?
Doubt is what lets you throw your dreams away and decide that you’re willing to trade in those dreams for just grinding along, doing shows, fighting whomever and whatever, but never striving, never fighting, never truly being alive…
Every day I wake up and I run, run for miles and fight that doubt, fight that idea that this is acceptable…Every day I seek to improve myself, make myself more then I was the day before…I don’t want EPW to fall to my level…No I want to raise myself high enough to the point where I can carry this company...
I pour everything I have into everything I do and that is the only way one can truly live, truly be alive, truly experience existence as we, in these bodies, understand it…You have to give yourself fully or you never get anything in return…This life, this time and place…I give all I have to make myself the best wrestler I can…That’s how I live…
The doubts I have…They can’t stop me, they can’t hold me back…You least of all could make me doubt anything…Because you’re a man who doesn’t even know himself…You’ve spent all this time calling HOPE…What was it again? Oh that’s right, GASP…That was really clever…Was that how you planned on saving this company?
You say you know doubt Copycat?! You ARE doubt! You’re the man who’s mailed in a year of apathy in this company, spent his time hanging out in the shadows, living as a minion of others, doing the bidding of his betters…You had no passion no fire, no soul…You were an empty shell of a man…You did nothing because you were nothing…You have done nothing but doubted yourself, accepted your place in this world as being second-rate, a nobody…
When have you shown any heart, any determination? When have you ever decided to suck it up and fight through the pain? At Black Dawn you just back jumped someone, couldn’t even be bothered to show up for your match, but I guess you had to save EPW by handing the tag titles to the Heirs of Wrestling…
You know what I doubt? I doubt your logic…Because your logic is incoherent as it is moronic…If I win the EPW World Title, then EPW has failed…Because I was good enough to win that title...(Smiles.) So that’s what this is all about is it? That you have to save EPW from me winning its championship? That’s the big plan, the whole glorious Copycat manifesto can be boiled down to “First must not win the EPW World Title, because First sucks.”
I feel honored Copycat, I really do, that I’m so important in your world view, that I am the Harbinger of Endtimes…That I’d ruin this very company if I got my hands on its biggest title…That you, only acting out of the most selfless desires, will stop this from happening, not because you want to be World Champion, but because you must not…You CAN NOT allow me to win that title…
So tell me, who’s worthy of that belt…Who would be on the list of “Copycat approved World Champions”…Now I have a guess as to who’s on that list…The people who can save EPW from its own impending doom…Well not people…Because I doubt there’s more than one name on that list…And well, that name…I’m going to guess it rhymes with Copycat…
Cause really Copycat, in the end, everything you’ve said is meaningless, you’re not going to save this company or this sport…You’re just trying to get yourself to where I’ve been, and that’s the main event of this company…And you’re going to try to do it at my expense, and well, I’m not going to let you…
Your words won’t change my mind…So all you have is violence…Because in the end, only violence will prove I’m mediocre…Only pinning me or escaping that cage will prove your point that I don’t shouldn’t be EPW World Champion…But it would only stop me for a moment, only for this tournament…For an obsession like this doesn’t ever go away, no it never ends, no final truth will be revealed that will show me that never should I reign along with the other greats of this industry who’ve had their turn with the title…
Fact is Copycat, you’re just like me…Bit bigger, bit more self righteous, but in the end, you want to win this tournament, you want to be World Champion…You’ll do it pounding “The Book of Copycat” what with it's red-closed captioning to show us the parts spoken by Copycat himself...And through it tell all us wayward souls about your path to redemption…Preaching your fire and brimstone…telling of the of reckoning being at hand for EPW…
The only reckoning that’s coming is for you…You’re going to find out exactly how mediocre I am (Smirks) you’re going to learn exactly why I’ve been the only man Sean Stevens hasn’t gotten rid of all this time…You’re going to find out how right you were to avoid me all this time…
And in the end…There will be no doubt at all…That I was the better man…
(FADEOUT)
FIRST: You know what doubt is…Really? Doubt is laying on the floor outside the ring while some jackass talks about saving the business…Doubt is watching Sean Stevens run from the ring at Aggression 50, and wondering if you’ll get another chance at him…
Doubt is making a mistake at Black Dawn and paying for it by losing a chance to be World Champion…Doubt is watching Sean Stevens on some morning talk show the day after, doing press as still the EPW World Champion…Doubt is asking yourself if it’s worth it, if all the pain and struggle means anything, because you might never make it to the mountain top…
Doubt is giving up and calling it a day, accepting second best is good enough…Doubt is what allows you to quit and still feel good about yourself, because you did your best, gave it your all and just came up short…And well, no shame in that right?
Doubt is what lets you throw your dreams away and decide that you’re willing to trade in those dreams for just grinding along, doing shows, fighting whomever and whatever, but never striving, never fighting, never truly being alive…
Every day I wake up and I run, run for miles and fight that doubt, fight that idea that this is acceptable…Every day I seek to improve myself, make myself more then I was the day before…I don’t want EPW to fall to my level…No I want to raise myself high enough to the point where I can carry this company...
I pour everything I have into everything I do and that is the only way one can truly live, truly be alive, truly experience existence as we, in these bodies, understand it…You have to give yourself fully or you never get anything in return…This life, this time and place…I give all I have to make myself the best wrestler I can…That’s how I live…
The doubts I have…They can’t stop me, they can’t hold me back…You least of all could make me doubt anything…Because you’re a man who doesn’t even know himself…You’ve spent all this time calling HOPE…What was it again? Oh that’s right, GASP…That was really clever…Was that how you planned on saving this company?
You say you know doubt Copycat?! You ARE doubt! You’re the man who’s mailed in a year of apathy in this company, spent his time hanging out in the shadows, living as a minion of others, doing the bidding of his betters…You had no passion no fire, no soul…You were an empty shell of a man…You did nothing because you were nothing…You have done nothing but doubted yourself, accepted your place in this world as being second-rate, a nobody…
When have you shown any heart, any determination? When have you ever decided to suck it up and fight through the pain? At Black Dawn you just back jumped someone, couldn’t even be bothered to show up for your match, but I guess you had to save EPW by handing the tag titles to the Heirs of Wrestling…
You know what I doubt? I doubt your logic…Because your logic is incoherent as it is moronic…If I win the EPW World Title, then EPW has failed…Because I was good enough to win that title...(Smiles.) So that’s what this is all about is it? That you have to save EPW from me winning its championship? That’s the big plan, the whole glorious Copycat manifesto can be boiled down to “First must not win the EPW World Title, because First sucks.”
I feel honored Copycat, I really do, that I’m so important in your world view, that I am the Harbinger of Endtimes…That I’d ruin this very company if I got my hands on its biggest title…That you, only acting out of the most selfless desires, will stop this from happening, not because you want to be World Champion, but because you must not…You CAN NOT allow me to win that title…
So tell me, who’s worthy of that belt…Who would be on the list of “Copycat approved World Champions”…Now I have a guess as to who’s on that list…The people who can save EPW from its own impending doom…Well not people…Because I doubt there’s more than one name on that list…And well, that name…I’m going to guess it rhymes with Copycat…
Cause really Copycat, in the end, everything you’ve said is meaningless, you’re not going to save this company or this sport…You’re just trying to get yourself to where I’ve been, and that’s the main event of this company…And you’re going to try to do it at my expense, and well, I’m not going to let you…
Your words won’t change my mind…So all you have is violence…Because in the end, only violence will prove I’m mediocre…Only pinning me or escaping that cage will prove your point that I don’t shouldn’t be EPW World Champion…But it would only stop me for a moment, only for this tournament…For an obsession like this doesn’t ever go away, no it never ends, no final truth will be revealed that will show me that never should I reign along with the other greats of this industry who’ve had their turn with the title…
Fact is Copycat, you’re just like me…Bit bigger, bit more self righteous, but in the end, you want to win this tournament, you want to be World Champion…You’ll do it pounding “The Book of Copycat” what with it's red-closed captioning to show us the parts spoken by Copycat himself...And through it tell all us wayward souls about your path to redemption…Preaching your fire and brimstone…telling of the of reckoning being at hand for EPW…
The only reckoning that’s coming is for you…You’re going to find out exactly how mediocre I am (Smirks) you’re going to learn exactly why I’ve been the only man Sean Stevens hasn’t gotten rid of all this time…You’re going to find out how right you were to avoid me all this time…
And in the end…There will be no doubt at all…That I was the better man…
(FADEOUT)
GARTHIsTheLaw
League Member
<i>(We fade in a jerky, poor-quality webcam shot of a guy we don't recognize sitting at his computer. He's a heavier fella with brown hair, a five o'clock shadow and a black T-shirt that might have Anthology on it, though part of the shirt design is below frame and the video quality might be too bad for it to be possible to even make it out. For now, he's looking up at the camera)</i>
<b>Guy:</b> What's up, everybody? Hey, I know you're usually expecting me to give my thoughts on the wrestling biz right now, but this time, I've actually got an opportunity to do something really cool. I got – I sh(BLEEP)t you not – an e-mail from the one, the only, Copycat earlier today, and he wanted me to read it right here on camera. It's addressed to the First, but I'm sure he won't mind if all of y'all listen in. I'm sorry if I f(BLEEP)k it up, the e-mail said not to read it until the camera's rolling so I haven't rehearsed it or anything, but honestly, guys, this is cool enough that I don't even care. This's what it says.
<i>(The guy's eyes go down to the computer monitor and he starts to read. Words in big black type scroll onto the screen, layered over the guy's picture, as he reads)</i>
I know you don't want to understand, First.
You've got this dedicated worldview and you can't let go of it. I've seen it before.
