Humans evolve, Rick. Even I, a man of faith, am aware of this. We evolve because it is the only means we have to survive, it is the one defining aspect of our mentality that keeps civilization itself arguably sane. As time passes, we grow older... we learn from our past and we make changes to our present accordingly, and those changes affect the outcome of our future. It is progression, and it is something all of us, as human beings, must learn to cope with.

Yet, at some point in the past year... you forgot how to cope with progression, didn't you, Rick Majors? You were put through torture-- through undeniable hell-- by Dillon Durst... and then you were forced to handle your wife being put into a coma. Like it or not, Rick, I know where you're coming from... I see every point you're making as clear as day.

I see it, and I understand it, because at one point in my life I was the same as you are today.

In my late teenaged years there was a beautiful woman, her name was Crystal Parker. She and I had been together for what had felt like a lifetime, and we'd been friends since childhood with each other. Back then, we were inseperable... the token "perfect couple" of our High School days.

That changed one day, Rick... it changed because of the exact same reason you yourself see change today. A drunk driver hit our car going roughly seventy miles-per-hour or so... I had no way to get us out of the way in time. We were helpless, I was helpless... and because of that helplessness I couldn't save her. For two weeks I'd spent my own time in a coma, unaware of anything that had happened before... but after I'd woken up and recovered, I spent every waking moment by her side.

I didn't have an outlet, Rick... I'd lost sight of progression and instead forced time to all but stand still for me, thinking that maybe if I could trap her and I inside our own little bubble... maybe me being there could bring her back. I prayed daily, and I never lost hope... for as often as I was allowed, I was by her side, holding her hand, talking to her as if she'd ever talk back to me.

I wanted so badly for that dream of a family with her to become a reality... but it only took a day of me leaving to get a mutual friend who wished to come visit and before I knew it, she was taken away from me. Crystal passed away while I was gone from her, Rick... and for years I blamed myself for her death. I couldn't save her, I couldn't even be there when she passed on... I felt like the scum of the earth.

You and I, Rick... we're a similar animal, aren't we? You chose to focus your outlets on bringing others pain to cope with your own potential loss... and I chose to focus my outlets on bringing myself pain to cope with my own, actual, loss. It's always pain, though... pain for pain is rarely a healthy alternative but damn it, at the time of it all... it's the only one that makes sense, isn't it?

To punish oneself for one's own perceived failures... to punish others for the pain you've endured... people will tell you that these are the wrong things to do in order to cope with loss, but when it feels so damn good to do it, you can't help but question why they'd say anything against it. I know the feeling, Rick. I know, because I've felt the same.

I know what loss is, Rick... and if you think for a split-fucking-second that you're even remotely capable of introducing loss to me, or preparing me for some kind-of life-altering loss that's impending upon my future, then you are out of your damned mind. You talk about how unimportant the NLCW is, how unimportant our match is... but then, when you listen to yourself once it's all said and done, you make it apparent just how important this actually is to you after-all.

The NLCW is your tie to sanity, Rick, because without it... you have nothing else to distract you from your wife's condition, and you'll be forced to either find a new outlet to consider, or to finally return to the one thing you dread the most... your wife's side, in a hospital room, dealing with that kind-of daily pain that can drive a man to an early grave of his own.

I didn't get to have a fucking outlet when Crystal was in a coma, Rick, and when she died? I had to learn to fight through every last bit of doubt, pain, anger, self-resentment, and darkness that had rose up inside of me just to get to a point where I was comfortable re-establishing my dream of getting into the wrestling industry. And, by that point... I wasn't even doing it for the dream any longer.

I was doing it to distract myself from the pain. I was doing it for the same reasons you do it today. Do you understand what I'm saying, Rick? You... you have a chance I never had, because you still have a wife who has every chance to make it out of the coma she's in, and instead of being there for her... you've left her side to pursue a fading outlet.

Crystal died when I wasn't around her, and that haunted me for most of my young life, Rick. You're putting yourself into a situation I was unknowingly in, and you're putting yourself into it willingly. I don't doubt for a second that you love your wife, Rick... you've made that all too apparent; however, you've also made apparent that your increasing loss of sanity has removed all reason from your brain, and decreased the importance of the love you have for her in favor of the desire to transfer this pain inside of you on to others.

You have failed, Rick Majors, to do the one thing ingrained inside of every human mind to activate when times of great struggle or pain are upon us. You have failed to evolve, Rick... you have failed to grow up.

And the funniest thing is, despite preaching to everyone not to buy the hype the NLCW puts out there... you've bought into it hook, line and sinker in the end. You truly believe that the end of the NLCW is a scarring event of my life, that it will break me, and that all those things in the little guide I put together for you are, in fact, the unfabricated truths.

My gift to you was giving you exactly what I knew you'd want to hear... the exact same thing you gave to me all those years ago when you told me to "brace for impact". You knew I needed something to get me going, something to show me the importance of the coming days... and you gave me exactly that, not entirely believing yourself that I'd be capable of the victory I'd pulled off in the end.

So, in turn... I gave you exactly what you wanted to hear: the reassurance that you were right. The reassurance that you haven't gone insane from your wife's condition, that you're the only truly informed voice the NLCW has left... and that you've known all the answers to the questions we've held for so long. But there's only so long I can keep the illusion going, Rick... eventually, you have to know the truth.

You need help, Rick... the truth is more far from what you've believed it is than you could even begin to imagine. My mentality, my so-called hero complex, these troubles of mine, my love for the NLCW... Rick, these things aren't going to hold me back, they're the very things, in fact, that are pushing me forward. I'm not as emotionally driven going into this thing as you may think, actually... I've got a clear-cut motive in mind for winning this thing.

Right now, though... I think it's time I break the illusion, Rick Majors. I've told you everything you wanted to hear... but now it's time to say goodbye, and introduce a sense of truth into your brain while I still have your attention.

Tear up that guide of yours, Rick... because for all the reasons you may have to be able to beat me, I've got a thousand times more reasons as to why you never will.

CONTINUE