Here I sit…title in hand…smile on my face…and a glow surrounding my entire body. The streak continues…the Rage in the Cage keeps on getting better and better for me as I just keep racking up the points, as I just keep gaining my notches, as I just keep piling on the damn wins…but that is nothing. Ok? That is nothing compared to what I won this time around.

As you may know, I had plenty of chances to get tag team titles. I had many chances in front of me to take. I mean, I had a Universal champion…I had a few legends…I had a few mystery opponents…a few up starters. A few guys who just wanted to tag along and have me do all the work.

My teammates, basically, wound up being a flop. Each one of them worse then the other one. Each one of them just sitting on their asses while a talent, yours truly, was the one that was supposed to carry the hell out of everyone of my partners. I was the one that carried all of my partners and, grant it, none of them really helped me out…lighten the load…make it easier…soften people up. Because, quite frankly…there are people out there that, well, I don’t want to carry. There are people that, quite honestly, just want a free ride. They wanted the man to carry his ass all throughout the arena and all throughout the title run. They wanted ME to do all the work while they are going to get a soda in the vending machine, or something.

Nobody cared about me. I mean, I had people say they cared…but they wind up…not caring one bit to put up their end of the deal. Whether it is one thing or another….I WAS THE ONE THAT WAS SUPPOSED TO DO IT! I WAS THE ONE THAT HAD TO GET THE HEAVIER END OF THE DEAL. Nobody else but me. Nobody else gave a damn what they did for the team and all they cared about was their own greed, all they cared was what they wanted and not what they earned. ALL THEY WANTED TO DO WAS TO SIT THERE AND TAKE THE BELT without doing any work.

You know something? I can say…I was like that too. I was like that at one point. At one point, I just wanted a title. At one point, I could have cared less as to who my partner was…I just wanted someone good…someone that was better…someone that I can trust to when I am not on my A game…someone that, quite honestly, could do it if I was not available.

But, honestly, that didn’t happen. The first few years…I did not get far. The first few years, all I had on my plate was the lonely, the lower belt, the Hart title. That is all I got. I tried for higher titles. I tried for the U.S., the X-Treme…before I was the X-Treme Icon…, any title that I can get my hands around…but, quite honestly, there was not any luck. Title after title went by without a hitch.

You think I wanted to go after the tag titles, then? I mean, The Unkillables were…well…Unkillable. I had no shot, back then, against Jem Williams and Steve Jason.

But that’s not the point. The point is…I wanted someone I thought was damn near impossible to beat on my side. I wanted someone who I know that I can trust.

Last week, I was unsure as to who was going to be my partner. It could have been Q.C. Thug…someone who I have had no thoughts about….but really could have been a good partner to have. Someone who is a young upstarter, someone I could mold, someone I could make into a mini…different….version of myself. Just just like there are some pros…there are some cons to having Q.C. Thug as my partner. For one, I like to focus on my matches….concentrate…and meditate and shit like that. I walk by Q.C.’s locker room and you would think that Dynamic Dynamite was there, with the girls…loud music…moaning…and the words “DON’T MAKE ME TAKE OFF MY BELT!” shouted throughout the hallway each and every week. I doubt that I would of like to share a locker room with that man….so maybe that is a good thing that he is not the partner that one that match last night.

Next we have a good friend of mine…someone that I have been friends with throughout the X-Treme Wrestling Federation…someone who is, as well, a legend of the X-Treme Wrestling Federation. Someone who, by all means, is one of the faces…even though it is a mangled…dangerous looking…nasty….ugly looking…nasty wrestling man that carries a fucking chainsaw from place to place, must be a bitch to get through carry-on. But, like I said, with every pro…comes it’s con. Yes, Trent is a great wrestler. Yes, he’s a maniac. But….basically…..HE’S FUCKING NUTS! I mean, yes, he and I were once Devil’s Rejects…but that was then…this is now. I like my body…I am not going to sit here and let Trent Gein swing his chainsaw from place to place…from pillar to post…in the safety for…well, myself. Like, I don’t care what he does for the single matches. I don’t care what he wants to do for a sacrifice, or something like that. I just don’t want to be anywhere near the mother fucker if the man is going to do that. I don’t want a limb to be cut off…or be decapitated…or even castrated. Hell, I’d rather be decapitated then castrated, that is for damn sure. But the point is, Trent. I like you, Trent. You should know that. I have the utmost respect for you…and you should know that from the beginning. I just don’t want to be dead while in the ring defending my title, you know what I mean?

But…that leaves the man that won the match. That leaves the only man that withstood a crazy son of a bitch and Trent Gein. There is one man that could stand toe to toe with the best of them and, honestly, this man looks way better in a bathing suit then any man. This man…is…..Roxy Nova.

