Seventy-two. That's your number, Rick. Seventy-two matches in my NLCW career come this Avulsion... it feels like such a strange number to end it all on, but at the same time, when has my career ever really been typical? It's... ironic, really, that I'd wound up having such an amazing career, when all things considered I'm one of the few individuals in the sport who got big off of not having a selling gimmick at all.

I was just... well, I guess Chris said it best one time. I've always just been the nice guy, the babyface of wrestling that said his prayers, ate his vitamins and drank his milk all night long. The boyscout. I mean, there was a point in my career where all this optimism drove me insane when I realized I didn't know how to handle the disappointment of a failed dream... but when that time was said and done with, I regained my composure and put myself back on the right path.

I'm a man of faith, a guy who hopes for the best and sees the good in every person. Even fighting you at Avulsion, Rick, even when I think about what you did to Champion... I can't help but remember the kind-of person you were all those years ago when you gave me that advice. You were a great guy, Rick... one of the greatest to step foot into the ring and one of the people I'd always wanted to face one day.

And here we are now, about to take each other head-on... and I can't help but realize how similar this all is leading up to my first match with Champion after his recent return. I'm facing the broken form of a once great competitor, all while I'm still in the prime of my life, and I just... Rick, I know you're not going to disappoint my thirst for a challenge, but I just have zero faith in your ability to defeat me.

I simply want this more than you ever possibly could, Rick... and even when I say things like how losing won't matter to me in the end, I feel the need to let you know that winning means the world. Winning means giving back one last good thing for NLCW fans to look back on. Winning means hopefully beating some form of sense into that skull of yours and getting you back onto the right track, if not for your sake then for the sake of your wife. Winning... winning means having the perfect ending for a story to tell to my children one day, Rick.

You want something to hold onto, to help you make it through the nights alone at your wife's hospital bedside... and I can completely understand that, man. When this is all said and done, when the dust has settled between us and we can look back on Avulsion as nothing more than a memory... I want to visit you there. I want to be there for you, Rick, because people being there for me was the only thing that kept me from simply killing myself, rather than being the self-abusive kid I'd turned into for such a long time.

And I know you don't need people right now, Rick... least of all people you barely know, but... if you've decided to lose all hope for your situation, then I know where I belong in the equation beyond this match. Like it or not, Rick... you were a close friend of Champion's, and I know he saw something great in you to keep you around him, especially considering the problems Chris himself has had throughout his own life.

So, for your sake, Rick Majors... I am going to see to it that someone is there for you in your greatest time of need, and I'm going to make sure that you've got someone right beside you, hoping for the best to happen in the end while you cope with the emptiness the NLCW is about to leave you after Monday night.

However, Rick... until that night ends, and until the bell rings me victorious... you are my respected opponent and nothing more. When the both of us go out there to face each other in the ring, I know that Kelly isn't going to be on your mind. She can't be, you... you wouldn't be able to handle that kind-of thinking when you're facing the guy who's ready to make you his last victory in the history of a company you helped build from the ground up. No... I know you well enough now, Rick, I know that you're only going to focus on beating me.

And I hope that your focus transfers the strength you'll need to get there to you when we're out there fighting each other, Rick... because the moment you slip, you know I'm going to capitalize. You can throw absolutely every last thing you have in your arsenal at me, but understand that until my entire body collapses and I physically cannot move any longer... you're not going to keep me from coming after you.

I will beat you, Rick Majors... somehow, someway, I will do everything it takes to make sure that I leave the NLCW as its final champion. I will not see the place I love so dearly shut its doors with a champion who hates it so blindly and bitterly... it deserves better than that, and I'm going to end it with a memory people can look back on with a smile.

And when my work there is done, Rick... I'm going to start my work with you. I don't know exactly what it will take to get things done, Rick... I don't know how much money it will cost and how much arguing it's going to take to let you let me help you, but... I'm going to do it, Rick.

I couldn't save Chris... God, I wish I could have, more than anything I just wish I could have stopped Chris from facing what he's looking at right now, but... I wasn't able to, and dwelling on that will only bring me and my family down from the sadness of it all. The point may be that I couldn't save Chris, Rick... but I see a chance here to at least help you with the life-changing problems you're facing today, and I'll be damned to let another opportunity to help someone close to me slip through the cracks again.

You're my friend, Rick... we may barely know each other, and we may have barely interacted throughout these years, but you're still someone I remember well, and you're still a person I want to have near me in the years down the road, and friends... well, in my experience? They help each other, no matter how loosely defined the relationship may be.

Make no mistake, man, I'm not going to give you the chance to beat me out there... but I'm going to extend the olive branch when it's all said and done. I'm going to end things right, Rick... whether you want me to or not, I am going to do everything in my power to finally end things right.

The hero can find his happy ending, and in the case of the NLCW... the fans can have their closure, and I can have my own.

Goodbye, everyone... and thank you for everything.

THE END