For you, First, everything is viewed through a very special set of commissioned glasses that depict you with the EPW World Heavyweight Title on the center of each lens. All you've said for the past year is that you'll be World Heavyweight Champion. And yet, what happens every time you get a chance? What happens every time you swear up and down that this time, <i>this time</i>, you'll finally take down Sean Stevens?
Nothing. Another failure, to be followed by another set of promos where you tell Sean Stevens to wait 'til next time. But next time won't be any different. You claim you strive to improve yourself, adding an extra mile to your morning run, an extra set of reps to your afternoon workout, another few ounces of protein shake to your diet regimen. It won't help you.
That image on your glasses is blinding you. You seek only to improve your body. You need to improve your mind. You need to improve your spirit.
You need to see things through my eyes.
You need to see that with every self-affirmation that what you're doing will be good enough next time, you're digging the hole deeper. It wasn't good enough before. It won't be good enough next time, not unless the other guy gets a lot worse.
That would aggravate a smarter man, First. But not you. You've rehearsed this fantasy so many times that you can't imagine a scenario where it doesn't happen. You've once again vowed that you will be EPW World Heavyweight Champion. But you've been saying that for over a year. And I don't believe it coming from you any more than I believe it coming from Stalker.
My goals are higher, my aspirations loftier. Your fixation on the championship precludes you from believing anyone could possibly be after something more important – from believing anything could even be more important – but a title is only a piece of gold. It won't be around forever. Many of the championships I've held throughout my career now exist only in record books and in trophy cases. I'm not after that. I don't need that.
What I need is for the people who've been working to take apart this business bit by bit – people like you – to realize what you're doing to it with your selfishness. The way you talk about the title, First, one might think you believe the world will end and the Rapture will come as soon as you win it. You're more attached to the idea of your championship reign ending all existence than I am to the idea of your championship reign destroying this business.
Sean Stevens' championship reign is destroying this business as surely as yours would. Don't flatter yourself, First. The only way you becoming the champion would make things worse is in a sense that your continued insistence, your continued self-absorption, your continued disregard for the future of this business and its evolution beyond the likes of you and your generation of pathetic specimens, are making things worse.
I know you don't want to understand, First. I know you don't want to see.
But you'll see. And through the methods I use to make you see, I'll make others see. Not all at once. But a little at a time.
That's the best-case scenario.
I'd like for the day of reckoning this business faces to be one it faces willingly. I'd like for those who care about its future to rise up, to do away with those who will be content for its very existence to end when their careers do.
But I am fully prepared to do anything and everything I have to do to bring about that day of reckoning. If you and the rest of EPW are not prepared to comply, I will make you comply. And if I cannot make you comply, I will remove you from the equation altogether.
You don't believe me when I tell you I can bring about the changes I plan to effect, the cleansing of EPW and this business as a whole of the toxic elements within it. And there was a time when that might have bothered me. A time when my words going unheeded would have been a source of frustration for me.
No more.
Anthology failed, and so I have cast it off. The man I worked my entire life to become failed, and so I have cast him off. Neither thing came easily to me – not nearly as easily as demanding ever more title shots comes to you. But I had to free myself of those failures, no matter what the cost.
I have my own fixations, my own designs, but I did not arrive at them out of unwillingness to change. I arrived at them because they were the only destination left, the only one that could stand a chance of curing the sickness I have sought to cure.
At Aggression 52, I will continue my descent into the rotten core of this business. I will continue my crusade to cut out the areas that have rotted away and save what little I can, so that I may rebuild it in my incorruptible image. You, First, are an obstacle. You block my way with your ignorance, your apathy, your self-absorption, your unwitting dedication to destruction. And you don't see it.
See what I see, First. See and understand why the way I have set is the only way.
<i>(The guy stops reading from the monitor and looks up at the webcam again)</i>
<b>Guy:</b> ...
<i>(After a few seconds of silence, he visibly clicks to something on the computer, and the image cuts to black)</i>
<b>Guy:</b> What's up, everybody? Hey, I know you're usually expecting me to give my thoughts on the wrestling biz right now, but this time, I've actually got an opportunity to do something really cool. I got – I sh(BLEEP)t you not – an e-mail from the one, the only, Copycat earlier today, and he wanted me to read it right here on camera. It's addressed to the First, but I'm sure he won't mind if all of y'all listen in. I'm sorry if I f(BLEEP)k it up, the e-mail said not to read it until the camera's rolling so I haven't rehearsed it or anything, but honestly, guys, this is cool enough that I don't even care. This's what it says.
<i>(The guy's eyes go down to the computer monitor and he starts to read. Words in big black type scroll onto the screen, layered over the guy's picture, as he reads)</i>
I know you don't want to understand, First.
You've got this dedicated worldview and you can't let go of it. I've seen it before.
For you, First, everything is viewed through a very special set of commissioned glasses that depict you with the EPW World Heavyweight Title on the center of each lens. All you've said for the past year is that you'll be World Heavyweight Champion. And yet, what happens every time you get a chance? What happens every time you swear up and down that this time, <i>this time</i>, you'll finally take down Sean Stevens?
Nothing. Another failure, to be followed by another set of promos where you tell Sean Stevens to wait 'til next time. But next time won't be any different. You claim you strive to improve yourself, adding an extra mile to your morning run, an extra set of reps to your afternoon workout, another few ounces of protein shake to your diet regimen. It won't help you.
That image on your glasses is blinding you. You seek only to improve your body. You need to improve your mind. You need to improve your spirit.
You need to see things through my eyes.
You need to see that with every self-affirmation that what you're doing will be good enough next time, you're digging the hole deeper. It wasn't good enough before. It won't be good enough next time, not unless the other guy gets a lot worse.
That would aggravate a smarter man, First. But not you. You've rehearsed this fantasy so many times that you can't imagine a scenario where it doesn't happen. You've once again vowed that you will be EPW World Heavyweight Champion. But you've been saying that for over a year. And I don't believe it coming from you any more than I believe it coming from Stalker.
My goals are higher, my aspirations loftier. Your fixation on the championship precludes you from believing anyone could possibly be after something more important – from believing anything could even be more important – but a title is only a piece of gold. It won't be around forever. Many of the championships I've held throughout my career now exist only in record books and in trophy cases. I'm not after that. I don't need that.
What I need is for the people who've been working to take apart this business bit by bit – people like you – to realize what you're doing to it with your selfishness. The way you talk about the title, First, one might think you believe the world will end and the Rapture will come as soon as you win it. You're more attached to the idea of your championship reign ending all existence than I am to the idea of your championship reign destroying this business.
Sean Stevens' championship reign is destroying this business as surely as yours would. Don't flatter yourself, First. The only way you becoming the champion would make things worse is in a sense that your continued insistence, your continued self-absorption, your continued disregard for the future of this business and its evolution beyond the likes of you and your generation of pathetic specimens, are making things worse.
I know you don't want to understand, First. I know you don't want to see.
But you'll see. And through the methods I use to make you see, I'll make others see. Not all at once. But a little at a time.
That's the best-case scenario.
I'd like for the day of reckoning this business faces to be one it faces willingly. I'd like for those who care about its future to rise up, to do away with those who will be content for its very existence to end when their careers do.
But I am fully prepared to do anything and everything I have to do to bring about that day of reckoning. If you and the rest of EPW are not prepared to comply, I will make you comply. And if I cannot make you comply, I will remove you from the equation altogether.
You don't believe me when I tell you I can bring about the changes I plan to effect, the cleansing of EPW and this business as a whole of the toxic elements within it. And there was a time when that might have bothered me. A time when my words going unheeded would have been a source of frustration for me.
No more.
Anthology failed, and so I have cast it off. The man I worked my entire life to become failed, and so I have cast him off. Neither thing came easily to me – not nearly as easily as demanding ever more title shots comes to you. But I had to free myself of those failures, no matter what the cost.
I have my own fixations, my own designs, but I did not arrive at them out of unwillingness to change. I arrived at them because they were the only destination left, the only one that could stand a chance of curing the sickness I have sought to cure.
At Aggression 52, I will continue my descent into the rotten core of this business. I will continue my crusade to cut out the areas that have rotted away and save what little I can, so that I may rebuild it in my incorruptible image. You, First, are an obstacle. You block my way with your ignorance, your apathy, your self-absorption, your unwitting dedication to destruction. And you don't see it.
See what I see, First. See and understand why the way I have set is the only way.
<i>(The guy stops reading from the monitor and looks up at the webcam again)</i>
<b>Guy:</b> ...
<i>(After a few seconds of silence, he visibly clicks to something on the computer, and the image cuts to black)</i>
The Great Eye
I came to cut you up
- Joined
- Jan 29, 2004
- Messages
- 1,337
- Points
- 0
(FADEIN: The First, sitting on the steps of Front Street, in the same get up as before.)
FIRST: I have to improve my spirit? Are you kidding me Copycat? I’m The First…My spirit is the sprit all others are judged by…I started this whole thing about living inside human beings and living in this world through their bodies…This is my gig…
I might not have been as cool as Muse in some aspects…I mean she did figure out how to make drums and stuff…But still my track record of studying and observing the human condition is one I’d gladly stack up against anyone else’s…You know what my spirit is? It’s old and full of knowledge…Yet still yearns for new experiences…This life of mine…This is a new thing…America, mass media, the internet…We didn’t have this stuff back in the day…Fame then and fame now are two totally different beasts…
Your average American lives better then the kings of the world a century ago…Indoor plumbing, are you kidding me, what an incredible thing that is, and don’t even get me started on air conditioning…
Don’t talk to me about spirit Copycat…Because as far as I can see, the original is still the best…
The question really is how much spirit do you have Copycat? How much do you need this? Because really I don’t give a damn about anything you say anymore. You contradict yourself every other sentence, you tell it’s not about the title, but I can’t win it because that would destroy the company. So I’m done trying to climb down the rabbit hole to find logic. I’m not going to take the red pill to finally discover the truth. I’m not going to watch “The Obama Deception” and learn about how the government is really run by the fed.
