Re: AGGRESSION 52: KOTC/TV TITLE MATCH - Anarky vs. Karl "The Dragon" Brown (c)
[FADE IN. A stone spiral staircase lit by occasional brass braziers attached to the thick stone walls. There’s a faint smoke in the air which, if you were able to smell it, would lead to a tickle and choke at the back of your throat. We’re walking down, step by step, as the braziers flicker in the gloom. As we descend, we start to hear something… human, yet bestial. A rage, burning through the air, that as we continue gets louder and louder, more and more violent, more vicious, as if something is trying to tear at the stone walls. Finally, the sound filling the air, we reach a massive oak door with iron hinges. In front of the door, waiting for us, is the Empire Pro Wrestling Television Champion. The snarling and thrashing is clearly just beyond this sturdy door, but the TV champ seems unperturbed by the noise, keeping his hands in his hips as he starts to talk]
Karl: Now I’ve got it. Now, I understand. Anarky has finally made clear what he is, and what he wants the world to see him as. Both things are behind this door – what he is and what he wants to be seen as. Before I show you, though, I want to apologise on Anarky’s behalf, to all the dogs out there who, without the ability to defecate, would be horribly constipated. The fact Anarky feels he’s been treated like dog excrement speaks either very highly of him, or very poorly of something that stops you being in unbearable pain and can actually be used as fertilizer in poorer areas where horses can’t be found.
To all dogs, on Anarky’s behalf, I apologise.
Yes, Anarky, I’m making fun of you, and being very open about it. But I’m not insulting you by much, it must be said, given what you’ve done over the last few days. Everything you’ve said. Because all you’ve done so far is make me wonder what all the fuss has been about. People who’ve watched you wrestle have warned me that you’re a vicious sadist who’ll stop at nothing to get what you want. That you’re a veteran of battle after battle after battle. That you’re a hundred feet tall, weigh a thousand metric tonnes, and sweat magma so hot it’d burn the sun.
[He opens the door, which moves with surprising ease, and we see a vicious set of teeth snap shut and open again. It takes a few moments for light to fill the room, but what we see is out of a truly savage mind. The best way to describe it would be a cross between a hyena, a fox, a wolf, and a basilisk. Drool drips from the gaping maw; human remains are stuck between long, pointed, blood-covered fangs that add a demonic snarl to the monstrous snout. Its fur is matted, caked in blood and dirt, and its yellow eyes burn with pure, unadulterated hate. As the light grows, we can see the beast is wearing a collar, secured no doubt at the cost of hundreds of lives, and thick, heavy chains usually seen on ships to hold onto the anchor]
Karl: This is how you want to be seen, Anarky. As a vicious beast. Something to be feared, something that will tear you limb from limb rather than look at you once. A calculating and yet mindless killer. But the reality of what you really are, Anarky? It’s over in the corner.
[“The Dragon” points inside the room, and we see, in the corner, a small blond-haired boy wearing a loincloth. He’s throwing a tantrum, arms and legs thrashing, but his screams are drowned out by the massive monster he’s sharing the room with]
Karl: Sorry, I forgot the sound.
[He clicks his fingers, and the monster disappears – and we can hear the high-pitched scream of the child]
Child: Notice me! I’m relevant! Waaah! Love me! Notice me!!
[The scene shimmers as Karl shakes his head. Once the scene finishes fading, we FADE BACK IN to a throne room, much as we’ve seen Karl in before. He leans against a wall next to one of the tapestries, just far enough over that we can’t actually see what it is. The rotter.]
Karl: That’s what it is, isn’t it? You hate being told you’re not the kind of man Joey or Troy are. You hate that your name isn’t held in the reverence by fans of them or Lindsay Troy or Dan Ryan. You want people to notice you. I think I’ve said it before, but it holds true, about the telephone – you’re the same. The phone sits on the desk, and it’s like someone’s barged into the room stamping their feet, yelling, “Speak to me now! Speak to me now! Notice me! I’m here! Woo-hoo!”
It’s rather pathetic, isn’t it? That for a man who’s head almost double the length career in wrestling I have, you still sound like a petulant child wanting to knock people off of imaginary pedestals. You throw your toys out of the pram, all so someone’ll notice you and maybe, just maybe… make you appear relevant. I was going to say loved, but that would be creepy.
There, right there, is the biggest difference between me, and you. You crave attention. You crave acknowledgement. It sticks in your throat that other people are held in higher esteem than you, people who’ve had longer careers. You hate that you’re not one of the very, very few who become Legend.
I couldn’t care whether I become Legend or not. I know that, just like finding life on other worlds, the number of people in this business who become Legend is miniscule. I also know that it’s not enough to simply, as you say, knock them off their perches. I don’t actually get along with many of that top echelon personally, but professionally, I respect that they are, or were, able to climb to the top, and stay there – not for a year, not for three or four, but consistently. To go back to football, there’re very few clubs in the Premier League that inspire awe. They do it because they’ve been doing it for years, consistently. And they, like the Legends in professional wrestling, did it not by whining about it, or complaining that life wasn’t fair, but by doing it. By going out, winning consistently, winning emphatically, and staying at the top through their own efforts. You want that to be you, but rather than doing it, you’ve been whining and complaining.
