act five: prepare to be educated
Champion isn't just the Golden Boy of the NLCW, you know... he's always gone out of his way to make sure that he lived like a Golden Boy outside of it. The Chatteu de Champion was always his shining trophy showcasing all he'd done in his life, the one true manor fit for a king such as himself. Champion spent a fortune on that place, and he'd rennovated it constantly to suit his mood for the time.
Eventually, he settled it down into a lavish family home, hoping to shower Cesar and Georgina in the high life, the easy life... the life he'd worked so hard to ensure for them. Were it anyone else, that might be enough to keep a man satisfied with his retirement, if you could even call it such a thing. The fact of the matter was multitudes of companies were clamoring for Champion to make his return... all it would have taken was a simple nod of the head to get back in the game.
But Champion never really was one for subtle entrances... he always had to have the fireworks, the F-15 flyovers, the slow-rising elevators for dramatic effect... Champion wanted the best for himself, which is understandable-- the world wanted the best from him, after all. The problem was that he carried that kind-of mentality over into all other aspects of his life, and it... it began to consume him.
It wasn't enough to have a happy family and the chance for a return, because of all the possible returns he saw, he saw no glory left in it for him. He saw it as charity for an organization he barely knew, never looking beyond the suits and out at the fans just begging to catch a glimpse of the legend one more time.
Of course, he was like this even long before the NLCW. Anyone with enough knowledge of Champion will know that this is just how Champion operates, it's the kind-of guy he is. Champion goes balls out on any occassion simply because he can, and he knows he looks good doing it. Yet when Champion... when he couldn't get his dream? When he couldn't accomplish his ideal return?
He reverted back to a Champion of darker days, of a time in the HWF when he was still talking about chess matches and smearing shit on the doors of wrestler's locker-rooms with a man called Shawn Collins. He reverted back to lacky Champion, stripping himself of his crown he'd always worn and instead watching on with glazed over eyes as he let his future fade away.
But, to his credit... Champion did something amazing before it was entirely gone. He shook off the dust and fought to take his future back, and that? That... no-one can fault him for that. He did a lot of stupid things along the way, made a lot of mistakes, but beyond all of that, he was able to repent in his own eyes for all the things he'd done in his past. The only thing left to do by then was to save the place that had made him who he was from a slow and painful death.
The only problem? Champion, he... he redeemed himself in his own eyes, but...
... he ignored the pleading eyes of others.
Always focused on himself, even when he was dying before the eyes of loved ones, Champion simply chose to fight instead of heal. He chose to enter a brawl and choke up blood later, instead of getting another test that might show him cureable, that might show him able to live in the end. He...
He has always had everything thrust upon him on a silver platter. His life was always spent gaining, and gaining, and gaining. Champion never truly suffered any losses, he made a career off of winning streaks and title reigns, and only now has he ever been faced with the true loss of a loved one... with the loss of himself. And when faced with the prospect of death, Champion keeps pushing forward, looking out for those victories he knows he can obtain.
Over time, he's known little of defeat and loss, but a lot about victory. If nothing else, when such things are handed to him instead of a win, he... he really doesn't know how to handle it. He flounders. He chokes. He falls apart.
Because at the end of it all... the most important thing to Champion, one of the only things he truly strives to hold true to, is to leave as long a list of success in this world as he possibly can.