No what I’m going to do Copycat, is test your spirit, because you bring up my year of not being able to capture the EPW World Title…Well that just makes me want to keep going and keep fighting. So what if it takes me another year or two years, or 5 years? Well guess what, I get to live that experience, I get to have that long painful struggle…And that’s all I care about, drinking up those moments, embracing my darkest moments because through them, comes the light…
And that’s what you’re up against, somebody who isn’t going to quit, who isn’t going to back down, and isn’t going to take no for an answer. When you get in that cage you’re going to fight somebody who’s willing to finish that match being carried out on a stretcher if need be, if I gotta bleed, if I have to go to the hospital, if I end up having to fight Sean Stevens with only one good arm or one good leg, that’s fine, I’m willing to pay any price to get past you. You’re just a challenge to overcome, another adventure I must take…
So I want to know really Copycat, how badly do you want this? What are you going to be thinking once we get past 20 minutes and you still haven’t finished me off, will you have the drive, the desire, the will to destroy me? You said if I can’t be converted I’ll be eliminated…Well let’s see you do that Copycat…Just try to eliminate me…
Of course you can’t eliminate me…Nor could I eliminate you…For we’re all eternal…These bodies are not who we truly are…To allow such foolish things to define us is the height of folly…You want my eyes to see, but really what use are eyes for sight? What do they ever observe truly? What tiny fraction of the spectrum do they manage to capture…I mean really if you think about it bees can see colors we can’t even fathom…(Stares off into space for a moment, then snaps back.) but I digress…
Bring up Stevens and my defeats against him all you want…You’re not him…So until YOU do something to me…Besides run of course…I’m not impressed…
What I want is to fight you and feel your spirit, for once I want to know the man known as Copycat is alive, that he’s really there, that he’s not hiding behind a pair of sunglasses and a large bank account, or behind people reading the messages he’s handed off…I want to know that there is something there…That you even have a spirit…
Cause I don’t know that you do…You’ve always been cold, aloof…And now you’re cloaked in shadows and surrounded by mystery…And when push comes to shove…You’ve always been the one to back down…Because you are the one who has a weak spirit if he even has one at all. You’re the one who can’t dig down into his soul to find that extra courage, that extra nerve needed to fight on when the hard times come, those trying moments when the battle is won or lose…That’s when you’ve always been found lacking…And so you turn to your conspiracies…EPW is holding you back, EPW is corrupt…And so on…
But getting out a chalk board and crying over how much you love EPW and how much you fear for it won’t do you a damn bit of good in that ring at Aggression 52…No shadowy corporate figure is going to decide the result of this match…You will not be defeated by forces outside your control…No you’ll be defeated by the fact that you are lacking…You are the one who doesn’t have the spirit to compete in such a do or die situation….
That’s the fact of the situation…You’re the one who doesn’t look within himself, and doesn’t see his own glaring weakness…You’re the one who’s never sought to commune with his spirit and find his path, you are the lost man traveling in darkness who now believes he’s found righteousness…But in reality has merely fallen even further from the path…
For your spirit, your soul is trapped somewhere inside you and it longs to be free, and maybe after this match is over…We can bond and together I could help you find yourself, and liberate you from your stupor, maybe we can turn this paranoid, jaded, cynical man into a being that understands and embraces himself and his role in this world…
I want to help you Copycat…But I can’t right now…Sadly fate has made it such that we are to fight…And that is the way of this industry, for all my talk of the past and all your talk of salvation really in the end, all this will be is a fight…
Men put into a ring as a spectacle for others to observe, to cheer for and curse…Rome did it the best before we all got the radios and TV’s to broadcast it…But it’s always been a part of the world…You think you can save EPW? What’s EPW? Three letters…Fighting, and people watching fighting, will exist until humanity itself is dead and gone…You can’t save humanity from itself however noble you’re intentions are…
And why do they embrace it so? Why do they watch such violence? Because it is humanity at its most primal, its most intense, its most raw…When we strip away civilization and embrace what we are at the very fiber of our beings…People get to see warriors leaving all they have on the field of battle…Giving their very souls to the cause of victory…It is why sport is so beloved…We are always invested in watching men fight and overcome other men…Be the setting a gladiator’s arena, a soccer pitch, or a wrestling ring surrounded by cruel steel…We are all moths to the flame…
It is why we care about music and art and acting, for people pour their souls out and we drink of that, they take us to other places, connect to us on a primal level…We feel as they feel, we relate to their struggles, their stories are the stories of life and they are universal...And that is why we’re on this earth, why we come back again and again to discover and relive these events, why we leave The Spiral time and again.
And at Aggression 52 we will tell a story...And the crowd shall celebrate and roar it's approval, and in the end...I shall stand the avatar of the masses, the Outcast Hero...Once again victorious...Once again so very close to the title, yet so very far from it...
The suspense is terrible...I hope it'll last...
(FADEOUT)
FIRST: I have to improve my spirit? Are you kidding me Copycat? I’m The First…My spirit is the sprit all others are judged by…I started this whole thing about living inside human beings and living in this world through their bodies…This is my gig…
I might not have been as cool as Muse in some aspects…I mean she did figure out how to make drums and stuff…But still my track record of studying and observing the human condition is one I’d gladly stack up against anyone else’s…You know what my spirit is? It’s old and full of knowledge…Yet still yearns for new experiences…This life of mine…This is a new thing…America, mass media, the internet…We didn’t have this stuff back in the day…Fame then and fame now are two totally different beasts…
Your average American lives better then the kings of the world a century ago…Indoor plumbing, are you kidding me, what an incredible thing that is, and don’t even get me started on air conditioning…
Don’t talk to me about spirit Copycat…Because as far as I can see, the original is still the best…
The question really is how much spirit do you have Copycat? How much do you need this? Because really I don’t give a damn about anything you say anymore. You contradict yourself every other sentence, you tell it’s not about the title, but I can’t win it because that would destroy the company. So I’m done trying to climb down the rabbit hole to find logic. I’m not going to take the red pill to finally discover the truth. I’m not going to watch “The Obama Deception” and learn about how the government is really run by the fed.
No what I’m going to do Copycat, is test your spirit, because you bring up my year of not being able to capture the EPW World Title…Well that just makes me want to keep going and keep fighting. So what if it takes me another year or two years, or 5 years? Well guess what, I get to live that experience, I get to have that long painful struggle…And that’s all I care about, drinking up those moments, embracing my darkest moments because through them, comes the light…
And that’s what you’re up against, somebody who isn’t going to quit, who isn’t going to back down, and isn’t going to take no for an answer. When you get in that cage you’re going to fight somebody who’s willing to finish that match being carried out on a stretcher if need be, if I gotta bleed, if I have to go to the hospital, if I end up having to fight Sean Stevens with only one good arm or one good leg, that’s fine, I’m willing to pay any price to get past you. You’re just a challenge to overcome, another adventure I must take…
So I want to know really Copycat, how badly do you want this? What are you going to be thinking once we get past 20 minutes and you still haven’t finished me off, will you have the drive, the desire, the will to destroy me? You said if I can’t be converted I’ll be eliminated…Well let’s see you do that Copycat…Just try to eliminate me…
Of course you can’t eliminate me…Nor could I eliminate you…For we’re all eternal…These bodies are not who we truly are…To allow such foolish things to define us is the height of folly…You want my eyes to see, but really what use are eyes for sight? What do they ever observe truly? What tiny fraction of the spectrum do they manage to capture…I mean really if you think about it bees can see colors we can’t even fathom…(Stares off into space for a moment, then snaps back.) but I digress…
Bring up Stevens and my defeats against him all you want…You’re not him…So until YOU do something to me…Besides run of course…I’m not impressed…
What I want is to fight you and feel your spirit, for once I want to know the man known as Copycat is alive, that he’s really there, that he’s not hiding behind a pair of sunglasses and a large bank account, or behind people reading the messages he’s handed off…I want to know that there is something there…That you even have a spirit…
Cause I don’t know that you do…You’ve always been cold, aloof…And now you’re cloaked in shadows and surrounded by mystery…And when push comes to shove…You’ve always been the one to back down…Because you are the one who has a weak spirit if he even has one at all. You’re the one who can’t dig down into his soul to find that extra courage, that extra nerve needed to fight on when the hard times come, those trying moments when the battle is won or lose…That’s when you’ve always been found lacking…And so you turn to your conspiracies…EPW is holding you back, EPW is corrupt…And so on…
But getting out a chalk board and crying over how much you love EPW and how much you fear for it won’t do you a damn bit of good in that ring at Aggression 52…No shadowy corporate figure is going to decide the result of this match…You will not be defeated by forces outside your control…No you’ll be defeated by the fact that you are lacking…You are the one who doesn’t have the spirit to compete in such a do or die situation….