Now, I looked at Roxy Nova before. I have seen what this girl can do. I have seen what Roxy is doing out there and, I got to say, I am damn impressed in seeing this spitfire doing what she is doing in the short time Roxy has been here in the X-Treme Wrestling Federation. With people that are twice…maybe three times her size…this woman is probably better then half of the guys out in ANY wrestling promotion here in the United States of America!

Hell, this lady is getting nationally known and known all around the globe. Miyoko, the international woman of Elmo, LOVES this woman….LOVES what Roxy Nova is doing. Honestly, I have never seen anything like this in a girl, like this. Hell, I have spoken her praises time and time again. She is the only thing that I saw on Impact that showed that they wanted to move up…that she wanted to be up more…that she wanted to get more of a challenge, someone else to show off how awesome she is, someone who stands there and, basically, becomes the best she can be and proves to more of the world that she deserves to stand here with the big boys, to stand here with the legends, the icons, the people like me…like Kore…like James Raven and like John Gambino.

Roxy, it is time pretty girl. It is time to show that you are not just a little cute face. It is time for you to show to the world that you can do. What better way, Ms. Nova, then to start this week. What better way, Roxy, then walking out the aisle with the X-Treme Icon of the X-Treme Wrestling Federation as the tag…team…champions, in our first time teaming up..

Now, basically, we would have a warm up match. You know, someone that we could just get that jist of each other. Someone…you know…easy? No…that’s not who we get. We don’t even get a regularly easy little man. No, the two men we get are Eric Anderson…and KoRe.

Now, if you would mind…let us back track here. Let us go back to what I said about me…back in the day…I was the one that was looking for that “someone” to pick up the whole thing. That “someone” that would carry me throughout the X-treme Wrestling Federation tag team division. That “somebody” that is just damn better then me back then. Someone who was looking to get another belt…that needed little to no help.

Eric Anderson…you are that man I am talking about. You are that somebody that mooches off of someone just so you can get that piece of the pie. You are just there for the ride, Mr. Anderson. You are, in what we Pittsburgh people like to call, a fucking moocher. Eric, if you were a rookie….if you were someone who just wanted to get ahead in life…someone who just wanted to get a belt to START OFF a career. I would sit here…and be, just, grateful that you have friends…that you are finding someone that, pretty much, likes you and wanted to train you.

But Eric Anderson, you have been here since I have been here. You have been in this business, you know what goes on, you know how to win, you know what to do….but here you are….mooching. Here you are, trying to get an easy win. Here you are, Eric, trying to take the easy road in life…trying to become tag team champion without pushing or pulling your own weight. Here you are, Eric, sitting on your ass…just letting the man who is your partner take all the bumps and you, Eric, take all the friggin’ credit.

How are you going to sit here…say that you are one of the top superstars….and then hide yourself behind someone else’s shadow? Eric, you have no soul. You have no heart. You have no drive. Finally, you have no…guts. Got me? You have nothing. You are nothing more then a cry baby little wuss. The X-Treme Wrestling Federation doesn’t like you. I don’t like you. Hell, I bet Jon Brown does not like you. HELL, YOUR PARTNER COULD CARE LESS ABOUT YOU, ERIC! So, Eric, it will be my honor to be the one that takes you out once and for all.

Trust me, though, no one would care if Eric Anderson existed in the X-Treme Wrestling Federation. No one would mind that you, Eric, have gone missing. No one will care what happens to you, Mr. Anderson, because nobody likes you. And that’s all I have to say about you, you son of a bitch!

Ok, I lied Eric…I have one more thing to say to you. One more thing that, quite honestly, is a good thing. I want to say…..thank you, Eric Anderson. Thank you so fucking much. Because even though your partner can kick you and a cloned version of you in a handicapped match…it makes me feel good to see you, Eric, pick this man as your partner. It makes me feel excellent that you picked the Universal champion as your partner.

Could you tell by the look on my face that I was smiling from ear to fucking ear? Could you tell that I was excited to see the person that you are mooching off of to get ahead, easy, in life? Eric, you picked KoRe….you picked the man for the reason of my coming back. You picked the Icon….the legend…that wouldn’t be in the position that he is in now if it was not for me getting…well…blown to smithereens. You picked the man that should not be the Universal champion. You picked a paper champion.

KoRe…you are a legend. I know that…I see that time and time again at the Hall of Legends XWF99.com. But I did what I had to do. You had what I want. You had the Universal title that should STILL, yes KoRe…I SAID STILL, have draped around my shoulder. KoRe, I wanted you in that ring. I wanted you so that I can prove that I still deserve that damn title.

