You're an idiot.

[User Poets]

(FADEIN on a walled - in vacant lot. Concrete paradise. There's graffiti all over the walls from... whenever. In the background, indecipherable music can be heard.

In the foreground?

The King of Extreme, with his back to the camera.)

"For fifteen years, I dealt with a harsh reality of professional wrestling: the fact that every opponent I'll ever have, every talking head who thinks he has an opinion, every armchair analyst, every shrike and disposable hero... all of them operate under two sets of rules."

"One, where professional wrestling in general resides."

"The other, where Eli Flair is held to a higher standard for reasons that have never been explained and would never make sense anyway."

"Take Joey Melton's accusation that I was part of the Establishment."

He laughed.

"Well... yeah. You work for the major leagues, you're part of the major leagues. It doesn't take much intelligence to figure that out, Joey."

"Obviously, since you did."

"But there's a difference between signing your name to a contract that dictates how you can live your life... and signing that same contract that says 'Do your thing and we'll pay you.'"

"Become the Media, Joey. Overcome the Mainstream."

"That's why I never felt the slightest bit of hypocrisy taking a lot of money from the major leagues to do my thing: because Ivy and I never conformed to the mainstream. Quite the contrary, the mainstream conformed to us."

(The camera moved around Eli, but the poor lighting kept his face shrouded in shadows.)

"What Joey doesn't understand, and what Peter Windham doesn't understand--"

(Stop.)

"Wait."

"Who the f'k is Peter Windham?"

"Anyways, what they never understood is that the insults and the mudslinging that always accompanied my arrival anywhere... It meant less than a sh*t to me when I was an active wrestler, why would I give it a second thought now?"

"No, I was never the biggest star in any one company. No, my World Title reigns were never long. They never needed to be."

"I prefer three months of memorable matches to three years of coasting on reputation, and... Quite frankly, I never needed the World Title to get over."

"There's a reason why I was more highly respected as FWO Hardcore Champion than Erik 'Bald - Headed P**sy B*tch' Kelly was as FWO World Champion, and it's a distinction I both agree with and appreciate."

"I know that - as of now, at least - I'm one of dozens of old men who are trying to reach that one last moment of glory in the Ultratitle. Joey Melton called it his attempt at writing the last chapter in his career before someone else writes it for him."

"There's one major difference between me and the rest of them."

"My story is already written, and winning or losing here won't change it."

"You want to punctuate your career with one last favor? Go for it. I point to fifteen years of memorable matches as my trophies of a career well - spent."

"Anyone who says I couldn't scrap? I point them to the Hell's Kitchen match against Nova."

"Anyone who says I couldn't wrestle? I point them to my last and greatest match against Triple X, or any of my matches against Deacon."

"To say nothing about the wars that I fought with Troy. But there he is, too - trying for that storybook ending."

"Shame on you, Troy - if you really believed all the hype you give yourself you'd already be the greatest wrestler in the world. Isn't that what you said when you won the Gold Rush?"

"We were both right that day, Troy -you said you'd win Gold Rush and I said you wouldn't walk out of Anniversary with the UNIFIED Title."

"It looks good around Dan Ryan's waist, I have to say."

"But if I win the Ultratitle, then it's just unnecessary confirmation that I AM as good as I always was, and every detractor that has failed to dissuade my course for nearly twenty years will - finally - have no rebuttal."

"And if I don't win?"

"I come home to my thriving business, my smokin' hot and ridiculously intelligent rock star wife, artistically inclined daughter and the life that I would not change a thing about."

"That's pretty much as close as you can get to a win - win - win scenario. So, let's get this thing going. I don't care if my first round opponent is Joey Melton or Troy Windham or Cameron Cruise or some jackoff wearing a plumber's belt."

"I'm going to win, and there won't be any question about it."

"But I might rachet back to eighty percent for Joey Melton. I wouldn't want Old Man River to break a hip."

"Yeah, I know, it's a cheap joke, and I'm better than that."

"..."

"No... no I'm not."

(FADE TO BLACK)