That’s the fact of the situation…You’re the one who doesn’t look within himself, and doesn’t see his own glaring weakness…You’re the one who’s never sought to commune with his spirit and find his path, you are the lost man traveling in darkness who now believes he’s found righteousness…But in reality has merely fallen even further from the path…
For your spirit, your soul is trapped somewhere inside you and it longs to be free, and maybe after this match is over…We can bond and together I could help you find yourself, and liberate you from your stupor, maybe we can turn this paranoid, jaded, cynical man into a being that understands and embraces himself and his role in this world…
I want to help you Copycat…But I can’t right now…Sadly fate has made it such that we are to fight…And that is the way of this industry, for all my talk of the past and all your talk of salvation really in the end, all this will be is a fight…
Men put into a ring as a spectacle for others to observe, to cheer for and curse…Rome did it the best before we all got the radios and TV’s to broadcast it…But it’s always been a part of the world…You think you can save EPW? What’s EPW? Three letters…Fighting, and people watching fighting, will exist until humanity itself is dead and gone…You can’t save humanity from itself however noble you’re intentions are…
And why do they embrace it so? Why do they watch such violence? Because it is humanity at its most primal, its most intense, its most raw…When we strip away civilization and embrace what we are at the very fiber of our beings…People get to see warriors leaving all they have on the field of battle…Giving their very souls to the cause of victory…It is why sport is so beloved…We are always invested in watching men fight and overcome other men…Be the setting a gladiator’s arena, a soccer pitch, or a wrestling ring surrounded by cruel steel…We are all moths to the flame…
It is why we care about music and art and acting, for people pour their souls out and we drink of that, they take us to other places, connect to us on a primal level…We feel as they feel, we relate to their struggles, their stories are the stories of life and they are universal...And that is why we’re on this earth, why we come back again and again to discover and relive these events, why we leave The Spiral time and again.
And at Aggression 52 we will tell a story...And the crowd shall celebrate and roar it's approval, and in the end...I shall stand the avatar of the masses, the Outcast Hero...Once again victorious...Once again so very close to the title, yet so very far from it...
The suspense is terrible...I hope it'll last...
(FADEOUT)
Last edited:
The Great Eye
I came to cut you up
- Joined
- Jan 29, 2004
- Messages
- 1,337
- Points
- 0
(FADEIN: The First holding a copy of an old EPW magazine. On the page he’s looking at is a photo in the aftermath of Aggression 44, with himself holding the EPW World Title.)
FIRST: I look into my eyes there and see how naïve I was…How easy I thought this would all be, how I’d just roll into the ring, stomp Sean Stevens guts out, and take that belt home…Now, all this time, and I’m no closer now then I was then…
I look into the eyes of that man on the screen and wonder if he knows that he’s gonna lose a lot of hair…(Runs his hand through his now shortened hair) that he’ll be in bed by 9 so he could be up by 5 to get in his morning run…That the trips to Dairy Queen, and fried food at the Willows, would be replaced by tuna fish on wheat bread…And lots and lots of water…
That he’d have to listen long and hard to what High Flyer said about his marriage and his kid…And he’d have to look at the horrible, ruined life of Layne Winters and think to himself about what these men said, and if he had it in him to keep a better balance in his own life…
I bet he has no idea he’d be listening to the locker room whine and complain that he’s had to many favors done him, to many chances already, that a man would declare he has to ‘save EPW’ by preventing him from having another title shot…That he was in fact part of the ‘corruption’ that was ruining the company and destroying everything EPW stands for.
No I don’t think he’d have seen any of that coming…But that’s the funny thing about life is that you don’t see every twist and turn in the road…You don’t know that the light coming at you is an oncoming train…And that when the Black Dawn sets and all HOPE seems lost…Well, suddenly another chance falls into your lap…
And that’s the fun of all of this really…Copycat said I believe in Happily Ever After…Such an idea is madness…If I did get past Copycat and then beat Stevens…The book doesn’t close and the story doesn’t end…The next show I’d be fighting one of either Astros, or Black, or Bastard, or by good friend Layne…He called me a rodeo clown…That was a good one…If I got past that I’d have 7 more guys all going for my throat…And surviving that…Well that would just open the door for a Stevens re-match, or maybe Shawn Hart or Lindsay Troy would decide to go after me…The threats would never stop coming.
At some point somebody would beat me for the title…And then I’d either give chase again or find something else to do…Sooner or later this body of mine will give out and I’ll have to find another hobby to take my time with…Maybe show up to wrestling conventions that’ll bother to have me…And in the end, this body will cease to have life, and I’ll move on to another one…
Our story never ends, not in life, not in death, not in between death and llife anew…We can observe a ‘before’ and a past, but not an ‘after’ or a future, for we live in the now, the ‘during’…And that’s what I believe in, this moment in time, this bit of existence. This is where I am…And where I am right now sends me on a direct collision with you Copycat…
Two men with vastly different views of the world…You seek an EPW untainted by corruption, made wholesome by your actions…Your deeps transcending the sport itself and unleashing a new age upon this industry…I just want to win to get a title shot…It’s not as lofty as your goals I’ll admit…But you’ll never achieve your dream, for nothing is ever truly pure to the fanatic…Those hands always have blood on them no matter how much you clean them…
That’s why while it might seem foolish to seek glory and leather and gold, at least it’s real, at least it’s something I can obtain...Even if there are those who think I won’t…One day, the doubters and skeptics will be silenced…Those who do not believe in me will have to accept that I am their champion…For that is the path I am on, and it is a path I will not be moved from…
I look at this photo and think to myself that it’s what I must do…I must hold that belt again…And the next time I hold it…It’s going to be mine…
(FADEOUT)
FIRST: I look into my eyes there and see how naïve I was…How easy I thought this would all be, how I’d just roll into the ring, stomp Sean Stevens guts out, and take that belt home…Now, all this time, and I’m no closer now then I was then…
I look into the eyes of that man on the screen and wonder if he knows that he’s gonna lose a lot of hair…(Runs his hand through his now shortened hair) that he’ll be in bed by 9 so he could be up by 5 to get in his morning run…That the trips to Dairy Queen, and fried food at the Willows, would be replaced by tuna fish on wheat bread…And lots and lots of water…
That he’d have to listen long and hard to what High Flyer said about his marriage and his kid…And he’d have to look at the horrible, ruined life of Layne Winters and think to himself about what these men said, and if he had it in him to keep a better balance in his own life…
I bet he has no idea he’d be listening to the locker room whine and complain that he’s had to many favors done him, to many chances already, that a man would declare he has to ‘save EPW’ by preventing him from having another title shot…That he was in fact part of the ‘corruption’ that was ruining the company and destroying everything EPW stands for.
No I don’t think he’d have seen any of that coming…But that’s the funny thing about life is that you don’t see every twist and turn in the road…You don’t know that the light coming at you is an oncoming train…And that when the Black Dawn sets and all HOPE seems lost…Well, suddenly another chance falls into your lap…
And that’s the fun of all of this really…Copycat said I believe in Happily Ever After…Such an idea is madness…If I did get past Copycat and then beat Stevens…The book doesn’t close and the story doesn’t end…The next show I’d be fighting one of either Astros, or Black, or Bastard, or by good friend Layne…He called me a rodeo clown…That was a good one…If I got past that I’d have 7 more guys all going for my throat…And surviving that…Well that would just open the door for a Stevens re-match, or maybe Shawn Hart or Lindsay Troy would decide to go after me…The threats would never stop coming.
At some point somebody would beat me for the title…And then I’d either give chase again or find something else to do…Sooner or later this body of mine will give out and I’ll have to find another hobby to take my time with…Maybe show up to wrestling conventions that’ll bother to have me…And in the end, this body will cease to have life, and I’ll move on to another one…
Our story never ends, not in life, not in death, not in between death and llife anew…We can observe a ‘before’ and a past, but not an ‘after’ or a future, for we live in the now, the ‘during’…And that’s what I believe in, this moment in time, this bit of existence. This is where I am…And where I am right now sends me on a direct collision with you Copycat…
Two men with vastly different views of the world…You seek an EPW untainted by corruption, made wholesome by your actions…Your deeps transcending the sport itself and unleashing a new age upon this industry…I just want to win to get a title shot…It’s not as lofty as your goals I’ll admit…But you’ll never achieve your dream, for nothing is ever truly pure to the fanatic…Those hands always have blood on them no matter how much you clean them…
That’s why while it might seem foolish to seek glory and leather and gold, at least it’s real, at least it’s something I can obtain...Even if there are those who think I won’t…One day, the doubters and skeptics will be silenced…Those who do not believe in me will have to accept that I am their champion…For that is the path I am on, and it is a path I will not be moved from…
I look at this photo and think to myself that it’s what I must do…I must hold that belt again…And the next time I hold it…It’s going to be mine…
(FADEOUT)
GARTHIsTheLaw
League Member
<i>(We fade in on what looks to be the First’s most recent promo, holding the most recent issue of EPW Magazine)</i>
<b>The First:</b> I look into my eyes there and see how naïve I was.
<i>(The First’s promo continues as before, but the sound cuts out as soon as his sentence is finished. No sound replaces it, but over the image of the First talking come words, appearing on the screen from the right as though being typed in)</i>
Suddenly remembered who you are, did you, First?
Bringing up your eternal spirit. Bringing up my soul. Waxing poetic about fate and violence.
One would almost think you panicked when called on your unwillingness to change for the better. That you realized the echoes of your pull-string affirmations of EPW championship glory were growing ever louder with the increasing emptiness of each promise. That you acknowledged you’ve broken promise after promise to yourself and are seeking to make amends.
But we both know better, don’t we, First? We know nothing I say really resonates with you. After all, you yourself said you can’t take me seriously anymore, which must be why you just can’t stop responding to everything I say.
No, First, I think we both know you’d never change on account of anything I said. Or anything anyone else said.
That’s what this new generation of wrestler is all about, isn’t it? Never listening to others. Never taking their words to heart, no matter what those words might be. Never attempting to learn from mistakes – instead stubbornly, resolutely repeating the same actions over and over again, praying for a full moon to change the tides in your favor. You talk about High Flyer and Layne Winters and every other disgusting degradation of this business as though you’ve learned things from them, but you haven’t. You’ve just used them to reinforce the beliefs you already had.
I don’t expect you to instantaneously acknowledge that what I say is right and subsequently resolve to follow me, First. I don’t have all the answers. I’d hate to see the day when I do. In better times, there would be many from whose examples you could learn.
