act five: prepare to be educated
There's a certain mystique in this world of wrestling that surrounds certain individuals, a certain air of immortality that follows them no matter where they go, no matter what kind-of life they lead and no matter what federation they may frequent in their travels through the business.
That feeling that no matter how aged they become, no matter how many years go by... the hero that they were, the message they represented, lives on through them as youthful as the day it first arrived on the scene.
The hero's moves may grow tired and slow, but the fiery spirit that burns within them burns so white-hot with passion... it eclipses the short-comings of time and brings about such nostalgia, such power in their presence... it makes up for the failings of a dying body through the power of spirit alone.
Few individuals in our business can say that they have such passion. Few men or women can draw in the crowds that some do, few can say that even when their bodies begin to crumble, they themselves will fight through and give such a war to those who might stand against them, that they may never know the difference between how they were in their prime and how they are coming out of it.
So blurred is the line of their fall from glory... that if nothing more, it was simply another step forward.
I've always strived to be that kind-of hero. The kind who remains even when the world around him crumbles. Even today, I continue to strive for such an honor, and without being arrogant do believe that I have perfected the ability to come back from all forms of punishment and rise to fight again. Even when battles are lost, even when wars are over and I have been left broken... I pick myself up to go back to the fight once again.
I have pushed myself to never fall forever. A loss is nothing more than a victory kept from reach that little while longer, no matter who that loss may be against... and even in my own storied career, I have suffered many losses, some still waiting to be repaid.
Yet there is one man, one story-teller like myself... who has been there to push me where no other has before him. He is my friend. He is my rival. He is my strengths in this business and my weaknesses combined, the culmination of everything I once both despised and wished that I could be. He is the man who I look upon now... and feel nothing but concern for. He is the hero I've already spoken of now, the one who fights beyond the punishment he has been put through, the one who stands when his world around him crumbles.
He is Christopher Champion, and with every ounce of blood drawn from his being... he continues to fight, just as I myself would were I in his own shoes. Just as I wish he wouldn't, as I watch him from my own.
He is the sun just as I am the moon, and he will forever remain the most difficult test I have taken-- the most difficult test I must continue to take-- in all of my life. The man who has taught me so much, who I should hope I myself have taught a great deal to... and I'm now forced to watch him fade. To watch his story slowly draw to a close.
To watch as mine continues on, as it always has, beyond the borders Christopher Champion could never cross, and will never cross... because he never learned what it meant to try and cross them.
It is said that I've always lived in the shadow of Christopher Champion, that I could never break free from such bondage... but what bondage is a shadow that comes and goes throughout time, when my own has only once for a short time faded, before it came back stronger than it ever had been before?
Even when the battles are lost... even when wars are over and I have been left broken... I pick myself up to go back to the fight once again.
Yet when it's Christopher Champion's turn... he runs for cover, until a more opportune time arises yet again.
But the time for running is over, Chris.
It's time that I educate you.