Case in point, take you and me. I came back at Aggression fifty. Layne Winters decided he didn’t like the fact my match was higher on the card than his, and he attacked me. Two matches later, I’ve won the Television Championship and beaten him and Erik Black in the process. In that time, you had a chance to take the same title by entering Layne’s gauntlet challenge. I know you’ll probably say something like the TV title doesn’t interest you, or that you didn’t want to be embroiled in something with your now former HOPE team-mate, or any other excuse – but you had the chance to take the title, and move towards your goal of recognition, and you did… nothing.
Or do you want another case in point? OK. You claim this match is dangerous. You’ve been in them, so you should know. A steel cage surrounding the ring. And it seems to disturb you that I don’t see this match with the same gravitas that you do, that I don’t see a cage match that I can prepare for in advance to be as dangerous as you do.
Do you notice what I said there? Have you heard what I’ve said since this match was announced? Have you looked back and wondered, why I might not see this match as the threat to life and limb that you obviously think it’s going to be for me?
Three reasons, really. First, I’ve been in a cage before. Not a straight cage match – that’s what I said, a straight cage. But I’ve been in a triple-tiered cage, with weapons and barbed wire. But forgetting even that, notice I said I can prepare for this cage match? It’s the old adage, the expected is less dangerous than the unknown. So let me ask you, Anarky – is it more dangerous to be inside a cage that you’ve prepared for, or facing someone you weren’t expecting and only discovered was your opponent seconds before the opening bell? What about, knowing who you’re going to be facing, but having the match-type changed from a straight one-on-one to a no disqualification chain match, seconds before the opening bell? Is it more dangerous being confined to a cage, where the worst an opponent can do is throw you into the mesh a few times, or being slammed into concrete walls, cars, windows, or suplexed through ladders?
Hell, I’d be more worried if this was the second round and I didn’t know whether I was facing one, two, or all three wrestlers in the Heirs of Wrestling. Because there, there are far more possibilities to consider. There are far more unknowns. Being able to prepare for you, prepare for the cage, means that the risks are far smaller than they would’ve been otherwise. Trust me, Anarky. I’m far happier knowing what to expect, a child throwing a tantrum in the middle of the ring, than I am not knowing what to expect. I still maintain that’s part of what made Lindsay’s turn as Dis so successful – who knew what to prepare for?
But enough about Lindsay. This is about me, and you. The man who has shown, time and again, that he can and will go beyond his limits, and the man who threw his toys out of the pram because I said he wasn’t as good as Troy Windham or Joey Melton.
Well, Anarky? Are you ready for this?
[The background fades again, and “The Dragon” is now standing on the outskirts of a forest. Behind him we can see a castle – presumably the one we were just in]
Karl: Are you ready for a match against someone you can’t bully and frighten? A match against someone who, yes, goes beyond his limits when he finds them? Or are you already planning your excuses like the press in England are for the football? Hopefully your excuse, whatever it ends up being, won’t be as ridiculous as “The ball’s bad” or “The ref doesn’t like English clubs” or “The vuvuzela’s are too annoying.”
I’ve faced men like you before, here and elsewhere. Men who made it look like they’d be bringing Lou Ferrigno out painted green again. Men who threatened to hurt me like nobody has done before, that setting foot in the same building as them was bad for my health. And without exception, they’ve proven unable to live up to that image. They portray themselves as monsters and ended up whining little children, screaming for someone to notice them. Maybe not as well as Eric Davis, but close.
So far since I’ve been back, I’ve had a tough time telling you and Layne apart. But at least Layne tries to do something when he’s through talking about it. You? In your time here I’ve not seen you do anything of note. No path of destruction. No pain and suffering. Not haven of torment. No anarchy.
Face it, Anarky. You’ve painted a picture of yourself that you can’t measure up to. How many Chaos Breaker’s did it take against Fusenhoff? Three?
Not very scary. And very, very breakable.
Yes, you could win this match, if it’s your night. If it’s not, or if you don’t end me? Well, it’s another night at the office. It’ll teach you something – besides the fact you’re not as good as you think.
It’ll teach you that the key to life, is not to care. Not to focus on becoming Legend, but to simply be the best that you can be. That may sound like a piece of self-help garbage, but it’s also true. If you give everything you’ve got and win, good. When you give everything, and lose, then you’ll know how much further you’ve got to go. You’ll know where the limit is and you can figure out how to go beyond it.
Those are some of the lessons you can learn at Aggression, Anarky. I’m not heading into that cage to tame a monster, because he’s already tame. I’m not heading into that cage worried for my safety, because I’ve been in more dangerous situations in wrestling and in life. I’m heading into that cage, the new TV champion, looking to see where my physical and mental limits are. Looking to go beyond them if you push me anywhere near them. Ready to put my body on the line to pursue my goal, of being better than I’ve ever been.
And ready to be disappointed by how easily the Anarky that’s been so highly spoken of, goes down for the count. This match won’t make you Legend, Anarky, nor will it make me that. But it will be further proof, if any was needed, that you’re not a monster, that you’re nothing the be scared of. That you’re not all powerful and won’t get unlimited rice pudding.
It’ll prove that you’re just a man, like I am, who unlike me isn’t able to accept that you’re not the man you think you are.
I guess I have to prove someone else’s heaven is just a lie.
[Karl walks towards and past the camera up the forest path, as from the castle we can hear the child screaming, still throwing his tantrum]
Child: Notice me! Wah! Notice me!! I’m great!!
[FADE OUT]