But now, those from whom the new generation could learn are driven out of this business, replaced by others who would like nothing more than for their methods to never be studied, lest the students use those lessons against them. They cannot stand the idea that someone new might come along and take away what little glory they have left.
That was all I wanted when I left this business, First. Rare is the man who leaves on all his own terms, and I certainly was not that man when I left, but I would have been content to see myself surpassed by the competitors of the future. I had other prospects. I was satisfied to let my star be eclipsed by the new ones twinkling in the sky.
I didn’t expect the likes of you to just live up to and surpass the glory I’d achieved. I expected you to inspire the next generation, as I did – perhaps even better than I ever could have.
But you wouldn’t do it. Neither you, nor Sean Stevens, nor Layne Winters, nor Fusenshoff. Nor, once they panicked and ran scared from the idea of fading away once their mission was accomplished, did the rest of Anthology. You refused to provide for the future of this business, like deadbeat parents. That was why I couldn’t let things stand as they were.
That is why I can’t let things stand as they are.
All you’ve proven, First, with your lofty talk of the sweat you’ve exerted in your sisyphean quest for the EPW World Heavyweight Title, is that the world ends with you. Maybe you’re telling the truth about seeing a future beyond that far-off title win, maybe you just made it up on the spot when you realized you saw nothing. I can’t be sure. But I can be sure that the EPW World Heavyweight Title and everything else you touch in this business will be worth nothing to you on the day you retire. If you can collect all the gold and keep it on a trophy shelf after this business has collapsed and there’s no one left to challenge you, you’ll be complacent.
This business lived on after I left it, First. And I intend for it to live on after I leave it again, whenever that might be. But before I can leave it again, I must set things right. I must cleanse it of those who see no future for the business beyond their own short careers. I must strip away the layers of selfishness and return everything to a time when the future was never in doubt.
I will reboot everything if I have to – tear it all down and rebuild in my incorruptible image.
There will be others who see what I see. Others who can continue to mold this business after I have done what must be done. Perhaps even others who can repair it enough that it need not be razed before rebuilding can begin.
You can’t see it now. But you will. If not at Aggression 52, then eventually – when it’s your future on the line. When your holy quest for the EPW World Heavyweight Title ends in final, abysmal, permanent failure, at my hands or another’s.
You don’t want things to end that way for you. Neither do I, if it can be helped.
See what I see, First. Look beyond the surface of this business to the rotten core, to the sickness that has spread because of the negligence you and others have practiced. See what must be done to save it.
See what I see. It is the vision that can save everything you hold dear. And it is the only way.
<i>(The typed-in words fade away, and sound returns to the First’s promo)</i>
<b>The First:</b> … It’s going to be mine.
<i>(Fade out)</i>
<b>The First:</b> I look into my eyes there and see how naïve I was.
<i>(The First’s promo continues as before, but the sound cuts out as soon as his sentence is finished. No sound replaces it, but over the image of the First talking come words, appearing on the screen from the right as though being typed in)</i>
Suddenly remembered who you are, did you, First?
Bringing up your eternal spirit. Bringing up my soul. Waxing poetic about fate and violence.
One would almost think you panicked when called on your unwillingness to change for the better. That you realized the echoes of your pull-string affirmations of EPW championship glory were growing ever louder with the increasing emptiness of each promise. That you acknowledged you’ve broken promise after promise to yourself and are seeking to make amends.
But we both know better, don’t we, First? We know nothing I say really resonates with you. After all, you yourself said you can’t take me seriously anymore, which must be why you just can’t stop responding to everything I say.
No, First, I think we both know you’d never change on account of anything I said. Or anything anyone else said.
That’s what this new generation of wrestler is all about, isn’t it? Never listening to others. Never taking their words to heart, no matter what those words might be. Never attempting to learn from mistakes – instead stubbornly, resolutely repeating the same actions over and over again, praying for a full moon to change the tides in your favor. You talk about High Flyer and Layne Winters and every other disgusting degradation of this business as though you’ve learned things from them, but you haven’t. You’ve just used them to reinforce the beliefs you already had.
I don’t expect you to instantaneously acknowledge that what I say is right and subsequently resolve to follow me, First. I don’t have all the answers. I’d hate to see the day when I do. In better times, there would be many from whose examples you could learn.
But now, those from whom the new generation could learn are driven out of this business, replaced by others who would like nothing more than for their methods to never be studied, lest the students use those lessons against them. They cannot stand the idea that someone new might come along and take away what little glory they have left.
That was all I wanted when I left this business, First. Rare is the man who leaves on all his own terms, and I certainly was not that man when I left, but I would have been content to see myself surpassed by the competitors of the future. I had other prospects. I was satisfied to let my star be eclipsed by the new ones twinkling in the sky.
I didn’t expect the likes of you to just live up to and surpass the glory I’d achieved. I expected you to inspire the next generation, as I did – perhaps even better than I ever could have.
But you wouldn’t do it. Neither you, nor Sean Stevens, nor Layne Winters, nor Fusenshoff. Nor, once they panicked and ran scared from the idea of fading away once their mission was accomplished, did the rest of Anthology. You refused to provide for the future of this business, like deadbeat parents. That was why I couldn’t let things stand as they were.
That is why I can’t let things stand as they are.
All you’ve proven, First, with your lofty talk of the sweat you’ve exerted in your sisyphean quest for the EPW World Heavyweight Title, is that the world ends with you. Maybe you’re telling the truth about seeing a future beyond that far-off title win, maybe you just made it up on the spot when you realized you saw nothing. I can’t be sure. But I can be sure that the EPW World Heavyweight Title and everything else you touch in this business will be worth nothing to you on the day you retire. If you can collect all the gold and keep it on a trophy shelf after this business has collapsed and there’s no one left to challenge you, you’ll be complacent.
This business lived on after I left it, First. And I intend for it to live on after I leave it again, whenever that might be. But before I can leave it again, I must set things right. I must cleanse it of those who see no future for the business beyond their own short careers. I must strip away the layers of selfishness and return everything to a time when the future was never in doubt.
I will reboot everything if I have to – tear it all down and rebuild in my incorruptible image.
There will be others who see what I see. Others who can continue to mold this business after I have done what must be done. Perhaps even others who can repair it enough that it need not be razed before rebuilding can begin.
You can’t see it now. But you will. If not at Aggression 52, then eventually – when it’s your future on the line. When your holy quest for the EPW World Heavyweight Title ends in final, abysmal, permanent failure, at my hands or another’s.
You don’t want things to end that way for you. Neither do I, if it can be helped.
See what I see, First. Look beyond the surface of this business to the rotten core, to the sickness that has spread because of the negligence you and others have practiced. See what must be done to save it.
See what I see. It is the vision that can save everything you hold dear. And it is the only way.
<i>(The typed-in words fade away, and sound returns to the First’s promo)</i>
<b>The First:</b> … It’s going to be mine.
<i>(Fade out)</i>
The Great Eye
I came to cut you up
- Joined
- Jan 29, 2004
- Messages
- 1,337
- Points
- 0
(FADEIN: The First sitting on the steps of Front Street, in his Prince Nuada facepaint, Outcast Hero T-Shirt, black jeans and sneakers.)
FIRST: To be seduced is easy…It is something we want after all…That’s the point of seduction, to give in…To accept the advances of a lover…Who does not want to be thought of as attractive and beautiful, the object of desire? Who doesn’t read press clippings and think to themselves that they are great, that they are powerful? Who doesn’t accept praise and have it infect them?
Who doesn’t think they deserve money and fame? These things are so easy to accept as being earned, being deserved…It’s easy to be seduced by them…
And conspiracies and faith are just such forms of seduction…They are a way to tell yourself that you know the truth, you see the things others can not…It lets you look down your nose at the fools, the lemmings who believe history as it’s recorded and not as it truly was…Those who believe Oswald acted alone…Or that 9/11 was the actions of a few men with box cutters…Silly little sheep…
And now you come to seduce me Copycat…For once I was the corruption, once I was the problem in EPW that had to be cured, had to be removed…Now you ask me to see as you see, to open my eyes to the truth as you have laid it out before me…To understand that the moon landing was faked, that Elvis does in fact live…
That EPW is a cesspool but it can only be redeemed through Copycat and his purity, through his actions this company shall be ushered into a golden re-birth of greatness and prosperity…That I can join you in cleaning it of its…I am to be made part of the solution rather than remaining part of the problem…
The conspiracy is alluring and it is tempting…For it gives us what we want, absolution…We are not to blame for our failings…I didn’t lose to Sean Stevens at Black Dawn…No…I was cost that match by a corrupt ref, by Lindsay Troy pulling the strings, by Dan Ryan adding two men to what should have been a one on one match…All these things sound so much better then looking into a mirror and admitting I lost…That on that day, a better man beat me…
And that’s what you offer me…Freedom from failure…You say I don’t listen, but I do, I hear what people say loud and clear…I listen to you and I remember when Layne Winters kicked his girlfriend to the curb because in a moment of humanity, he saved her from you…saved her from you of all people Copycat…And he thought himself weak for doing it…I see that as a cautionary tale…I worry I could ever become like that...