KoRe, remember when I said that you were lucky that you weren’t there in the ring with me at Rage in the Cage …that you weren’t randomly chosen…randomly picked to be in that same location that I was in. KoRe…your luck…ran out when you got talked into being a tag team partner of some mooch who doesn’t want to do a damn thing. Your luck, KoRe, is gone…it’s over…it’s finished. The luck, KoRe, you better mark this day down…you better picture this moment…put this in your little brain of yours. KoRe, you are going to be taken out…AGAIN!

You know, I was thinking about it…and, well, you and Eric Anderson are perfect for each other. I mean, let’s just take the fact that you, KoRe, took advantage of my situation…of my possible life threatening injury…just so you can have your very first Universal championship….and, now, Eric Anderson is USING you to mooch his way into the tag title picture.

I am not going to let that happen, though, KoRe. I am not going to let you or Eric get away from Buffalo with the titles that me and my partner, Roxy Nova, worked our asses off to retain and win half of those titles. I am not going to let a bunch of moochers stand in the way of a dominant tag team that is starting to form…the tag team that is filled with talent, single and tag team. The tag team of Roxy Nova and your “X-Treme Icon”, which is different from KoRe’s little charade of calling himself the High Roller of X-Treme, will continue on from this week and will break this weekly trend that has been going on.

---===We Will Be Right Back===--- ---===Welcome BACK to the Big Tyme===--- ---===No Smoking, please.===--- I sit on my bed….still in my patient scrubs…feeling a little better…wondering what those dreams were trying to tell me, what they mean, what they were saying for me and my future. I looked down at the stuff that I have on and, minus the puke stains from when I woke up, everything is just like I had on when I was dreaming all of those dreams. I don’t have a clue what that really has to do with anything….or if it is even relevant to the dreams. I mean, I never heard a psychic or a dream watcher, whatever the hell they are called, talk about what the people were wearing in their dreams, unless it is set in a time in the past or a time in the future or whatever. But…I am still wondering…why me? Why am I here? I mean, I could have been crushed to death from that massive boat…I could have died…I could have been six feet into the ground…gone…ridden from world. Taken from this place.

Like, what were my chances of coming out of that damn wreckage alive? What chances was there of me not dieing…of me, actually, coming out of there…and waking up in this place? Alive? Kicking? Styling and….maybe…kind of….sort of…..profiling? Plus, how did I or am I looking right now? How’s Randy?! WHERE’S RANDY?! All of these thoughts go through my head…all of these images of the crashes…and, after that, the dreams followed. From the scene of me looking down at the hospital….to the big fog…hell, I think I keep seeing it out of the corner of my eye…like it has been following me ever since that dream…but I looked over and….nothing. Maybe there’s a hair in my eye…maybe my mind’s playing tricks on me, since it seems it has been doing it for a while now.

I sit there…in a quiet room…no movement….I look to the IV bag that is attached to my arm as I see it going down the tube in dripping into my blood stream. The only noise, from the room, is the person that is laying next to me. The man is obviously dieing as he is hacking up flem and, of course, dry heaving with, of course, a few times when he hacked so much that he, actually, did throw up all over the place. Also, his family came in a few times…cries….and, when he falls asleep, leaves and cries some more…hell, the guy even cries sometime….makes me want to pull the plug right then and there. That would shut him up for friggin’ good. But after that…he throws up.

I am too concerned, though, about other things in my life instead of my new roomie over there who is about to croak any second. I have to worry about me. I have to worry about my own health…my own well-being. I have to get out there…I have to walk around…get active…get the hell out of this damn place. I think if I don’t get out of here I am going to find myself going nuts…I think I might find myself flipping the fuck out and get transferred to a loony bin if I don’t get the hell out of here and discharged quickly…I don’t want to be here when this man goes “Beep…Beep…..BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP.” I don’t want to be here to see a man just pass away right next to me…without me knowing what the hell is going on. And, honestly, I would not even want to be in the same damn room when that happens. Hell, I don’t even want to be in the same hospital. But, like I said,, I don’t want to think about that…I don’t want to think about any of that. I am more concerned about getting better…getting more healthy…getting stronger…getting back on my feet and getting out of here and back to my normal life, I hope. I mean, I want to get up so that I can kick the ass of the jack ass that did this to me…I want the man that did this to me and I want his ass in jail or thrown in the electric chair. I don’t want to just see him die…I want that son of a bitch to be under my control…I want that asshole to be strapped down tightly and I have the syringe filled with air so I can take his ass out myself. I want to do the job that he was going to do on me. I want to end this fucker’s life. I want to do it, no one else but me.

