(FADEIN: The First sitting in darkness in his living room. His face still painted like Prince Nuada with the blindfold over his eyes. He’s got on an Outcast Hero wife-beater and black shorts. “King Nothing” by Metallica plays in the background. In the background is a poster from the Spawn comic series of the character Nyx sitting in meditation in the middle of a circle showing the cycles of the moon. Around the circle it reads. “The fool rises by fortune’s hand until he becomes a king, But as soon as he claims his throne, he is doomed…He falls, cast down from a great height…Reborn into darkness to begin again as…)
FIRST: I feel like we’re an old married couple at this point, I know what you’re gonna complain about and you know what I’ll say about those complaints…And you pretty much know what you’ll say after I’ve said my piece…So we yell and b*tch for a while and then go out to that little diner down the block cause it’s Tuesday and that’s just what we do on Tuesdays…
The truth is in all this time I’ve spent arguing with you, hell, arguing on your side, I do remember that night we tagged up and kicked Anthology’s ass…Weird how that all happened, isn’t it? I’ve learned that you’re a miserable person Trip, just a bitter, spiteful man who’s only thought when he wakes up is that somebody on this earth is trying to get one over on him and you'll be damned if you let that happen…
I said you were the better man at Black Dawn, because you were, fair and square you beat me…YBut I guess you didn't hear that, cause I hear you now claiming that I was complaining about getting unlucky…That I was making excuses about what happened…I guess you need that chip on that shoulder, you NEED to feel slighted, offended…I told the truth that you won, I lost, and that I had no excuses for it…And you could not have that register in your mind, because dammit, Triple X has to suffer injustice, Triple X has to be the victim of a world out to get him.
You told me that Black Dawn wasn’t what I thought it was…Then you tell me that Black Dawn was a set up…An attempted hit on the King to cost him his glory…You tell me that Black Dawn wasn’t all about me…It was all about you…Funny how we’re all the protagonist in the story of our own minds…And because the result went your way, well you believe it all the more that this world revolves around you…A world where Dan Ryan lives only to take you down…
Hearing you say that, complaining about a conspiracy to take you down and ruin you…Well it makes me fear I’m in for another batch of eye rakes and gouges…Since that was all I dealt with in my last match…Everyone’s always the victim of a scheme or a plot, some great scandal…You, you’re on top of the world…You have everything anyone could want…And yet you sit there, seething, thinking that someone or something is plotting to rip it all away from you…That unseen forces seek to rob you of your glory…
You tell me you grabbed that mic not to celebrate your greatness, but to condemn Dan Ryan for his attempts to cost you your title…It sounds so pitiful…That you declared yourself the greatest of all time, not out of joy, not out of a celebration of achievement…But out of rage, that in your moment of victory all you could think to do was grab a mic and scream “F*CK YOU!” to the world…Because that’s all you have in your soul, just a burning resentment of everyone.
When did it sink in Trip, that all the titles, all the money, all the fame, all the women were not going to make you happy? All any of it does it let you sneer at the world, let you tell everyone you’re better than them…Because that’s what matters, making sure everyone in this world knows that they need to kiss your ass, that Triple X is so damn great everyone needs to bow down to him…
Thing is, even if we all bowed down to the King, it wouldn’t make you happy, somebody wouldn’t have bowed deep enough…They wouldn’t have gotten on their knees fast enough…You would find fault, you would find a reason to be upset, that’s all you know, it’s all you have…It’s what drove you to become champion…That you needed to get everyone’s attention, and then let them know they are inferior to you…
It’s funny that I sit here, dressed in black, embracing the stereotype of a goth, the symbol of brooding angst in our culture…And yet I have a smile on my face, my life is a lucky one and I am grateful for it…That I sit here with the chance, just a chance at becoming EPW World Champion…That I get you inside a steel cage, that I get to fight the greatness of Sean Stevens…That’s fun, that’s stuff people only dream about doing, and that’s my life…Why wouldn’t I smile…
I get to stand in the middle of an arena with over 10,000 people cheering for me…And I get to punch you in the face…Who wouldn’t be happy with that set up…(Smiles)…You beat me, I get blinded, I suffer, but I don’t break…No, who I am won’t be changed by what you do to me…Just cause you lose doesn’t mean you quit…Just cause you get hurt doesn’t mean you stop fighting…As long as you’re still on this earth more punishment is going to come your way…So you better stand up like a man and dish out some of your own…Never let this place get to you, cause in the end, it’s all temporary anyhow…
Now I suppose you think this is where I’d ask you to turn over a new leaf, to embrace this world and the people in it…To hell with that, you want to be a miserable bastard, you go live your life the way you want. You try to find enjoyment in bitterness and being a malcontent…Maybe later on when your body can’t do what you need it to do so you can keep dominating people, you’ll mellow out, warm up to the nostalgia pops you start getting…You’ll think to yourself that being a jerk maybe isn’t the best way to spend your time here on earth…
Or maybe it’ll just drive you all the more crazy when the game passes you by, maybe you’ll keep screaming that you’re still the king, still the greatest of all time, still begging people to pay attention to you, not because you want their affection, but because you want to throw it in their face that you were good, that you mattered…Maybe you’ll never get over the demons that drive you to act like this, to do these things…
See you always bring up what I can’t do in this match…I can’t become a greater King than you, I can’t become a bigger legend than you, I can’t knock you out of the conversations on internet forums and barber shops about who’s the greatest of all time…This is all you have in this world, this is your pathetic lot in life, to reassure yourself that you’ll still matter even when you do lose, that you’ll still be able to throw your greatness in people’s faces even when the belt is gone and others battle in that ring for the honor of wearing it…
You would like me to leave wouldn’t you…Go to into Exile…A fitting place for an Outcast I guess…But no, I want to stay in the Empire and to dethrone it’s King…To have him fall from grace and spend his time lashing out at the world he hates…Not as a feared champion, not as a great legend…But as the scared, paranoid, broken little man that he truly is…
I used to think you wanted a glorious battle to end your reign…I used to think you wanted to go out guns blazing, fighting till you couldn’t fight anymore, seeking glory in battle and honor even in defeat…But now I know the truth…That’ll you’ll cling to that title, cling to your throne, cling to anything you can hang on to just to stay relevant, to stay meaningful in the world…To be allowed for one more day to look down your nose at everyone else and tell them how great you are…Aggression 50 should have sunk that lesson into my head, but I guess I really needed to hear you talk one more time to truly get the message.
So I enter that cage knowing I’m going to have to pry that title from your cold, lifeless body, that I’m going to have to deal with just about every underhanded chickensh*t stunt you can pull…Cause you will fight like hell, not out of pride, but out of fear…Fear of not having a belt to shove in people’s faces, fear of no longer being King…Fear of a world that no longer needs to listen to your hate filled bile and anger…
Fear of just being another subject…In MY Empire…
(FADEOUT)