Or that I could become so desperate that I could attack a woman…Like you did then, and then holding Dan Ryan’s wife hostage before you attacked him…Of course, all of this was needed, was required, because you have to save EPW…You can do whatever you need to, the end justifies the means…
I look at you, and see how you’ve been seduced…How you’ve fallen, you’ve believed your own lies for they validate you, they justify everything in your life and allow you to continue to exist as you do now…Your actions are validated…No your actions are REQUIRED…Because you are trying to save this company from the demons you see overcoming it, destroying it…
And that’s what I must resist, I must not allow myself to become…See balance is hard to find and tougher to maintain…For all around us are ways for us to fall…and the best part is…We’d never admit we had fallen after we do…You believe with every fiber of your being that you’re right…And I can’t disprove you…
Look at Anarky or Cameron Cruise…Anarky could care less about the World Title…It’s an annoyance to him, a waste of time…Cruise on the other hand rants and raves that he even was in the ring fighting for it, it’s a high water mark in his career to have even been that close…Who is right in their valuing of that title? Since being EPW World Champion has no objective value, never can be proven wrong…
So I can’t argue perception with you, I can’t argue that I have some great knowledge that you don’t have…I could mention that your promo being done in a green text is like the Matrix and yet here you are telling me to fight the system, so I find that weird and ironic…But well…That’s just a zinger…
I mean really when you think about the Matrix…
(Suddenly the screen starts flickering, breaking up. CUTTO: Muse, wearing a colonial period dress, bonnet on her head, standing in front of a chalkboard. “EPW” “Stevens” “Gore” “Ryan” “ACORN” “First” “Troy” “Bill Ayers” “Anthology” “Obama” “One World Government.” and other words written on it, with circles around them. Arrows pointing from various circles at circles. Behind her are Obamacon’ed styled photos of Jefferson, Washington, and Franklin. She looks like she has been crying.)
MUSE: (In mid sentence) And then we have The First…Really?! (Draws line to “One World Government.”) Really?! First…ONE…First is one…The OWG wants to take your guns, they want to steal your freedoms, and they give you a happy little clown to inspire you…To look at as your rights get taken away…Stevens, how do you think he’s a billionaire? Where do you think his money comes from?! The global warming cabal…They along with Stevens have worked to make this oil spill worse than it ever should have been…And they do this all to fund the lie of Global Warming so they can destroy America’s job market and begin the process of imposing socialism upon our nation…(Muse draws an arrow from Stevens to Gore, and then writes “Al Gore is fat” under Gore.)
It’s all right in front of you eyes! Why can’t you people see it?! (Voice becomes distorted) Oh no, EPW’s found the signal…The Truth is out there! Wait no, X-Files is old and boring…I need a better finish…Don’t let it end like this…Tell them I said something…
(FADEOUT)
FIRST: To be seduced is easy…It is something we want after all…That’s the point of seduction, to give in…To accept the advances of a lover…Who does not want to be thought of as attractive and beautiful, the object of desire? Who doesn’t read press clippings and think to themselves that they are great, that they are powerful? Who doesn’t accept praise and have it infect them?
Who doesn’t think they deserve money and fame? These things are so easy to accept as being earned, being deserved…It’s easy to be seduced by them…
And conspiracies and faith are just such forms of seduction…They are a way to tell yourself that you know the truth, you see the things others can not…It lets you look down your nose at the fools, the lemmings who believe history as it’s recorded and not as it truly was…Those who believe Oswald acted alone…Or that 9/11 was the actions of a few men with box cutters…Silly little sheep…
And now you come to seduce me Copycat…For once I was the corruption, once I was the problem in EPW that had to be cured, had to be removed…Now you ask me to see as you see, to open my eyes to the truth as you have laid it out before me…To understand that the moon landing was faked, that Elvis does in fact live…
That EPW is a cesspool but it can only be redeemed through Copycat and his purity, through his actions this company shall be ushered into a golden re-birth of greatness and prosperity…That I can join you in cleaning it of its…I am to be made part of the solution rather than remaining part of the problem…
The conspiracy is alluring and it is tempting…For it gives us what we want, absolution…We are not to blame for our failings…I didn’t lose to Sean Stevens at Black Dawn…No…I was cost that match by a corrupt ref, by Lindsay Troy pulling the strings, by Dan Ryan adding two men to what should have been a one on one match…All these things sound so much better then looking into a mirror and admitting I lost…That on that day, a better man beat me…
And that’s what you offer me…Freedom from failure…You say I don’t listen, but I do, I hear what people say loud and clear…I listen to you and I remember when Layne Winters kicked his girlfriend to the curb because in a moment of humanity, he saved her from you…saved her from you of all people Copycat…And he thought himself weak for doing it…I see that as a cautionary tale…I worry I could ever become like that...
Or that I could become so desperate that I could attack a woman…Like you did then, and then holding Dan Ryan’s wife hostage before you attacked him…Of course, all of this was needed, was required, because you have to save EPW…You can do whatever you need to, the end justifies the means…
I look at you, and see how you’ve been seduced…How you’ve fallen, you’ve believed your own lies for they validate you, they justify everything in your life and allow you to continue to exist as you do now…Your actions are validated…No your actions are REQUIRED…Because you are trying to save this company from the demons you see overcoming it, destroying it…
And that’s what I must resist, I must not allow myself to become…See balance is hard to find and tougher to maintain…For all around us are ways for us to fall…and the best part is…We’d never admit we had fallen after we do…You believe with every fiber of your being that you’re right…And I can’t disprove you…
Look at Anarky or Cameron Cruise…Anarky could care less about the World Title…It’s an annoyance to him, a waste of time…Cruise on the other hand rants and raves that he even was in the ring fighting for it, it’s a high water mark in his career to have even been that close…Who is right in their valuing of that title? Since being EPW World Champion has no objective value, never can be proven wrong…
So I can’t argue perception with you, I can’t argue that I have some great knowledge that you don’t have…I could mention that your promo being done in a green text is like the Matrix and yet here you are telling me to fight the system, so I find that weird and ironic…But well…That’s just a zinger…
I mean really when you think about the Matrix…
(Suddenly the screen starts flickering, breaking up. CUTTO: Muse, wearing a colonial period dress, bonnet on her head, standing in front of a chalkboard. “EPW” “Stevens” “Gore” “Ryan” “ACORN” “First” “Troy” “Bill Ayers” “Anthology” “Obama” “One World Government.” and other words written on it, with circles around them. Arrows pointing from various circles at circles. Behind her are Obamacon’ed styled photos of Jefferson, Washington, and Franklin. She looks like she has been crying.)
MUSE: (In mid sentence) And then we have The First…Really?! (Draws line to “One World Government.”) Really?! First…ONE…First is one…The OWG wants to take your guns, they want to steal your freedoms, and they give you a happy little clown to inspire you…To look at as your rights get taken away…Stevens, how do you think he’s a billionaire? Where do you think his money comes from?! The global warming cabal…They along with Stevens have worked to make this oil spill worse than it ever should have been…And they do this all to fund the lie of Global Warming so they can destroy America’s job market and begin the process of imposing socialism upon our nation…(Muse draws an arrow from Stevens to Gore, and then writes “Al Gore is fat” under Gore.)
It’s all right in front of you eyes! Why can’t you people see it?! (Voice becomes distorted) Oh no, EPW’s found the signal…The Truth is out there! Wait no, X-Files is old and boring…I need a better finish…Don’t let it end like this…Tell them I said something…
(FADEOUT)
GARTHIsTheLaw
League Member
<i>(We fade in on a black-and-white image of a large front doorway to a house. The door is open, and inside, we see a poorly lit entryway)</i>
<i>(Text starts to scroll onto the screen as the camera very slowly enters and begins to move through the house)</i>
I've undergone a fundamental change in my thinking.
My principles have evolved over the years. I'm sure there have been changes – periods early on when the things I stood for don't even resemble the things I stand for now. When I first broke into this business in 1996, I have no doubt there was a time or two when my own success was a higher priority for me than the survival of everything around me.
But I learned. I evolved. That's been a defining factor of my career. When what I was doing didn't work, I went back, re-evaluated, figured out what I could have done differently, incorporated that into my strategies. Sometimes it was enough; sometimes it wasn't, and I had to retool further. But I always made changes. Always looked at things from different angles.
I never tried to convince myself that doing exactly what I was doing, only with a little more determination, would get me where I was going. That was a recipe for frustration. There was a place for hard work, but that hard work had to be accompanied by a game plan – it wasn't just work for work's sake.
<i>(The camera continues very slowly through the house – living room, dining room, kitchen. Though lighting is sparse, we can see the rooms are immaculate, as though completely unused since last they were cleaned)</i>
That's all changed now. Now, the popular thing to do is to go on and on about how much work you've done, how hard you struggled to get to where you are today. People in this business overexert themselves, go to extremes they don't need to go to, and they feel entitled. And when they don't get what they feel they're owed, they lash out – attack everyone else they think hasn't worked as hard as they have.
If there were just a few people acting like children, they'd be easy enough to deal with. But it's not just a few. They occupy all the top spots in this business by sheer strength of numbers. They even occupy spots running this business, as EPW management's unwillingness to do what's right by the business shows. They've put in the amount of work they feel entitles them to some sort of recognition, and they believe all they have to do to garner that recognition is keep doing what they're doing – and, of course, to keep talking about how they keep doing what they're doing.
It's a death spiral. As much success as has been achieved in this business over the years, prior to this new generation of ungrateful wrestlers, it's to be expected that there's a long way to spiral before things hit bottom. But hit bottom they will, at this rate. They're certainly not rushing to move in any direction but down.
I admit I came into EPW expecting something. Expecting this generation of wrestlers – looking more by the day like the final generation of wrestlers – to show some interest in preserving the future of this business that I, and so many others like me, helped take to the next level. But I didn't expect it for my own good. I had plenty, more than I ever expected to have in my wrestling career or in life. I didn't need any more. I didn't come in feeling I, personally, was entitled to anything.
I came in feeling that this business was entitled to something. Some modicum of regard from the people in it. I don't think that was unreasonable. But I've been told over and over again that it is – that it's not the business that matters, but the success of whoever's speaking.
<i>(The camera continues its journey through more poorly-lit rooms – game room, gym, trophy room. Again, everything appears unused)</i>
I don't accept that. I won't.
