Determination... the driving force that can push a man to do some of the most amazing things imaginable. Determination is what drove me forward and allowed me to defeat Sean Galen in our first matchup in my career. Determination is what picked me up after I lost my first shot at the world title, and led the way onward to fight again. Determination is such a powerful thing... and yet sometimes it's just not powerful enough. Determination won't always help you win that big match... hell, I know that just because I'm determined to retain my world title, doesn't neccesarily mean I will. However, does that stop me from fighting? No.

What exactly is determination? It's not what causes you to win a match... it's what helps you. If you're not determined... chances are you won't go very far. You'll float about aimlessly in this business with nowhere to go, something that I never could find myself doing. I never stopped pushing forward, fighting the current pushing against me and never resting. In the end I knew it would be worth it and it was. I've now climbed the proverbial stairwell so high that I now that atop our great company, the proud champion on high.

To say I wasn't determined to go farther would be a lie, because while satisfied with everything I have done... I still yearn to accomplish the highest acolade in my dreams. There's so much left to fight for... and I'm willing to fight as hard and as long as I must in my attempts to reach my dreams. So far... determination has gotten me quite far. I didn't stop going when after all my efforts I still fell short against Dillon Durst... I didn't find myself being sucked into the proverbial undertow and pulled away from the one thing I so strongly pushed for.

For every stone placed in my path... I've kicked them all astray. For every stone kicked astray... yet another was laid before me. What will I do when I finally stand before this new and stronger Violent A? Men like Dillon Durst and Sean Galen are lightweights compaired to him, and yet there I'll stand, face to face with the beast that so hungrily wants to end my career and crush my very dreams before the world.

Will I stand back and allow him to do such a thing to me? Will I choke upon the sight of the monster, and simply give up then and there? I've already felt the pain of what he can do... and I know that I can give him a run for his money, but in the end... will it be enough? The next step to reaching my highest dream is just a few feet away... and I've got a dragon waiting to shove both me and that step into a black abyss the instant I come before him. It would seem I'm stuck between the proverbial rock and the hard place, wouldn't it?

Yet I can't just give up hope now... that wouldn't be right.

Everyone in their lifetime has had a hope or a dream, they've experienced a nightmare and felt the harshness of reality tear at their very skin. It's something that none of us can escape, it's always there... waiting to pounce on us. We can choose to strive for those hopes and dreams... or we can succumb to the nightmares and the painful reality that present themselves to us each day.

So we all should choose the better path, and make the best of it and attempt to keep the nightmares as inconsistant as possible. We'll never be able to ward off the darker parts of reality, for every time we wake up from our dreams we re-enter a world filled with good and evil. A world where the truth and a lie are easily mixed up and switched around, and an innocent man can be killed as the guilty stands tall, on top of his own world. What of the innocent man? He hopes that before he perishes, the guilty is found and he is set free.

Hope. It's the one thing that keeps some people going when everything they've had has been taken away from them. A blind man can hope that one day he'll be able to escort his daughter down the aisle, and watch in happiness as the little girl he raised for all those years finally marries the man of her dreams. And there he stands, able to see once again, his blindness no longer burdining him. And you know what? He has a right to hope for that, a right to dream.

I have a right to hope to win. I have a right to dream of overcoming all the obstacles standing in my way, and I know that I can do it.

Determination and hope should forever go hand in hand with each other, because if you lose determination, what good is there to hope? And without hope... where's the fuel to fire that determined glare in your eye?

You can always hope for something... but to earn it you must fight for it, and to win the good fight you have to be determined to.

Hope is the very definition of the small child standing side by side with the muscle-bound action hero, and both are aiming for the same goal and working together at earning it. Hope can be weak, hope can be strong, hope can be whatever you wish it to be. A child can hope to become president, and hey, maybe they will be. A man can hope to find a good girl that treats him right, and maybe he will in his own sense of the word.

I might not actually be able to topple Goliath, or make it to the top of Fight Club. I might not ever save Capital City or have my name known all across the western skies and, as much as I hate to admit it... I might not be a samurai able to overcome all odds stacked against him.

However... I can hope to be, and I can fight as hard as my body allows to make it there

What I'm trying to get at with all of this talk of hope and determination, Alex... is that I have both, and always have. When Frank and Ethan crushed my skull between two chairs, when you drove me headfirst onto the both of them stacked together... I still had hope, I was still determined to fight on. Ethan Andrews saw it when I stood, blood covering my face, and I know you've seen it all along... but never grasped the depth of it all.

You'll see soon enough, Alex, that no one gets fully inside of my head. That no one finds out every last little secret about me. Do you know everything I believe in, Alex? Do you know everything I stand for? Here's a few things for the troubled, empty mind. Here's something to think on, something that sets me apart from and yet makes me the same as so many others living their dreams and watching me live mine.

I believe in God. I believe in salvation. I believe that everyone has to be forgiven sometime. I believe that everyone has the potential to be someone in this world. I believe that even the smallest forces can overthrow an entire empire. I believe in myself. I believe in Suki. I believe that the one true sign that you're getting somewhere is pain itself. I believe that there are some things in life that are more than worth fighting for. I believe in living every day as if it were your last. I believe, Alex. I fucking believe.

But I don't believe in you, much less you as a champion.

I don't fucking believe in these nightmares, nor do I believe that you're some sort of a demon or devil coming to steal away my belt. I wouldn't call you my nemesis, but I would call you one of the greatest opponents that I have or ever will take on in the ring. I know you'll push me harder then anyone in the NLCW has ever done before... but I still don't believe in you.

And despite my disbelief... I still thank you. You've made me see the light, Alex. You've brought upon my revelation. Ultimately, you believe that you too shall bring upon my destruction. And yet ultimately... you will fail, Alex.

These are all nothing but mere words though... right? Nothing but sweet nothings in the grand scheme of things. Everything has an ending, Alex. Granted, as I've said many times before, all ends lead to a beginning.

You claim you will end me, Alex, but what if you do? Then what? Will you move on from there to the next victim? Will you continue to destroy... or will you fall back into the shadows? You know that I'll always come back... one way or another, you know I'm too proud to stay down and out.

Right now the ball is in your court, Alex. There's nothing I can do but brace for impact. All the odds... all of them are stacked against me. Never before have I ever been this big of an underdog. Not even Sean Galen held this much power over me. The fans... they want me to win just like they did then, but now their hope is stronger. Their belief is one of the many things that will keep me going.

I wish the things that have happened hadn't happened, I wish that we would have an even court, but you've got the field Alex. The peices are all falling into place for you, and you're slowly pushing me towards the edge. Everything is going just fine for you Alex, the lights are going dim... darkness is slowly consuming everything as that damnable black rain falls overhead. You're bringing me down to your level, to your domain... and if I make it there, there will be no hope left.

A single, solitary light shines out in the distance however... it calls to me, beckons me to reach for it. To fight for it. To believe in it.

I believe in freedom, too, Alex.