Gah, I am getting a little over heated. I need to calm down. I need to take a chill pill. I stop…thinking….I hear the drip of the IV slowly dripping in my body…I look at the IV and can see when it hits that there is a small little splish splash before, No wonder people get insane in here if there’s not a television on. The sounds are just too…depressing…too….irritating….too……God awfully bad! I look at the TV, that is off…and is high up in the corner of the room. The television is off…so I am looking at a black reflection of myself laying in the bed. ..but, from stopping the insanity from taking over my brain I click the button that is for the television that is on the arm of the bed and the television starts at number one…the all snow channel. So I click the TV button again for another channel…there’s a news story on with my picture on it.

REPORTER: As we reported earlier, ZACH RIZZA escaped death as he is, now, recovering peacefully in a hospital bed. It was close, but he is alive and, it seems, that we have averted a tragedy. In related news, another man associated with the ZACH RIZZA crash was laid to rest today in a private ceremony. We have been told not to give the name out the name of the deceased by request of the family.

I sit there wondering what they are talking about…who died…maybe they executed that son of a bitch…maybe they fried him up and didn’t turn it off until he was turned into General Sao’s Chicken! God damn it, I hate it! I SIT THERE TRYING TO FIND SOMETHING TO PUT ON! Nothing is working, however, as all of them were…Oprah…Maury…Judge Brown…..SPORTSCENTER! There we go…there IS a God! There IS something worth watching on the television. I sit there…watching Green Bay and Tampa Bay and, quite honestly, I don’t care if they suck…I don’t care that there’s nothing good…I just don’t care.

You know…it could be because of the IV drip…or it could be because I was well rested…even though I thought it was going to friggin’ die. I mean, I thought I wasn’t going to be one of the lucky few to be sitting here. I thought that I was going to be one of the very few getting buried. I am surprised that I am not the one they are talking about. I am surprised that the news stories aren’t saying that I croaked, that I passed away, that I died. Even if I did think I was going to survive, I didn’t even think about getting hurt…I didn’t think that I was going to be able to look at me…because I would lose an eye or some stuff.

I am a lucky man, you know? I mean, I never thought that I was going to be here. That is all I can friggin’ say. I hear the man next to me coughing up a storm.

RIZZA: SIR, YOU OK!?

MAN: Yeah, I am alright…just got some flem in my body…gotta cough it……..BWW-BWWW-….false alarm. Yea, I am alright though. How you doing? I heard about you on the news, I think. You are that wrestler guy from around here, aren’t you?

RIZZA: Yeah, I thought I was gone too. I thought that I was going to find myself in the obituaries next time I wake up. I thought I was going to be the main story.

MAN: Oh, trust me…I believe you were all over the friggin’ place. I mean, the news…the newspapers…the talk shows….the sports shows…everything. You were the front page, first story, section A. Hell, you beat out the Steelers for a couple of weeks. I mean, you are one tough cookie and they were on you from the start of this thing.

I look over at my stuff…with the flowers…the cards…the balloons…the get wells and the get betters and everything else…then, I look over at the other patient…my “roomie” I guess…and there…in a dark corner of the room….it’s a vase…with one rose….and one balloon that says “GET WELL SOON.” That’s all he has…that’s all he has got. I look over to the man that is next to me…the one that I have been talking to….and notices his mouth opened and a slight snore from his mouth is heard. He’s been put to sleep….but with this sleep…he will, hopefully, wake up. This time, hopefully. The man will wake up tomorrow morning and get ready for another day. Maybe he is going to be the one that will be discharged, finally, from this room. Hell, maybe I am going to be the lucky son of a bitch that gets that pleasure of leaving this hell hole. Maybe I am going to be able to leave the hell out of this place for good and never come the hell back.

God, I hope I will. I mean, I am wearing my girlfriend’s freaking rainbow knee socks with the socket for the individual toes…boy am I happy about that one…

All of a sudden my phone rings…the phone that the hospital gives you,…the really loud phone…the phone that can wake up a person a mile away from the hospital. I wake up from a nice little day dream and I pick up the phone.

RIZZA: Hello?

MIA: Zach, I have something to tell you…I have been hiding it from you ever since you woke up.

I just sit there in my bed…now my hand…and arm…and leg…and torso…and everything just seems to be shaking as I start to think the worse. As I start to think that something happened or, as of course, I am dreaming of this one as well. I close my eyes…and open them again…I am still holding the other line of the phone of doom.

RIZZA: Ok…I am ready….go ahead.

I close my eyes. Praying my hardest for the best news.