I tried to evolve, tried to adapt. Maybe I can't do it as quickly as I used to. Maybe my adaptation techniques are outdated and unlikely to be met with success. Maybe being part of Anthology didn't allow me to do things as I otherwise would have. More likely, it's a combination of all these factors.
That's why I had to make a change. A fundamental change.
The way I was doing things wasn't working. I couldn't just change my ways – I had to change myself.
So I did. I abandoned everything I'd spent my career working for, turned my back on every principle I had, save the guiding one keeping me from giving up on this diseased business altogether. No longer would I rely on my mind to save my body work; now, I'm prepared to do whatever I have to do in the ring to get the outcome I desire. No longer would I rely on others to support my plans as equals; now, I'm prepared to fight the disease alone, one bacterium at a time.
What's left of me when this is all said and done is not important. I hope there'll be something left of my body, of my mind. But it's not necessary. I will tear down what I need to tear down, I will remake this business in my own incorruptible image if I must, and whatever consequences I suffer will be well worth it for the sake of this business's salvation.
That's more than anyone else in EPW, in this business right now, can say. Only I am truly focused on the survival of this business above my own survival. That is what makes my image incorruptible.
<i>(More rooms – hallway, library, study – more bad lighting, more evidence of disuse)</i>
At Aggression 52, my work continues.
The last time I met the First in the ring, it was a tag team match, and his team came out on top. Were I like the rest of the EPW roster, believing that my hard work since then entitled me to a victory, I would go in supremely confident. And I would lose again.
Fundamental change. The Copycat the First will meet in the King of the Cage tournament will not be the same Copycat he met last year. I've made this change in myself to accomplish the goals that are important to me. The First is loath to change, contented to lose to Sean Stevens over and over again, as long as it means he can continue to talk about how hard he's worked to get to the point where he can lose to Sean Stevens over and over again.
<i>(The camera continues into a computer room, which is also poorly lit, but is illuminated beyond the others by the light of the computer monitor. A figure sits typing away in front of the computer screen – presumably Copycat, judging by the hair and build – but of course we only see the back of him)</i>
At Aggression 52, he'll see what I see. He'll see what destructions his ilk have wrought upon this business, if only for a second. And if he won't be snapped out of his delusional sense of entitlement, won't change himself for the sake of this business, he'll have to be removed from the equation. I once was reticent to go to such extremes. They were once unthinkable to me.
But after a fundamental change, I know it is the only way.
<i>(As the camera continues in further, it zooms past Copycat and onto the computer monitor, focusing in on what he's typing. As it does, his typed words quickly snap in line with the ones scrolling across the screen)</i>
See what I see, and you'll know it too.
<i>(Fade to black)</i>
<i>(Text starts to scroll onto the screen as the camera very slowly enters and begins to move through the house)</i>
I've undergone a fundamental change in my thinking.
My principles have evolved over the years. I'm sure there have been changes – periods early on when the things I stood for don't even resemble the things I stand for now. When I first broke into this business in 1996, I have no doubt there was a time or two when my own success was a higher priority for me than the survival of everything around me.
But I learned. I evolved. That's been a defining factor of my career. When what I was doing didn't work, I went back, re-evaluated, figured out what I could have done differently, incorporated that into my strategies. Sometimes it was enough; sometimes it wasn't, and I had to retool further. But I always made changes. Always looked at things from different angles.
I never tried to convince myself that doing exactly what I was doing, only with a little more determination, would get me where I was going. That was a recipe for frustration. There was a place for hard work, but that hard work had to be accompanied by a game plan – it wasn't just work for work's sake.
<i>(The camera continues very slowly through the house – living room, dining room, kitchen. Though lighting is sparse, we can see the rooms are immaculate, as though completely unused since last they were cleaned)</i>
That's all changed now. Now, the popular thing to do is to go on and on about how much work you've done, how hard you struggled to get to where you are today. People in this business overexert themselves, go to extremes they don't need to go to, and they feel entitled. And when they don't get what they feel they're owed, they lash out – attack everyone else they think hasn't worked as hard as they have.
If there were just a few people acting like children, they'd be easy enough to deal with. But it's not just a few. They occupy all the top spots in this business by sheer strength of numbers. They even occupy spots running this business, as EPW management's unwillingness to do what's right by the business shows. They've put in the amount of work they feel entitles them to some sort of recognition, and they believe all they have to do to garner that recognition is keep doing what they're doing – and, of course, to keep talking about how they keep doing what they're doing.
It's a death spiral. As much success as has been achieved in this business over the years, prior to this new generation of ungrateful wrestlers, it's to be expected that there's a long way to spiral before things hit bottom. But hit bottom they will, at this rate. They're certainly not rushing to move in any direction but down.
I admit I came into EPW expecting something. Expecting this generation of wrestlers – looking more by the day like the final generation of wrestlers – to show some interest in preserving the future of this business that I, and so many others like me, helped take to the next level. But I didn't expect it for my own good. I had plenty, more than I ever expected to have in my wrestling career or in life. I didn't need any more. I didn't come in feeling I, personally, was entitled to anything.
I came in feeling that this business was entitled to something. Some modicum of regard from the people in it. I don't think that was unreasonable. But I've been told over and over again that it is – that it's not the business that matters, but the success of whoever's speaking.
<i>(The camera continues its journey through more poorly-lit rooms – game room, gym, trophy room. Again, everything appears unused)</i>
I don't accept that. I won't.
I tried to evolve, tried to adapt. Maybe I can't do it as quickly as I used to. Maybe my adaptation techniques are outdated and unlikely to be met with success. Maybe being part of Anthology didn't allow me to do things as I otherwise would have. More likely, it's a combination of all these factors.
That's why I had to make a change. A fundamental change.
The way I was doing things wasn't working. I couldn't just change my ways – I had to change myself.
So I did. I abandoned everything I'd spent my career working for, turned my back on every principle I had, save the guiding one keeping me from giving up on this diseased business altogether. No longer would I rely on my mind to save my body work; now, I'm prepared to do whatever I have to do in the ring to get the outcome I desire. No longer would I rely on others to support my plans as equals; now, I'm prepared to fight the disease alone, one bacterium at a time.
What's left of me when this is all said and done is not important. I hope there'll be something left of my body, of my mind. But it's not necessary. I will tear down what I need to tear down, I will remake this business in my own incorruptible image if I must, and whatever consequences I suffer will be well worth it for the sake of this business's salvation.
That's more than anyone else in EPW, in this business right now, can say. Only I am truly focused on the survival of this business above my own survival. That is what makes my image incorruptible.
<i>(More rooms – hallway, library, study – more bad lighting, more evidence of disuse)</i>
At Aggression 52, my work continues.
The last time I met the First in the ring, it was a tag team match, and his team came out on top. Were I like the rest of the EPW roster, believing that my hard work since then entitled me to a victory, I would go in supremely confident. And I would lose again.
Fundamental change. The Copycat the First will meet in the King of the Cage tournament will not be the same Copycat he met last year. I've made this change in myself to accomplish the goals that are important to me. The First is loath to change, contented to lose to Sean Stevens over and over again, as long as it means he can continue to talk about how hard he's worked to get to the point where he can lose to Sean Stevens over and over again.
<i>(The camera continues into a computer room, which is also poorly lit, but is illuminated beyond the others by the light of the computer monitor. A figure sits typing away in front of the computer screen – presumably Copycat, judging by the hair and build – but of course we only see the back of him)</i>
At Aggression 52, he'll see what I see. He'll see what destructions his ilk have wrought upon this business, if only for a second. And if he won't be snapped out of his delusional sense of entitlement, won't change himself for the sake of this business, he'll have to be removed from the equation. I once was reticent to go to such extremes. They were once unthinkable to me.
But after a fundamental change, I know it is the only way.
<i>(As the camera continues in further, it zooms past Copycat and onto the computer monitor, focusing in on what he's typing. As it does, his typed words quickly snap in line with the ones scrolling across the screen)</i>
See what I see, and you'll know it too.
<i>(Fade to black)</i>
The Great Eye
I came to cut you up
- Joined
- Jan 29, 2004
- Messages
- 1,337
- Points
- 0
(FADEIN: The First now in the dressing room area, wearing an “Outcast Hero” wife beater, black gi pants, black ring boots, his face still painted as before. He’s taping his right hand.)
FIRST: Losing to Stevens again and again…Yeah…Well where were you? Where was anyone else? Where was the whole damn EPW locker room? Ya’ll like to complain so damn much about my title shots, but I don’t see you taking any…Dan Ryan was handing them out like candy before Black Dawn, didn’t see you on the guest list…
People like you do nothing but whine about the Red Sox always playing the Yankees, the Celtics always playing the Lakers…Well guess what, excellence makes it way to the top, that’s how sports works, and if I’m the guy that ends up fighting for the world title time after time maybe there is a reason for that…
See everyone else Sean Stevens has beaten either retired or is Cameron Cruise and well really, nobody thinks much of poor old Cammy…No matter how frantically he name drops people in his promos…Lindsay Troy’s only now made it back into EPW as a wrestler and even she’s not in King of The Cage…So well, I’m the only man willing to take my lumps and keep pushing on…I’m the one that doesn’t let a defeat shatter me…
And the best part is, you get to stop it Copycat, you get to be the one that stops me and Stevens from fighting again, you get to step in and say ‘no more’...You get to put action to your words and stop me from losing to Sean Stevens again…
Of course before me fighting Stevens was the corruption, me winning the world title would have been the downfall of the company...Before this was the holy grail of the Copycat mythos…That First must be denied the title…Now it’s just a zinger, a way to try to get under my skin…
You say you’ve changed…And you are so proud of your change Copycat…But what was the change? What are you doing now that was different then what you did before? Honestly…You’ve always said you were here to save the business…And now here we are, and you’re telling me you’re going to save the business…I don’t see a change, except now instead of blaming HOPE for the corruption, you lash out at everyone and everything…All you’ve done is take out your complaints on everyone, instead of a few…
You're like Joe McCarthy...Making the same charge over and over again, but only casting a bigger and bigger net each time you make that charge, holding up your suitcase full of names of people who seek the ruin of EPW...And in the end...Someone, maybe myself, maybe somebody else will finally look at you and say "Copycat, You've done enough. Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last? Have you left no sense of decency?" and maybe, just maybe, you'll know the game is up...But I doubt it...
You say I haven’t changed…(Shakes head) I know as well as anyone that this world waits for nobody…Here I stand fighting with a wall of text…And I lose to the man typing those words…King of the Cage is over for me, and nobody in that tournament is going to shed a tear, none of them are going to say “Man I wish First has made it to face Stevens”…No, all they’ll care about is that they got another match, another step closer to the title, another step closer to that belt…
So every day I have to improve, train harder, re-dedicate myself to this task, this goal…Because this is what I want, what I need…You say you’re willing to destroy yourself to save this business…Well I hope so Copycat, because guess what…In that steel cage we’re going to save this business…
Not the way you think you’ll save the business…No your insanity about corruption and plots and schemes is just the ramblings of a madman unable to accept his own failings…But I do know that you are a madman, and that you are hell bent on making me see your way via brutal, horrible violence…I know I’m going to suffer dearly in that cage…I will be hurt, I may be bloodied, and I may be battered..But I will not be beaten…
And as we keep fighting, the crowd will get louder and louder, and they’ll cheer and boo…They’ll hoot and holler…They will groan at the near falls, they will cry out as one of us gets so very close to escaping only to be dragged back into the ring…They will celebrate combat between two men who will not back down from their beliefs…
While this battle is happening, folks will talk about it, the internet will light up with comments, people will flip the channel over to watch us tear each other apart…Websites will tell people to DVR the replay because “First Vs Copycat is a match you have to see.” Our struggle, our battle will be seared into the conscience of wrestling community…
EPW’s banner will fly a little higher the next day, Dan Ryan will look at the quarter hours and notice we got him a good bump there and maybe even give us a phone call to thank us for it...Hype for the second round and a fight that will be as epic and as inspired as ours will be talked about up until the day that event happens…
And that is how we’ll save EPW Copycat, by giving the world EPW wrestling at it’s finest…Two men giving everything they have until they can give no more…Two men putting everything they have on the line for a chance at glory….Oh you’ll say you’re saving the business now…When you can hide behind walls of texts and stand-ins speaking for you…But when I kick out after a move you were SURE had defeated me…The look in your eyes will not be of a man longing for a clean, pure EPW…It will be a man who so desperately wanted to fight for the EPW World Title, and still hasn’t gotten the shot…When you’re finally exposed in that ring for being a man, not a message…When we finally pull back the curtain on the Wizard of Oz…We’ll see you’re just like everyone else, another wrestler trying to win a match….
And that’s all I care about in the end Copycat, is that you are just another wrestler, just another man trying to beat me…I wouldn’t want you in that ring if you were not going to give me hell…I live only to fight the best in the world to see if I can measure up to them…And right now, you’re my opponent…So I get to see what you got…
You say you’re better than ever…I hope so, because what you were all this time before was a coward and a tag-along…And that Copycat really didn’t seem like much of an opponent to me…This man, this fanatic…Well, let’s see what he brings to the table…See if he’s ready for prime time…
When the smoke clears, and it’s all over, when our battle is done….Know that when we were in the cage….It was pure, there was no corruption…There was no conspiracy…There was only us, fighting as men fight….Know that when I beat you Copycat it wasn’t because of some massive government plot to hold you down…It wasn’t because of Dan Ryan or Lindsay Troy…It was because I was better than you…
I will get my match with Stevens…I will win the EPW World Title…You’re sick of hearing it…I’m sick of saying it…And so I’m going to let my actions take care of business at Aggression 52…And then again at Aggression 53…
You will not stop me Copycat…Nothing can stop me…
(FADEOUT)
FIRST: Losing to Stevens again and again…Yeah…Well where were you? Where was anyone else? Where was the whole damn EPW locker room? Ya’ll like to complain so damn much about my title shots, but I don’t see you taking any…Dan Ryan was handing them out like candy before Black Dawn, didn’t see you on the guest list…
People like you do nothing but whine about the Red Sox always playing the Yankees, the Celtics always playing the Lakers…Well guess what, excellence makes it way to the top, that’s how sports works, and if I’m the guy that ends up fighting for the world title time after time maybe there is a reason for that…
See everyone else Sean Stevens has beaten either retired or is Cameron Cruise and well really, nobody thinks much of poor old Cammy…No matter how frantically he name drops people in his promos…Lindsay Troy’s only now made it back into EPW as a wrestler and even she’s not in King of The Cage…So well, I’m the only man willing to take my lumps and keep pushing on…I’m the one that doesn’t let a defeat shatter me…
And the best part is, you get to stop it Copycat, you get to be the one that stops me and Stevens from fighting again, you get to step in and say ‘no more’...You get to put action to your words and stop me from losing to Sean Stevens again…
Of course before me fighting Stevens was the corruption, me winning the world title would have been the downfall of the company...Before this was the holy grail of the Copycat mythos…That First must be denied the title…Now it’s just a zinger, a way to try to get under my skin…
You say you’ve changed…And you are so proud of your change Copycat…But what was the change? What are you doing now that was different then what you did before? Honestly…You’ve always said you were here to save the business…And now here we are, and you’re telling me you’re going to save the business…I don’t see a change, except now instead of blaming HOPE for the corruption, you lash out at everyone and everything…All you’ve done is take out your complaints on everyone, instead of a few…
You're like Joe McCarthy...Making the same charge over and over again, but only casting a bigger and bigger net each time you make that charge, holding up your suitcase full of names of people who seek the ruin of EPW...And in the end...Someone, maybe myself, maybe somebody else will finally look at you and say "Copycat, You've done enough. Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last? Have you left no sense of decency?" and maybe, just maybe, you'll know the game is up...But I doubt it...
You say I haven’t changed…(Shakes head) I know as well as anyone that this world waits for nobody…Here I stand fighting with a wall of text…And I lose to the man typing those words…King of the Cage is over for me, and nobody in that tournament is going to shed a tear, none of them are going to say “Man I wish First has made it to face Stevens”…No, all they’ll care about is that they got another match, another step closer to the title, another step closer to that belt…
So every day I have to improve, train harder, re-dedicate myself to this task, this goal…Because this is what I want, what I need…You say you’re willing to destroy yourself to save this business…Well I hope so Copycat, because guess what…In that steel cage we’re going to save this business…
Not the way you think you’ll save the business…No your insanity about corruption and plots and schemes is just the ramblings of a madman unable to accept his own failings…But I do know that you are a madman, and that you are hell bent on making me see your way via brutal, horrible violence…I know I’m going to suffer dearly in that cage…I will be hurt, I may be bloodied, and I may be battered..But I will not be beaten…
And as we keep fighting, the crowd will get louder and louder, and they’ll cheer and boo…They’ll hoot and holler…They will groan at the near falls, they will cry out as one of us gets so very close to escaping only to be dragged back into the ring…They will celebrate combat between two men who will not back down from their beliefs…
While this battle is happening, folks will talk about it, the internet will light up with comments, people will flip the channel over to watch us tear each other apart…Websites will tell people to DVR the replay because “First Vs Copycat is a match you have to see.” Our struggle, our battle will be seared into the conscience of wrestling community…
EPW’s banner will fly a little higher the next day, Dan Ryan will look at the quarter hours and notice we got him a good bump there and maybe even give us a phone call to thank us for it...Hype for the second round and a fight that will be as epic and as inspired as ours will be talked about up until the day that event happens…
And that is how we’ll save EPW Copycat, by giving the world EPW wrestling at it’s finest…Two men giving everything they have until they can give no more…Two men putting everything they have on the line for a chance at glory….Oh you’ll say you’re saving the business now…When you can hide behind walls of texts and stand-ins speaking for you…But when I kick out after a move you were SURE had defeated me…The look in your eyes will not be of a man longing for a clean, pure EPW…It will be a man who so desperately wanted to fight for the EPW World Title, and still hasn’t gotten the shot…When you’re finally exposed in that ring for being a man, not a message…When we finally pull back the curtain on the Wizard of Oz…We’ll see you’re just like everyone else, another wrestler trying to win a match….
And that’s all I care about in the end Copycat, is that you are just another wrestler, just another man trying to beat me…I wouldn’t want you in that ring if you were not going to give me hell…I live only to fight the best in the world to see if I can measure up to them…And right now, you’re my opponent…So I get to see what you got…
You say you’re better than ever…I hope so, because what you were all this time before was a coward and a tag-along…And that Copycat really didn’t seem like much of an opponent to me…This man, this fanatic…Well, let’s see what he brings to the table…See if he’s ready for prime time…
When the smoke clears, and it’s all over, when our battle is done….Know that when we were in the cage….It was pure, there was no corruption…There was no conspiracy…There was only us, fighting as men fight….Know that when I beat you Copycat it wasn’t because of some massive government plot to hold you down…It wasn’t because of Dan Ryan or Lindsay Troy…It was because I was better than you…
I will get my match with Stevens…I will win the EPW World Title…You’re sick of hearing it…I’m sick of saying it…And so I’m going to let my actions take care of business at Aggression 52…And then again at Aggression 53…
You will not stop me Copycat…Nothing can stop me…
(FADEOUT)